The School Shooter Mod

[end_boss]

I think Jim should really change his video format to a written column.

I half agree and disagree with his points, but he really did bring in an angle to this conversation. Previous Extra Considerations have mostly had people agreeing with each other and backing up ideas. This time I really felt there was a debate, and this is the most well-spoken I have ever seen of Jim.

 

[Carnagath]

I can't help but smirk when I see how far behind gaming is on the "acceptable" scale compared to movies, when a silly shooter mod is treated as the bleeding edge of wickedness, while the works of directors like Pascal Laugier and Alexandre Bustillo are considered high art. All those products of the human intellect have something in common: they are not real. Captain Obvious, I know, but for some reason this does not seem to penetrate some people's skulls.

For the 100th time, I will quote Tarantino's words, with which I agree, and extend them to the videogame medium: "Violence [in movies] is purely aesthetic, there is no morality attached to it." Of course the shooter mod should exist, of course it should be the responsibility of parents to keep their kids away from it (and many far worse things than that in life), and of course some people will find it entertaining and you have no right to judge them. As for me, I don't find it entertaining, interesting, seductive or significant in any way. This is not a provable point however, as is always the case with aesthetics.

 

[gibboss28]

Shame that the point of view of "why the hell are we talking about this?" wasn't given a look in.

I don't get why this one mod out of the many mods and flash games that exist on the internet and do the same thing, was singled out.

If I'm honest I wished that the majority response to this entire thing was "yeah, so?"

I'd write more but A) I'm tired and B) I've learnt that if I'm going to write it on this site I need to show restraint and with this kettle of fish and the kettles that follow on from it, I wouldn't be able to, so meh.

 

[Dastardly]

Extra Consideration: The School Shooter Mod

Our panel put the School Shooter controversy into context.

Read Full Article

The problem with this particular issue is the undue polarization it has inspired.

On one hand, there are those that single it out as a particularly reprehensible product... mostly because it's an issue many people have more recent experience with. We don't stop to question GTA, because so few of us have personal experience with losing someone in a carjacking--and, on the other extreme, so many of them seem to happen that we tend to overload, being incapable of caring about all of them, we care about none.

And on the other hand, as a purely reactionary measure, you get those people that want to fly the flag of free speech on this particular pole. Why? God knows there are far better places to wage that war. Would you technically be right to claim it's a "free speech" issue? Sure. But in doing so, you're handicapping yourself in future arguments.

See, most of these arguments end up like two people playing one-on-one basketball... each not realizing that both players brought their own ball. They play in spite of each other, parallel games in which they both declare themselves the winner and no one really accomplishes anything.

These arguments must be more like chess. And I don't just mean in the "you have to put more thought into it" way. In chess, you must constantly be aware that your opponent is an equal. He has all the same materials and faculties at his disposal as you do. He has the same goal. When you act, you can't just say, "I know my winning strategy, so I'll move here and here." Whether you feel your opponent is 'doing it right' or not, you must consider how he will react to your next move if you want any chance of victory.

And above all, the greatest lesson to learn from chess (as it applies to polarized arguments like this): you will never, ever capture the King. That's not your job. Your job is simply to put the king in a position in which he can be captured. But you don't get to do it. So it is with arguments: stop trying to win. Your opponent is basically never going to say, "Ah! I'm convinced, and I was so wrong!" Instead, they'll weigh the information in private, and then just "fix it going forward," pretending they've always believed this new stance.

Debates like this one go wrong because each side just goes back and forth trying to find the "deathblow" that will force the opponent to submit. But all it does is galvanize the opponent's commitment to the position, right or wrong. By allowing yourself to be consumed with how "right" you are on one particular technicality, you can actually just make any future progress far less likely.

In short? Technically, this is a free speech issue. Technically, you'd be correct to fight censorship. But practically? Don't hitch that horse to this wagon. It's going the wrong way.

 

[walsfeo]

Bam! suprise jim! And i though i could contain him by just refusing to watch his show.

I also hoped to avoid him merely by not clicking on his segments.

It's obvious the designer subscribes to the "any press is good press" theory of marketing and has designed to that instead of good game theory, or creating some kind of internal artistic merit.

Bob certainly got the right final words for this whole game controversy.

As the saying goes, "Shit has its own integrity."

 

[crazypsyko666]

Proof that Jim could really be a good writer for The Escapist, just stop him from making videos. Give him a column like Extra Punctuation or something like that. THAT would be worth reading. The videos? Blehhh.

 

[mjc0961]

Uhm, are we missing a few bubbles in there, or did you guys just want us to be extra aware of Moviebob's presence by announcing him multiple times in a row? I ask because it almost seems like there is something missing in between the first set of double-bob bubbles.

Also, is there a reason Bob's replies were split in two by the page breaks? Was it really that much trouble to fit everything on three pages that you needed to split entries in half, show one half of a reply at the bottom of a page and the other half at the top of the next one? And twice in a row? That's just irritating.

Oh, that's why. Page breaks which I don't see thanks to pub club. That's why there's two instance of double Bob bubbles.

Anyway, Jim makes a damn good point. I'm pretty sure I was one of the people who said School Shooter was awful and shouldn't exist and such things. But yeah, I guess that was unfair. I've even stood up for the existence of RapeLay in the past (just the existence; I have no desire to play such a thing) and I still would today too. So it does indeed seem silly to condemn School Shooter. Thanks for making me think about things on a broader scale, Jim.

Of course, Bob is right too about the creator of the mod being a complete attention whore. I remember that interview, and I wanted nothing more than to punch the mod maker right in the face. A little because of his mod, but mostly because he was such a dick.

*snip*

I don't see the huge issue with what he said. Yes, it's easier to just not be offended by somethings than others, but in essence the premise is basically "Don't feed the troll." And after reading that interview the mod creator did, it's quite apparent that he is definitely a troll looking to be fed. And feed him we did.

Ok these seriously need to stop being cut in two. When the discussion resumes next week I won't remember this part and this week lacks real closure. Just do one whole bi-weekly and this would jump from "I might as well" to "must-read".

Also, I'd like to agree with this. I'd rather just get the whole thing in one sitting, even if it takes longer for the article to be published.

 

[Professor James]

While I read this I actually thought of the opening cut-scene to Bulletstorm, and how the story would have been a lot more interesting if placed in artistic hands. You could make an emotionally engaging game where you think you're gunning down generic bad guys until it turns out you were manipulated into slaying innocents. However, I don't think People Can Fly or Epic Games are the right studio to accomplish such a thing.

Have you played Bulletstorm because in the prologue.

Spoiler

Grayson & Ishi found out that Sorrano has been telling them to murder mass murderers and slave traders when in reality they were actually innocent people who had incriminating evidence towards Sorrano.

 

[AmrasCalmacil]

I think a Mr. Jim Sterling's really missed the point here.
Like Bob said, the creator of the game is an immature little prick (do pardon my language, mods) who basically created the game to try and fling shit at a wall for attention.

And in the context of the games themselves, most gun games are different, Call of Duty is based, and I want at least ten points for pointing this out, around war, a situation in which the other guys are going to point guns at you and start firing them. The school shooter mod is basically the equivalent of someone making a Holocaust mod for say... Postal 2.

Just let that sink in for a while. That's what its like.

Speaking of Postal 2, I can't really condone that, either, but it's harder to condemn than a blatant recreation of School Shootings.
Maybe I am a hypocrite, but at least I'm a hypocrite with moral boundries.

 

[TheRocketeer]

Gaming is a reliable controversy generator solely for the fact that, at any given moment, any dialogue concerning the medium will be held among the radically biased, the uninformed, shameless trolls, scheming demagogues, and rock-chewing idiots.

The upshot to this situation is that all the so-called controversies gaming is steeped in are rather elementary to anyone without crippling congenital birth defects, and very seldom will anyone with the smallest bit of insight find anything to hash out with a comparatively sober observer.

And the upshot of that is that Extra Consideration, a column involving some of the brightest, most opinionated people on the Escapist, has invariably proven a dull echo chamber. Yahtzee has pointed this out a few times in the past, and resorted to playing Devil's Advocate just to force the conversation along after everyone involved has finished reiterating the obvious consensus to each other and to any readers that had to wear helmets as lads.

This column highlights- probably more strongly than all Extra Considerations so far- just how disappointingly pointless the column is. And that's not the fault of the contributors. It's because there aren't any difficult, lingering questions about gaming as an art form.

 

[metal mustache]

you guys didn't nearly angry and narcissistic enough for my liking. Where the hell is yahtzee?

 

[SiegeJack]

The School Shooter mod is to pander to humanities inate lust for fucked-up things. It was inevitable that it would be made, but it's presumably a good version of the others. Provided that there can be a good version of such things.




Jim Sterling's pic looks a lot like Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys.

 

[Seieko Pherdo]

Thinking about the shooter mod it's self the game (or whatever you would call it) seems somewhat pointless no matter what angle you look at it. From the view point of an angry kid the people in the game aren't even the people who have mistreated you to point where you'd consider doing such a thing (or playing this mod to prevent you from doing such a thing)there just faceless drones. From the viewpoint somebody who isn't trying to make the news in bad way, there's a bunch of people who in no way appose or threaten you and you don't get any reward (that I know of since I never played this mod and never plan to)for killing them. At least in a game like Fallout 3 should I decide to kill an entire village (which I haven't done yet by the way) I at least get ammo, guns, and things to sell if for no other reason.

 

[squid5580]

Goddamn, Jim is irritating. He's a pointless addition to the Escapist, and he's starting to infiltrate things other than his poorly made show.

And, really Jim? The whole "The hurtful power of racial slurs is the fault of those hurt by them" argument? I thought most of us left that behind in middle school when we grew powers of reasoning. If someone were to call you a grotesque fat-ass devoid of brain, it would be them being a jerk, not you masochistically taking it too personally.

Funny thing is, I frequently agree with Jim and disagree with the likes of MovieBob and Yahtzee. But I HATE Jim and LOVE MovieBob and Yahtzee.

Boo.

I think the point is the power of the words come from our reactions. If you did call him that and he wasn't offended your words would have been powerless.

My words would be powerless, yes. But that doesn't mean that I wouldn't be being a dick. I can ignore someone kicking me in the shins. It doesn't mean that they aren't the ones to blame for all the shin kicking!

I love your avatar, by the way.

So you'd be the dick? What then? You'd be the dick anyways. People would realize your a dick. And at the end of the day the only people you could attract is other dicks which would lead you to an unhappy life. Meanwhile your intended victims who you tried to hurt would be livin their lives not feeding your dickishness.

Try this. Next time someone calls you an asshole or a dick or whatever. Instead of firing back with an insult of your own say "am I? Thanks! I will work on not being like that." You not only strip them of all the power but empower yourself.

And I don't think you are a dick just the example used

 

[The Random One]

Fortunately, this is a non-issue for me personally. Have I wantonly murdered helpless pedestrians in GTA? Yes, sometimes, and I get bored almost instantly. I draw no satisfaction from violence without challenge, and my main beef in such a game is if it takes too long to draw the cops' attention if I want to do something I actually think is interesting. (I also consider these escapades to be 'non-canon', since I can't see, say, Mr. Bellic flipping out and shooting a rocket at a traffic jam in Times Square Star...thing crossroads? Whatever it was called.

I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I agree with the Extra Credits guy entirely. Yes, the dude is just an incredibly elaborate troll, and in his Greg Tito interview it shows as much as the sun. He probably thinks he's a provocateur, but he's just some idiot whose knowledge of what 'challenging' means goes no further beyond the Wikipedia article. He claims the game makes no greater moral statements while making great moral statements himself and winking at the audience. I have since decided he deserves I waste no more thought on him, and this is the first time I have done so since then. Well done, me. Thanks, me, you're a great guy. Let's make out.

As for the concept of killing people in games of war, well, amazing but true: if you kill a person on the opposing army when you are in a war, you don't get tried for murder! So it's hard to say that a game about people getting killed in a school is the same thing than one in setting in which a minority of the population turns a blind eye to constant murder. The use of stereotypes is actually understandable because - well, some people actually made a fuzz over the fact that there were scenes in MW2 in America, as if showing the US in any light other than 'look at how badass we are' is a fatal sin. One day someone will do what Homefront naïvely thought it was doing and release a game about an army invading the US and tearing shit up. You play as the invading army, of course.

 

[nlaq]

I wholeheartedly agree with Jim on this one.

This is the point where Jim Sterling officially lost any and all respect from me (his awful, awful show notwithstanding). He argues that the only way to combat offensive content is to just not be offended by it, which is stupid in a plethora of ways. The first being that if this line of thinking continued on it's logical path then we as humans would never be shocked or offended by anything, which would be a. not possible and b. completely stupid. The second and largest logical fallacy in his argument problem is that he implies that people can choose what to be offended by, which just makes me foam at the mouth at how someone can POSSIBLY think that.

Out of this entire post where you repeatedly stated how illogical Jim was being, you make a single coherent (yet, misguided) point: "[...] implies that people can choose what to be offended by [...]"

Jim doesn't _imply_ that. He outright states it as fact. Because it's true. Part of being an adult is having control, or (at the very least) understanding, of your emotions. We learn how we react to things, and we make choices that steer us away from the things we find distasteful. This is a perfectly healthy and natural behavior - I believe that everyone has the right to avoid situations that they feel uncomfortable with.

But let's not loose sight of the fact that the things we find distasteful have the right to exist; given that they do not bring physical harm to a person or a person's property. Some people may in fact enjoy this game, and who are we to not let them? I would stay away from it because it would make me feel uncomfortable. But I am not so consumed by my gut reactions to get up in arms about it. If enough people decide simply to ignore it on the basis that they personally don't find it enjoyable, it will become forgotten.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

While I read this I actually thought of the opening cut-scene to Bulletstorm, and how the story would have been a lot more interesting if placed in artistic hands. You could make an emotionally engaging game where you think you're gunning down generic bad guys until it turns out you were manipulated into slaying innocents. However, I don't think People Can Fly or Epic Games are the right studio to accomplish such a thing.

Then again, there are a lot of gamers that weren't really disturbed by No Russian (Hell, I was more disturbed by the fact that I WASN'T disturbed by it). I know some have suggested that gamers are desensitized, but I wonder if the exposure to games has created such a rift between reality and fantasy that it makes it troublesome to feel the emotional impact of some games.

I haven't played Bulletstorm, but it is written by an artist in his own right - comic book writer Rick Remender. I highly recommend you read anything by him - specifically FEAR agent. This is not to say you're wrong, but I have to say the voice behind the game has some artistic cred.

This guy wasn't paying attention when he played it.

You could make an emotionally engaging game where you think you're gunning down generic bad guys until it turns out you were manipulated into slaying innocents. However, I don't think People Can Fly or Epic Games are the right studio to accomplish such a thing.

BULLETSTORM DID EXACTLY THIS! They explicitly talk about it while you play. General Serrano laughs at Grayson when he tells him that it wasn't mutated prisoners but vacationers that he was killing, and Grayson stops making snarky comebacks and actually appeared genuinely disturbed by the fact. The game had a great story if you were willing to pay attention to it, its voice acting was top notch too. I don't know what the hell that guy is complaining about.

 

[emeraldrafael]

Eh I still remember Super Columbine RPG. Its tasteless, but its someone's creative freedom, and if we as gamers want to bleat about how other games should exist int he face of insults that they are tasteless (such as GTA or CoD or Bully or etc.) then we should respect our fellow artists. No one's saying you have to like it.

 

[ReiverCorrupter]

"For me, personally, this is the big "down side" to having Western (particularly American) developers currently being the industry's overwhelming driving force: we INSTANTLY took the WORST things about our (Western/American) culture - the deification of the gun and the romanticism of gun-use as some kind of righteous thing unto itself - and turned them into the focal icon of a medium that can be so much more."

Poor Bob. Gun worship is one of the worst part of western culture? That reflects some strange priorities. Like it or not guns are cool pieces of machinery, and they're fun to fire too. Bob needs to go shoot some skeet and get some perspective. Is gun worship any different from tech worship? No, not really. The only difference is that guns can be used to kill people more easily than laptops. But so what, they're still just tools. Dangerous tools that should be tightly controlled and treated with caution and respect, but still tools.

 

[Giest4life]

Jim Sterling (never heard of him) is my new hero. He articulated his point beautifully--a point that Mr. Bob ignored. The idea that the School Shooter mod is specifically designed to troll means that it is shit is particularly repulsive to me. Why, creating a shooter which is centered around killing Nazis and Allies, the Russians and the US Marines for money any particularly better? Activision or EA made a game for money gives it a higher moral ground than something manufactured to be incendiary? If you think there is a difference, then I believe that we cannot be made to agree on that point. Ever.

EDIT:

"For me, personally, this is the big "down side" to having Western (particularly American) developers currently being the industry's overwhelming driving force: we INSTANTLY took the WORST things about our (Western/American) culture - the deification of the gun and the romanticism of gun-use as some kind of righteous thing unto itself - and turned them into the focal icon of a medium that can be so much more."

Poor Bob. Gun worship is one of the worst part of western culture? That reflects some strange priorities. Like it or not guns are cool pieces of machinery, and they're fun to fire too. Bob needs to go shoot some skeet and get some perspective. Is gun worship any different from tech worship? No, not really. The only difference is that guns can be used to kill people more easily than laptops. But so what, they're still just tools. Dangerous tools that should be tightly controlled and treated with caution and respect, but still tools.

That, too. If one is a collector of finely honed blades automatically makes him sociopath? Knives, for example, are tools that can be used for killing or for making you some salad. It's all subjective.