Super Columbine Massacre RPG! - Reaction

Reaction

Reception of Super Columbine Massacre has been extremely negative amongst the mainstream media and those personally affected by the shootings. Upon revealing Columbine's identity as Ledonne, Kovacs said, "One of the girls who died was a friend of mine, Rachel. We were in the same church group. Anyone playing this game can kill Rachel over and over again."(Despite Kovacs' claims, Harris and Klebold are the only non-fiction characters that appear in the game.) The father of one victim remarked to the press that the game "disgusts me. You trivialize the actions of two murderers and the lives of the innocent." One victim of the shooting played the game and voiced reserved support, remarking that "It probably sounds a bit odd for someone like me to say, but I appreciate the fact at least to some degree that something like this was made." While he took issue with what he saw as glamorization of the shooters, he also believed it would help open a dialogue about the shooting.

Super Columbine Massacre was largely condemned by the press. Betty Nguyen of CNN labeled the game as an example of a subculture that worships terrorists. Newspapers called the game "exploitive" and a "monstrosity". PC World declared the game #2 on its list of "The 10 Worst Games of All Time." Even critics who were supportive of Ledonne's intent found the game hard to play; Ben Kuchera of Ars Technica said that he left the game "shaken", but that as an easily-misunderstood game "the people who are most likely to gain anything from it will never play it." Crecente felt that the message of the game was obscured by the cartoon graphics of the medium. Reviewers for web site Gameology felt that while the hell segment was a well-executed parody, it did not further the game's message among those who were quick to judge the game. Ledonne has refused to alter the game as it represents his thoughts on the subject at a particular point in time, but has encouraged others to rework the game themselves.

The most positive reviews of Super Columbine Massacre came from critics who accepted Ledonne's intended message. Wired magazine writer Clive Thompson appreciated the game's attention to narrative detail, writing that "the upshot is that Ledonne has done a surprisingly good job of painting the emotional landscape of —whipsawing from self-pity to pompous grandiosity and blinding rage, then back again." Thompson called the game subtle, including jabs at the participants and gaming culture by using the language of games as a way to think about the killings. Paul Syvret's advice to those who found the game controversial and in bad taste was to "lighten up". Bogost summed up his review of the game by writing "this game is not fun, it is challenging, and difficult to play—not technically difficult, but conceptually difficult. We need more of that." David Kociemba, a professor at Emerson College, agreed with Bogost and commented that "the controversy should be that there aren't more games like Super Columbine Massacre RPG! that are as demanding and as artistically innovative." Dugan responded to common criticisms of the game, including that the game was made in bad taste, by writing a scathing rebuttal on his blog:

I think everyone who disses the Columbine RPG is gutless. Most haven't played the game, or have played it with such preconceptions that they're blinded to the genuis, the honesty, the beauty of its social commentary. Super Columbine Massacre RPG is riddled with design flaws and has mediocre graphics by 1995, the maker of the game admits this, but it regardless is a work of art. It puts you in the mindset of the killers and provides a very clear suggestion of why they did what they did; they were enacting an ideological demonstration through a terrorist act, and the game shines light on this as an indictment of the American dream and way of life painfully close to the main nerve.

After the Dawson College shooting in September 2006, when gunman Kimveer Gill killed Anastasia De Sousa and injured 19 students, the Toronto Sun wrote that Kimveer had self-reported playing Columbine Massacre on a web site. The story was picked up by media and reported widely. Upon hearing media reports of a link to the game one of the shooting victims at Dawson College contacted Ledonne and told him that "I just suffered multiple gunshot wounds and I think you should take this game down." Ledonne expressed his reaction to the shooting and renewed media attention towards his game in an interview a week later:

If one is interested in making something for the public to view—be it a painting, a book, an album, a film, or a video game, should the POSSIBLE harm that may come out of this work be grounds for its suppression from society? This is, in a sense, pre-crime. If you believe in what you're doing and you want to express yourself, the expression should be primary and any interpretations that come after must always remain of secondary importance to the creation of the work itself. On another level, the entire correlation between the Dawson College shooting and my game is unfounded. What else did Kimveer like? Black clothes? Goth music? Pizza? If anything, the Dawson College shooting is proof positive that games like should be made; until video games are no longer among the "usual suspects" for homicidal rampages, the public needs to more carefully consider why interactive electronic media is somehow the manufacturer of Manchurian Candidates.

Developer Ryan Lambourn created a flash game called V-Tech Rampage in 2007, which allows players to control the actions of gunman Seung-Hui Cho in the Virginia Tech massacre. Lambourn professed empathy for Cho, and said that he was a target of bullying in high school. "No one listens to you unless you've got something sensational to do. And that's why I feel sympathy for Cho Seung-Hui. He had to go that far," Lambourn stated. On the V-Tech Rampage site, Lambourn posted a statement that he would take the game off of Newgrounds if donations reached $1000; at $2000 in donations he would take the game down from the main site and for another $1000 he would apologize for creating it. Ledonne posted a comment on Lambourn's website after V-Tech Rampage drew comparisons to Super Columbine Massacre, calling Lambourn's statement tantamount to a "hostage note", and asking bloggers to consider "not whether a game about the Virginia Tech shooting SHOULD be made but how we might go about making a game that accomplishes more than V-Tech Rampage does with the subject matter." Ledonne stated that he emailed Lambourn sympathetically, but that the creator responded to his emails with profanity; he reiterated that the two games had different motivations and were not easily comparable in content.