Poll: Should games like "Super Columbine Massacre RPG!" be allowed?

[Summerstorm]

What kind of question is that? "Allow" a game. So you say we should BAN everything, and only "tested and approved" media can be shown?

The real question is "Should they ban this game?" And: No, not in my opinion.
The only things which SHOULD be considered ban-worthy are tools of brainwashing, purposely misinforming and re-"educating" people. {I consider most religious texts hard on the edge though *g*.}

I apologize for the wording, I do not personally believe that it should be censored. While writing the post, I had a difficult time trying to word it correctly. (And failed for all that efford, )

Ah nah, i didn't really thought you would support something that ridiculous. Just me being rethoricaly mean. Just wanted to say that: Yeah, i am on one of the far-far-FAREST sides of freedom vs. control and would like to start with the preset: EVERYTHING is and should be allowed. With educated parents and a few safeguards against misinformation and hatemongering keeping the "not-so-ready" minds of the youth at safety.

I have a similar stance on drugs and other topics as well. But i realize that we all have a bit work to do until we CAN do that though. The whole population has to be much more informed and "trained" to become a more free society.

 

[Russirishican]

Room for two? I'll bring the booze if you let me join.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

"It's offensive to people" on the other hand is not a valid argument for making anything illegal whether it's a horrible game or film that exists solely to offend people, a symbol that has bad connotations or something small like yellow paint jobs on cars (Which I personally find very offensive).

Agreed, although I think if you're specifically targeting someone with the implicit intent of making their life miserable, I do believe you're vulnerable to harassment charges. And of course libel, as discussed. I understand what you mean, it's just...even "Freedom of Speech" isn't nearly as free as we like to sometimes imagine it is. Or at any case, we're free to say it, but a shitload of consequences are often waiting in the wings.

 

[Aprilgold]

Almost no one who criticised the game played it, almost no one who comes on here to defend it will have played it.

It honestly makes it more than a little difficult to have a proper discussion about it.

I played it.

It's a pretty stupid game. It's deliberately offensive in every way it can be and also really just tremendously silly.

Freedom of expression cuts both ways.

If the game is being made in America, it is protected by the Constitution of the United States.

It is Protected Speech.

Hurt feelings or respect for the dead are irrelevant.

For the same reason we must accept the existence of the God Hates Fags people, for the exact same reason that they are permitted to picket funerals, this game cannot and should not be censored, nor should anyone be permitted to stop such games, even deliberately offensive games like this, from being made.

Because it's Protected Speech.

There's no debate here.

Like you said, its deliberately offensive, which was the point.

These games should be made, don't matter whatever, they should. If its not in a tasteful right, then it questionable on its ability to talk about the event.

 

[Lucem712]

It is legitimately ironic that you do not feel that game paints McD's in a good light, as it was created for and by McDonalds.

Their trademarked logo is all over it, because it is their game.

Er, no. This game was not created by McDonald's. It was created by an Italian game company, La Molleindustria, as an "anti-advergame". If you had played the game, I would believe that McDonald's does not want its consumer base thinking it buys crops away from native people (which they need to survive), put steroids in the food so the cows will grow faster and give people meaningless rewards so they will not quit.

McDonald's trademarked logo is all over it.

They cannot use the McDonald's name logo without consent.

It may simply be that McDonald's may not give a flying hoot. But the game does not portray McDonald's in a good light. And if this is McDonald's new advertising style, then that's fantastic. I'm not sure about you, but I definitely would not make this game for my company and then stamp my logo on it. I'm certain that McDonald's has far more accomplished and intelligent people working than I.

 

[kommando367]

Sure.

I want to see how much controversy would actually be generated from that game, if someone made a current generation variant.

It's entirely possible that, since it happened around 12 years ago, not even Fox News would care.

 

[xvbones]

But again, we don't actually censor child porn, it is outright illegal. You get arrested for it. It is like cocaine. We don't censor cocaine. We arrest people for possession, transport and sale of cocaine.

Granted, 'drug use' gets a movie or a game an M rating, and sometimes gets censored out, but you will not ever ever ever hear about a video game that had an Adults-Only rating but got back down to M because they took out all the child porn.

You may bring up hentai games if you like, however before you do; in America you can be arrested for possession of child pornography for having those on your computer.

Mr Slippery Slope has a reason to use that term, as it is an actual thing, it's just that it's actually called 'legal precedence'.

What those two words mean is that similar cases to this one will likely go the same way. A lawyer will bring it up and a judge will be aware of it and a dangerous precedence can be set.

That is why I say knee-jerk things like 'this is protected, this is not debatable'.

It's just that swinging all the way to child porn as 'things we shouldn't permit the censorship of' is way way way too far, to the point where it's just not relevant to this discussion simply because we do not treat child porn with censorship, we treat it as a felony.

Child porn is a felony, but presumably at some point it was decided that it would be a felony, yes? That wasn't divine mandate. At some point, a legal precedent was set that no, this was a felony, full stop. No freedom of expression laws apply here. So, there you go. You're now on the slippery slope, if you're following that line of fallacious thinking. Which is why you can't go around shouting "Slippery Slope" when you're arguing hypotheticals.

It's very very simple.

Personal liberty supercedes protected speech.

If an individual is being harmed or exploited without consent, it is not protected speech.

Child porn, I hope you will agree, falls into this category.

There was not ever a moment when it was debated whether or not filmed, non-consensual exploitation for commercial gain fell under free speech. There was never a moment when it was ever debated whether child porn could be protected speech.

I am not arguing hypotheticals, I have not gone around shouting 'slippery slope', nor am i on one.

I have not budged from any of my points, nor will I and nor can I.

We are discussing censorship. 'Child porn' is an inflammatory topic that is frankly irrelevant, because child porn is not censored, it is persecuted, prosecuted and locked the fuck away.

Without knowing the content of the game, without knowing if its libelous, without knowing if any laws regarding obscenity are being broken, we can't really speak to whether or not it's defensible under "Freedom of Speech", and thus my original comment that a shitload of people who aren't familiar with the game are going to "Robble Robble Freedom of Speech" without having any idea whatsoever if the laws regarding Freedom of Speech actually apply to it and its content.

And then I countered with 'I've played it' and furthered with a link to the Let's Play, so that anyone who wished to take part in the argument could have the game itself right there in front of them for perusal.

 

[Dango]

Yes, but they should be frowned upon for being incredibly stupid ideas.

 

[Lucem712]

Ah nah, i didn't really thought you would support something that ridiculous. Just me being rethoricaly mean. Just wanted to say that: Yeah, i am on one of the far-far-FAREST sides of freedom vs. control and would like to start with the preset: EVERYTHING is and should be allowed. With educated parents and a few safeguards against misinformation and hatemongering keeping the "not-so-ready" minds of the youth at safety.

I have a similar stance on drugs and other topics as well. But i realize that we all have a bit work to do until we CAN do that though. The whole population has to be much more informed and "trained" to become a more free society.

I tend to agree, honestly all this "save the children" really sort of grinds my gears. Why do people expect the government to "protect" their squishy balls of DNA if they won't?

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Have you not paid attention to FOX News?

"Not intended to be taken as factual statements" is like magic. Apparently.

I try my damndest not to pay attention to Fox News. Living in Canada, it's surprisingly easy.

Note that I'm not saying the game isn't protected under your protected speech laws, just that a lot of people operate under the delusion that "Freedom of Speech" means they can say anything they want without consequences. And even in the US, that's simply not the case. I can see a lot of ways someone could make a Columbine game that would get them very swiftly sued into oblivion. Sounds like this guy was trying to be satirical, though.

If it isn't public endangerment, libel/slander (even that is iffy because of disclaimers), or outright threats of harm, you can say anything.

 

[kickyourass]

"It's offensive to people" on the other hand is not a valid argument for making anything illegal whether it's a horrible game or film that exists solely to offend people, a symbol that has bad connotations or something small like yellow paint jobs on cars (Which I personally find very offensive).

Agreed, although I think if you're specifically targeting someone with the implicit intent of making their life miserable, I do believe you're vulnerable to harassment charges. And of course libel, as discussed. I understand what you mean, it's just...even "Freedom of Speech" isn't nearly as free as we like to sometimes imagine it is. Or at any case, we're free to say it, but a shitload of consequences are often waiting in the wings.

Doesn't libel only apply if you knowingly print something untrue, or am I thinking of a different law? Anyway I'm glad I was able to clear that up, I hate it when I missrepresent myself ike that.

 

[Saltyk]

Okay, so I think the game has every right to exist. Not because I think it's a great tool for exploring the events of that day. I think there are better and arguably less distasteful ways to do that. Books, specials, documentaries, and such would do far better at it and far fewer people would argue against that.

The game has the right to exist due to Freedom of Speech. It doesn't actually encourage similar events. It's just an attempt to explore the events of the day in a different way. Perhaps the creator, Danny Ledonne, whether he admits it or not, wanted some attention, too. But that doesn't make it right or wrong. If you want to play it, go ahead. If you think it's disgusting, that's fine, too. You have every right to have an opinion on the game. But I think the game has the right to exist. It doesn't have the right to be played or experienced and no one is forcing you to do that.

Personally, I'd rather just ignore it. But I'd rather just ignore a lot of things.

 

[Dr Snakeman]

Well, now, your question doesn't seem very clear.

Should it be allowed? Of course it should. Our government should never say "You can't say this, because it might make some people sad."

But should it be made? No. One would hope that people would have the common decency to not make something so tasteless.

You shouldn't create things like this, but no authority should be allowed to make you stop.

 

[Lucem712]

Sure.

I want to see how much controversy would actually be generated from that game, if someone made a current generation variant.

It's entirely possible that, since it happened around 12 years ago, not even Fox News would care.

I want to say the most recent game made about a school shooting was "V-Tech Massacre" (Virgina Tech, 2007) and there have been 42 (if I counted right [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting#North_America]) since (in the US)

^--- This statement maybe be completely wrote, quote at your own risk

 

[BloatedGuppy]

If it isn't public endangerment, libel/slander (even that is iffy because of disclaimers), or outright threats of harm, you can say anything.

Well, yeah. That was kind of my point. If not for X, Y, and Z, some of which can fall into some pretty hazy territory, you can say whatever you want.

You'd be amazed at how many people aren't aware of, or don't believe, that X, Y and Z exist. They think Freedom of Speech means exactly that. They can say whatever they want, and no consequences can result from it.

However, I'm now getting locked into an argument about slippery slope fallacies and Freedom of Speech laws in the US, neither of which really apply to the game, and it's throwing the thread off tangent, so I'm going to depart.

Also, work is over and I wanna go home.

 

[Lucane]

Almost no one who criticised the game played it, almost no one who comes on here to defend it will have played it.

It honestly makes it more than a little difficult to have a proper discussion about it.

I played it.

It's a pretty stupid game. It's deliberately offensive in every way it can be and also really just tremendously silly.

Freedom of expression cuts both ways.

If the game is being made in America, it is protected by the Constitution of the United States.

It is Protected Speech.

Hurt feelings or respect for the dead are irrelevant.

For the same reason we must accept the existence of the God Hates Fags people, for the exact same reason that they are permitted to picket funerals, this game cannot and should not be censored, nor should anyone be permitted to stop such games, even deliberately offensive games like this, from being made.

Because it's Protected Speech.

There's no debate here.

Would you agree though that the game shouldn't be made as long as it was never out right banned from being made?

As in anyone could go ahead and make it put their name on it and what not and never be forced to take it down just because of the source material being considered a tragedy (Unless the current system allow so for personally targeting people for grief trauma.)
Though no one should(In a nicer world) make anything about the a similar type of event in as much of a provocative way as if only or at least mainly just to offend anyone close to the event over any other goals.

So in brief.
"Should" a game like that be made? No.
"Would" it be in pour taste to make a material that way to people close to the event? Most likely.
"Would" banning material like that just because of it bad taste in content be wrong? Yes.

 

[Xan Krieger]

Speaking as a guy who played it (I made it to hell so far, doom monsters ftw) I'd say the game is a work of art that does a great job of telling the story from the perspective of the shooters. It's similar to how Letters from Iwo Jima tells the story from the side of the bad guys, should that movie not have been made?

 

[tavelkyosoba]

Yes, censorship for any reason is abhorrent (except to minors.) Adults have the articulate faculties to contemplate statements like this, decide what it means in society, decide if they want to participate or pass, or even write a letter to the authors.

Naturally...the feedback will be uncensored too. Bricks are a common form of self expression.

 

[xvbones]

Well, now, your question doesn't seem very clear.

Should it be allowed? Of course it should. Our government should never say "You can't say this, because it might make some people sad."

But should it be made? No. One would hope that people would have the common decency to not make something so tasteless.

You shouldn't create things like this, but no authority should be allowed to make you stop.

This is the crux of this thread, right here.

You'd need to be a dick to make something like this, but there's nothing illegal about making it.

It is not illegal to be a dick.

 

[Jadak]

Allowed by whom? Allowed by the local Gamestop? No, probably not. Reasonably enough that "respectable" establishments limit themselves to what is generally considered a respectable product. But that would be up to them either way.

Allowed to exist? Of course, fuck anyone who thinks they have the right to say something like this can't exist. Y