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

[xvbones]

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

My personal tastes and opinions, whether I loved or hated this game, what i think of the developers and my thoughts on the people who spoke out for or against the game itself are here, completely irrelevant.

It does not matter, in any way, whether or not I think this game should have been made.

Voltaire, whose writing got him chased out of his country, put it like this;
"I do not agree with what you say, sir, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

(By the way, the second amendment, the one that gives Americans the right to own firearms, that one is there pretty much specifically to prevent the government from infringing on the first amendment.

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
-Thomas Jefferson.

For realsies.)

 

[xXAsherahXx]

The game has a right to exist, but it's extremely offensive to the families involved. You can argue that it's an important narrative device, but there aren't any movies about Columbine (except Bowling for Columbine obviously, but that focuses on the effects and causes more than the act itself). There aren't any star studded actors playing the roles of the shooters.

I'm not against the censorship of any games, but some games are just in bad taste. I seem to recall Custer's Revenge.

 

[CliveMurdoc626]

I'd like to believe that someone would have enough respect to not make a game like this especially if your game is just going for some kind of trivial shock value, but just because I don't like games like these(and god do I hate games like these) I don't think I've got the right to say weather or not they should be made.

 

[Kotaro]

Here's a rather thoughtful review of SCMRPG: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAtYiWcACik
(I'd rather embed this in the post, but I don't know how to do that.)
I don't have anything to say that he hasn't said.

 

[TakerFoxx]

Should it be made? No.

Does it have a right to be made? Yes(depending on where you live).


It's the same thing with the WBC. Do they have a right to be there? Yeah, but they should still get some class and stop being so fucking stupid, but, hey, it is what it is.

This more-or-less sums up my opinion. No, people shouldn't be making games out of events like this, especially the kind that lets you play as the killer. But if someone with no taste is still is bound and determined to make one anyway, then the government should not have the power to stop them. You gotta take the bad with the good.

 

[CthulhuMessiah]

Yes, because the day we stop being allowed to discuss tragic events, no matter the amount of respect the subject is treated with, is the day that I start building an underwater fortress to spend the rest of my life in.

Can I come with you if we call it Rapture?

Anyway, I think games like SCMPRG! should be allowed because they basically are a more in depth History Channel special.

 

[inFAMOUSCowZ]

While this may be in poor taste depending on who you are. Games should be allowed to be about anything. If movies can be a bout the holocaust, then let games be about this.

 

[2xDouble]

Should it be allowed to exist? yes. Topics and subject matter shouldn't be shied away from because they're controversial.

Should it be supported? no. First, I can't see the game being very good. There's not enough actual story behind the event to pull out a complete narrative, and there is no challenge whatsoever to be had in experiencing those events. It's like making Schindler's List an FPS game, either ridiculous or outright stupid.

Second, there's pushing the envelope for the betterment of humankind, and there's pushing the envelope for the sake of pushing envelopes. Which do you think this would be? Let it die on its own for being crap, not because it's controversial.

PS: Non-artistic art (sometimes referred to as "pornography") is not protected speech. If this fails the Miller test, it no longer has any right to exist.

 

[Saulkar]

I would never play the game and without a doubt it is quite detestable if not out right a fucking bad idea but I will never stifle freedom of speech.

 

[RoBi3.0]

Should they be made? Morally I don't think so, but if someone chooses to make such a game I don't think anyone should have the right to stop them. Freedom of speech is more important then anyone's personal ethics.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Yes. It's horrible and tasteless but that's not a valid reason for censoring art. There is far worse crap (and I mean that literally) that gets made as art and not censored.

 

[Sjakie]

everyone who picked "No! It offends the families/victims of said events!"

and plays any military shooter is a hypocrit.

 

[Terminal Blue]

You can argue that it's an important narrative device, but there aren't any movies about Columbine (except Bowling for Columbine obviously, but that focuses on the effects and causes more than the act itself).

Elephant [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0363589/]

Duck! The Carbine High Massacre [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0356561/]

Heart of America [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0279037/]

Zero Day [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365960/]

These films are generally fictionalized accounts though. They make no claim to accuracy or to depict a real event, rather, they use the structure of a real event to frame a fictionalized story. Still about the event though.

I don't think I'm prepared to answer the question of whether it should be 'allowed', that's a legal question and I don't know enough about censorship law.

However, I do think it's a really bad idea.


Go to 1:30.

The idea that Columbine has something to teach all of us about ourselves, or that people responsible deserve to be examined and looked at is a very dangerous one. The cultural obsession with understanding or gawping at 'evil' is not constructive, it merely teaches vulnerable people that they will be listened to and paid attention if they step into that role.

There are more deserving mysteries than 'why would frustrated young men with easy access to guns kill people'.

 

[Susurrus]

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?

If you're equating the morality of two kids going on a killing spree against unarmed teens with a war, fought between the soldiers of two superpowers then perhaps you've missed the point.

 

[Saviordd1]

Should it be allowed? Yes

Is it right?
No

Sorry but that's how I see it

 

[Realitycrash]

Is it a shitty game? Yes.
Should it be illegal to make and play? No.
Reason: Freedom of Speech.

Summa summarum.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Yes. Freedom of speech.

 

[conflictofinterests]

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.

The game itself garners no respect. That's true of the vast majority of crass, tasteless things, and people tend not to give a shit about the vast majority of crass, tasteless things, thereby condoning their presence without approving of their content. The only reason we're even having this discussion, instead of the majority of us ignoring it entirely is because it is a videogame. The fact that it is a videogame should not be sufficient to give credence to this piece of shit, and the conversation will be along the lines of agreeing or disagreeing with that statement.

 

[Realitycrash]

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

My personal tastes and opinions, whether I loved or hated this game, what i think of the developers and my thoughts on the people who spoke out for or against the game itself are here, completely irrelevant.

It does not matter, in any way, whether or not I think this game should have been made.

Voltaire, whose writing got him chased out of his country, put it like this;
"I do not agree with what you say, sir, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

(By the way, the second amendment, the one that gives Americans the right to own firearms, that one is there pretty much specifically to prevent the government from infringing on the first amendment.

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."
-Thomas Jefferson.

For realsies.)

Just a quick common-error correction; It wasn't Voltaire, it was Beatrice Hall.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall