Aw Geez

By: Derek Yu

On: September 15th, 2006

Well, I guess it’s technically indie game news, so I ought to mention it… some Canuck went nuts (Joystiq) and shot some people up in Montreal, and I guess he played Columbine Massacre RPG, so there’s your “video game connection” right there. There’s really not much else to say. The reactions from all sides are pretty much what you’d expect. Jack Thompson will probably masturbate to this one for a while, although honestly I don’t think it’s going to be big news for very long.

Posted in Community

http://www.TScreative.net BMcC

Ugh… bad news.
Dan MacDonald

Geez is right. It’s a wonder quakecon isn’t a massive war zone with teens gunning eachter down in pools of blood(the real kind). I mean, given that these kids play “murder simulators” at least 8hrs a day, one would think they have little hope but to kill eachother for real.
mushu

If video games actually inspired people to kill, these rampages would be more creative. Like for example, building your own robot arm gun or dragging people underwater and killing them with magic, or arranging people into matching rows of 3 and then crushing them.
Shabadage

Yeah, cause the best part of ANY videogame is the pack-in 9mm Semi-Auto with a free full clip of Armor Piercing bullets.

Just cause I can, Jack Thompson is a tool in a war he knows nothing about.
Sum Yun Guy

What conclusion are we supposed to draw from this? If a person is attracted to a game about the Columbine massacre, that says more about the individual in question than it does about video games.

There are plenty of tasteless movies and books that glorify violence, not to mention the “patriotic” mass-killing campaigns waged by the same politicians who want to ban violent video games.

Video games are only singled out because:

1) they are wrongly perceived as being mainly for children;

2) second only to “for the poor,” a politician’s safest bet is to do something “for the children,” especially “protecting our children;”

and 3) well-meaning but hysterical soccer moms are a large voting block.

The upside is that gamers are getting older and so this nonsense probably won’t work as well going into the future. It might even work against the politicians who try it.
Dracko

Good thing only the sub-educated take the Sun seriously.

Oh wait, fuck.
NO!

*mushu wrote:*
*dragging people underwater and killing them with magic*

When that happens they will blame it on Aquaria, Derek will go broke and then to jail, where he’s gonna get ass fucked to death. Sounds like a sweet revenge scheme, right Mr. Thompson?
Eos

I think it’s wrong to assume that just because he played Columbine Massacre RPG, it means he must have been solely motivated by it. If I decided to steal from a department store, and I played “Thief,” does it mean that the game inspired me to become a shoplifter?

As Sum Yun Guy said, there are many tasteless and violent books and movies out there. I think the main concern should be the framework in which people interpret/perceive books, movies or video games.
Albert Lai

It’s the same case with rock and roll, comic books, table top gaming, and total immersion reality devices. The older generation don’t know how to treat it – so they either fear it, or capitalize on the fear.

Like all gamers, I’m tired of this bull honky (contraction – blonky) about video games causing violence. Sure, violent people play violent video games, but so do nonviolent people. And while we’re at this ridiculous argument, violent people might eat waffles for breakfast. Oh god! Waffles!
mushu

This newspaper also claims that, quote “Canada Rocks”.

’nuff said
Sergio

For a guy like him, Columbine RPG would honestly be like a fantasy. For me, delving that deep into the killer’s minds (even if it was only an interpretation) was… an “experience”… but for someone who actually felt the urge to commit those horrible crimes, I can only imagine.

Weirdly enough, in this isolated incident with this specific person, a video game might actually be partially responsible… but I honestly have no idea.

I’d say the gun obsession is just a LITTLE relevant though, don’t you think? Aren’t guns responsible?
mushu

Can’t he just be responsible for his own retarded actions? I’m pretty sure the guns didn’t tell him to do it.
NO!

Come on, nerds, you get all pissed when someone try to ban or blame shit on your stupid games. Maybe ’cause that’s everything your life is about, but games are just a stupid hobby, it’s not your life, not a passion, not a lifestyle, like many of you surely believe.

So what if they blame everything on videogames? Are they gonna ban games everywhere forever? are FBI hackers shutting down every fucking page where some kid is making a violent game on Game Maker? No, they can’t, so chill out, geeks, your social ineptitude shelter AKA videogames will be there forever, no matter how many killings or Thompson dudes araise. You need to taste pussy someday, urgently.
Shih Tzu

NO!:
There was a knight of noble worth, Who also lived up in the North
The knight of courage stout and brave, A wife he did desire to have
He knocked at the manor gate, One eve when it was very late
The youngest daughter fair and bright, She went to bed with this young knight.

In the morn when it was day, These words to him well she did say
Now youâ€™ve had your will said she, I pray sir knight will you marry me?
The brave young knight to her replied, Your suit it shall not be denied
If you answer questions three, This very day you will marry me.
Dracko

So, we don’t want our particular hobby to be blamed, but firearms are free game?
Lurk

They’re actually quite glad to have the Columbine rpg as a distraction, because one of the conservative government’s big plans was to abolish the gun registry. One journalist on a national channel even said something like ‘Could’nt we have some kind of police watching the internet?’. But only silent static when it comes to the gun debate in Canada. Cause we’re hicks.
Mazapan

NO: It does matter if your a game developer-
Sum Yun Guy

It’s hypocritical to blame guns for the crime while defending video games. A gun is an item with a legitimate use: self-defense (which is a natural right). And please tell me why government agents can be trusted with guns but not private individuals. Are they made of a finer clay? Unusually trustworthy?

Either you hold someone responsible when he actually perpetrates a crime, OR you restrict his behavior and access to anything that might conceivably cause him to misbehave in the future.

The latter choice, in principle, justifies banning not only guns, but violent video games, movies, subversive writings, etc. You get the point. Who has the right to make such decisions for other adults?

Saying “Leave games alone but go after guns” is making the same philosophical argument the would-be game banners are making: that most people out there are (potential) violent psychopaths, so we’d better keep anything out of their hands that might set them off. And too bad for the minority of decent people who suffer for it.
Lurk

Sum Yun Guy: I’m not saying ban guns, or that commercial games are following a healthy path towards artistic expression and philosophical awareness, but as north americans, we need to have a real debate about firearms. I tend to agree with the notion that, if we let our elected officials have all the weaponry, they might be tempted to treat us like serfs someday. At the same time, we want a society where disagreements are solved by peaceful means, not bullets. Rules concerning the carrying of firearms are quite extended, but rarely applied. And relying on the good faith of people simply does’nt work. So what now? Maybe making adhesion to a gun club mandatory to gun owners, and making these smaller associations responsible for their member’s behavior, like doctors or lawyers; the fact that someone can be so isolated that even his family does’nt really knows what he’s going through speaks a lot about where we’re taking our society.
Also, one thing should be pointed out. Car accidents (and drinking) are responsible for so many deaths each year, yet it never receive the coverage that a school shooting that usually keeps the death toll under 10 does. I have a friend who was killed by a speeding driver who did’nt even stop after the accident. It did’nt make international headlines.
Sum Yun Guy

Lurk,

Yes, we want a society where disagreements are settled by peaceful means. Most people do settle disagreements peacefully. The exceptions make headlines precisely because they are unusual.

We will never have utopia here on earth, a place where no one ever goes nuts or does evil. Attempts at creating such a society are themselves bound to result in evil. Which brings me to my next point.

Gun ownership is not new. In fact, it was commonplace for Americans, Canadians and Britons during the 19th century, including children.

Perhaps recent violence has more to do with the horrible influence and example of politics on society than with gun ownership. The twentieth century brought some very ugly developments, many of which are still with us in some form or another.

Even the government schools where these shootings happen are modeled after those in the now-defunct totalitarian dictatorships of yesteryear. Remember the words of John Dewey, known as the “father of modern education,” whose “reforms” were based on the Soviet model:

“You canâ€™t make socialists out of individualists. Children who know how to think for themselves spoil the harmony of the collective society which is coming, where every one is interdependent.”

Is it any wonder some kids end up going nuts in these indoctrination camps?

The thing to remember about all proposals for gun control is this: while people’s freedom is being further limited, is the government also being limited or is it growing? Is the government getting more or less heavily armed? Also: is this likely to be the stopping point for gun regulation or are the gun control advocates using this as a stepping stone for the next law, until guns are ultimately banned?

Answer honestly and you can’t help but be troubled.
observer

I’m glad NO! took a break from tasting pussy (which clearly he’s busy with 24/7 on _most_ days) to post meaningful comments on TIGSource. I imagine he treats it like wine tasting, although with more risk of getting a rash. Maybe he also runs around sniffing women’s groins in the supermarket. A true connaisseur, no doubt. I bet all the ladies swoon when they hear his tales of “putting nerds in their place” on the “internets”. Hopefully he’ll pop his head out from under that greasy fat chick long enough for him to read this. <3
Sergio

I was merely using the same logic the media did to blame video games. Just as with violent video games, what of the hundreds of people for whom guns are a hobby who don’t kill people?

Although, really, he has an unhealthy obsession with guns…
failrate

From the early impressions on this guy, he was totally obsessed with the guns. All the pictures of him posing with guns that are being shown in the media, yeah, uh, he made those himself and posted them on some kind of social website, where lots of other people wrote him loads of comments encouraging his increasingly anti-social behavior. He was a mental masturbater with a murder fantasy who finally converted it over to reality. I don’t even get the fucking point.