Columbin Revealed, Profiled

By: Derek Yu

On: May 26th, 2006

“Columbin,” the creator of the controversial freeware game Columbine Massacre RPG, has been revealed as 24-year-old Danny Ledonne, an Alamosa filmmaker. Kotaku’s Brian Crecente has written an interesting profile of Ledonne and his game for the Rocky Mountain News, explaining the creator’s background and reasons for making the game. His (Ledonne’s) views on film and games are also interesting.

A quote and some commentary after the jump… because I always wanted to say “after the jump.”

“I understood outright that if I wanted to write a book it would be pretty evenly accepted even if it contained some critical points, people would still regard it as an acceptable form of communication,” he said. “But saying the same or similar things in a game is both so new and so outside of the context of what people are used to looking at a video game for.

“This is a medium in which people use to drown out a few hours of their life after they get home from work or something. This is not the place you turn to for a challenging, moral program.”

All I have to say, really, is to give the medium a few more years and people will begin to see it less as “just games” and they will take it for what it is. The impact of games will speak for itself.

And I’m looking forward to more socio-political activity from the homebrew sector. Make history, not money, kids! (Well, make some money, too… I don’t want you to starve.)

(Source: Kotaku)