May 18, 2007
The furor over V-Tech Rampage, the amateur game based on the Virginia Tech massacre, continues to build.As reported by Earth Times, an Australian Communications Minister Senator Helen Coonan said that the game's creator, Ryan Lambourn, should seek help, and that her agency will launch an official inquiry into V-Tech Rampage. Said Coonan:
The individual responsible for the game is using a terrible tragedy to draw attention to himself and his work. It is in very poor taste and the person concerned may want to consider getting some professional help.
Comments
"Very sad huh? Hopefully Howard will be booted out of office this year."
To be honest, as bad as Howard is, the alternative is worse. Questionable
motives vs complete ineptitude. I will be surprised if his massive election
winning streak stopped because of Kevin Rudd. I have very little faith
in the competency of the ALP, esspecially Gillard and former members
like Latham and Beazley. But still, we can hope that things will get better,
but we are in abit of a bad spot.
"Maybe then we’ll see an end to this BS."
Thats a pretty BIG maybe :P
As for this issue: there is only one way to deal with this, and thats to let it
blow over and be forgotten. Its just lots of attention seekers.
-Twixn-
After all, this is the same cow who said Australians are "happy" with 1.5mbps connection speeds. Trying to censor something just because it doesn't comply with popular & conventional ideas is called being a dictator. However there are no laws which prohibit creating "unpopular & unconventional" content. People just need to accept that others have a right to think differently. See, the politicians here usually go along with what ever is popular in the media. If something is given heaps of coverage then it'll be dealt with. However if you have something 10 times more offensive & it doesn't receive any media attention, they won't go near it.
Very sad huh? Hopefully Howard will be booted out of office this year. Maybe then we'll see an end to this BS.
True…BUT whose to say that someone wont do something because of your actions…..*wink wink*
You are giving this guy way too much credit. Maybe it's because I've gone beyond being cynical, but the guy just created a game for lulz and got the attention he wanted. It's not about anything the majority of the people here has talked about--censorship, Freedom of Speech, "rights,"--he just wanted a laugh, pure and simple. I don't even understand why everyone is beating that dead horse.
Then again, you could be right. Maybe this is all an attempt at social commentary and at how everyone in the world are hypocrites because we watch the news everybody getting killed in Iraq, but don't we already know this? Yeah, it's hypocritical that people feel more outrage at the Virginia Tech shootings than just about everything that's happening else in the world. The only real solution I can think of is to turn the entire world into a bloody warzone so that basically everyone will suffer. We definitely won't have to worry about hypocrisy then since everyone will have a sense of death.
[That's the main reason I stopped watching the news really--you can only stand so much crap before it takes a toll on you. Am I an ignorant American for doing this? Possibly, although I still get my news elsewhere, but eh.]
It's sort of like what's going on with Opie & Anthony--it's not about Freedom of Speech since XM was under no pressure from the government to cancel them. Were they pressured by other forces? Certainly. You can protest about XM firing them because they weren't "brave" enough to keep them, but it's far from censorship. Or at least government censorship anyway.
None of this really matters in the long run though. He basically got the last laugh by causing everyone [and I mean EVERYONE] to get up in arms for something that's basically crap, and there's not much anyone can do about the situation. And I'm sure it'll happen again and the same stupid, meaningless arguments from all sides with continue, and the brat will laugh his way into internet fame.
Ah well.
Censorship exists in every single country on Earth. As an Australian, I say this: yes the guy who created the game is a douchebag, but so is Coonan & the rest of the Howard government. Censorship is BS but it's something everybody has to learn to deal with. If you want to see harsh censorship at it's finest, take a trip to China. You can't even type Democracy into a search engine or chatroom. Hell what about North Korea? The internet is banned for regular citizens all together.
The UK, Canada, New Zealand tc. all employ regimes wereby media can be banned. The US would have to be on of the very few countries in the world to not have any laws regulating the sale & distribution of games or movies. People act like Australia is the only country wereby media can be banned. It's not. Germany is far more strict with games. German releases are very regularly censored. But not so in Australia.on average you're looking at 1 or 2 games a year refused classification. Not a great big drama. I hate censorship as much as the next man, but foreigners (Americans in particular) love perpetuating hyperbole when it comes to this issue.
Regardless of what uninformed sources on Australian politics may tell you (I.E Gamespot) we DON'T ban games left, right & center. It's trashy hyperbole.
That being said, yes the creator of this game is an attention seeking little worm HOWEVER it's not Coonans moral responsibity to stick her nose in & attempt to censors his game. Australia is an amazing, liberal place to live so don't let bogus news articles let you think otherwise. Ok I admit, sometimes the government goes overboard with regulation. But not neccesarily censorship.
Oh, and I call bullshit on the whole, "I wasn't serious about the donations" line. If he wasn't serious, why set up a PayPal account?
@USA Hater:
Enough already. You're the real hypocrite here, not us. Your whole stink is that the lives of Americans are made out to be more important than everyone elses, but the fact that you choose to blow off and not care about the deaths of the V-Tech students simply because it's on the news all the time means that you are doing the same thing in reverse. Maybe someone will make a Flash game about killing Iraqi babies with a helicopter gunship and you might see where we're coming from.
In short, the world isn't fair, so get over it, stay on topic and try to write something constructive.
You want to defeat this kid? Ignore him. He's only reacting to your attention. Forget public inquiries, forget media reporting. Just ignore him. He has the right to make this game. We have the right to ignore him. Simple.
As I've said before:
I was ready to dismiss the game as a typical /b/tard attempt to mock suffering. Then I stopped and thought about it. There were a lot of references to the events and Cho's writing (Nice one, McBeef!). It makes me think maybe this is really, on some level, a commentary on the media saturation.
Look at the way this is being played out now: this Sydney kid is being demonized for making a game about a tragedy, and for offering to take it down for money. People claim he's blackmailing people. Here's the thing, though: He's not shoving it down anyone's throat.
People are seeking it out, then blaming him for what they saw. People are saying no-one should see it while giving it more publicity than the creator could ever achieve on his own. People are claiming he's profiting from the tragedy, but exactly how much money did the tv stations make from their minute-by-minute, weeks long coverage of the tragedy? Every half hour a new revelation, a new piece of information to feed the masses.
There's more at play than this game. This is about media hypocrisy. More, it's about our own hypocrisy. We who watched the news casts, the updates, the tv specials on these brutal, senseless murders and their perpetrator. We who were entertained by the spectacle. It's not about some "internet hero" making a stupid game. It's about us.
The game is hosted on a server in Philadelphia, if she demands the author take it down I'm sure he can get one of his minions who lives outside of australia to resubmit it (hell I'd do the same thing)
I'm more disturbed by how politicians here in Australia are continually acting like the "thought police". Senator Helen Coonan is going to launch an inquiry into the issue - and then what? Is she going to try and ban it? Or rather, is she just trying to look like she's "doing something" - after all, it's Federal election year here in Australia, and the polls indicate that the Coalition party running the country is looking to be voted out. More a case of political point scoring than anything else - and staying in the headlines.
I wouldn't be surprised if the government here manages to find a way to link this game with "terrorism" - they seem to do so with everything else these days.
Apparently American deaths and killings are much more important than others, instead of say 8 young children killed by a gunship in Iraq last week, that did not even get a mention on cnn.com.
As an example, you yourself said you didn't care because 150 people died in Iraq. The question you should ask yourself is 'should I care any LESS about those at VTech than those in Iraq? The truth is that neither are more or less 'important' than the other, none of them should have died.
So, yes, I too am saddened by the civilian casualties in Iraq, and no, I'm not American, and have my own opinions regarding the War in Iraq, but refusing to care because 'They do it too' is an invite into a wheel of violence and indifference that has been turning for centuries.
Kind of puts it inperspective ?
Oh and theres plenty of game were you play the right on soldier issuing death in Mexico, or killing 1000s of blacks in blackhawk down or killing the "arab" character.
Sorry this is really no different. I don't feel bad about this game at all.
Double standards. Double Dumb USA standards.
I think someone didn't get enough hugs when he was growing up.
http://www.destructoid.com/virtual-school-shootings-interviewing-two-of-...
Again, Jack Thomson, right?
She's talking about Jack Thomson, right?
(I skipped the comments, apologies if this is parroting someone)
I find comfort in the fact that 10 years from now that he will probably either be in the same situation, or worse off. I don't ever wish that on people, but this kid doesn't seem to show me that he deserves any better.
@vaminion If thats the case then these websites shouldn't bother existing at all,if their purpose is to share art and ideas but they don't like certain art ideas then they defeat the purpose of their original creation of the site to begin with.the better analogy would be "don't put up a sign saying free beer and expect no one to show up for said beer"or something to that extent.it also makes em look like a hypocrite too.
@the rest of you censorcrat wannabes if you are american and you don't support your own frigging bill of rights then maybe we should ship you off to a country that lacks those basic rights so you can appreciate them better how about the congo for starters?or iran?
If people want to call up Newgrounds ISP and complain, or contact all of their advertisers and try to get them to pull their ads from the site because it's hosting something so tasteless... great! That's essentially "voting with your pocketbook"... telling the advertisers that you won't support their products if they continue to support a game like V-Tech Rampage with their advertising dollars. That's not censorship, that's capitalism at work.
But I DO have a problem when a Government steps in and starts telling people what they can or cannot create, or publish, or host online. THAT is when rights start getting violated. If you call your governmental representatives and tell them they need to ban a game, or make laws about them, THAT is censorship, and THAT is what we need to protect against.
"but the people clamoring for his censorship enjoy the freedoms they want to revoke from him."
The second you hit private property, you give up free speech. For example, you can curse all you want at Target, but you'll be thrown out if you're obnoxious enough. The First Amendment doesn't protect you because you're on private property. It's the same with a webserver...the ISP can knock you down any time you violate the TAC, and I suspect any smart ISP has a "We can pull the plug at any time" clause just to cover their butts in cases like this.
And just like patrons can complain to the manager at Target about your cursing, I fail to see where the problem is with saying something should come down.
The person who made this game is not inciting hatred (perhaps to himself) and he is not inciting violence. No one is harmed by this game. Offended maybe, but not harmed.
If we truly desire for video games to be considered art, we have to collective fight for the right for any artist, despite their motivations, to make their art. The fact that this guys is a complete jerk and is trying to make a buck off of a tragedy is irrelevant.
Saying this person needs "psychiatric help", in my opinion is just as bad. Do we submit all people who think differently than we do to psychiatric help? He is not endangering anyone. He made a game that people don't agree with.
No inquiry was needed, as far as I am concerned. The guy made something that, from what I understand, is horribly tasteless and unpleasant. People do that all the time, this guy just did so in a way that earned him a bunch of attention, and now is getting even more.
The Interview gives it away really, we most certainly aren't talking about the brightest bulb in the showroom here. And the thing that concerns me is, like JT, the more attention he gets the more he is going to try and create more offensive stuff for more attention.
Using copyrighted music.
Other than that, he should be in the clear.
All those who commented that the 'government is doing the right thing' have it all wrong. Simply because someone's expression is not to your taste does not mean that he or she did anything wrong. This is not the government's or anyone's concern.
Bottom line - if you don't like it, don't watch it. But don't tread on the freedom to express. Just remember, it's a slippery slope from 'investigating' to 'regulating' and finally 'controlling'. And I don't want any government to 'control' my expression.
YEAH! You politicians, high profile agenda seeking massacre chasers, and organizations should be ashamed of yourselves.
....
What?
Whadda ya mean she was talking about the guy who wrote the VT shooting game and not politicians, individuals, and organizations who use and abuse the tragedies of individuals, families, and communities to push their personal, religious, and/or political agendas?
Nightwng2000
NW2K Software
i disapprove of what you say, but i will defend to the death your right to say it.
And the rest of us don't abuse that freedom to attempt a profit fro ma massacre, your point?
What exactly would an investigation consist of/lead to? It's not more complicated than douchebag exploiting a tragedy for attention (and outright financial gain), the government need not be involved.
but the people clamoring for his censorship enjoy the freedoms they want to revoke from him.
And for those calling us no better than Jack Thompson, Thompson would be working to have the entire industry wiped out for this. We're calling for the removal of one solitary game, one which was made for the sole purpose of profiting off a massacre, and worse is it's only a month or two after the actual event. It doesn't go into the tragedy, it doesn't try to get us into the heads of the killers, it is only for the "lulz". If anyone here is no better than JT, it's the kid who made this game, a massacre chaser, looking to profit from the deaths of others.
Ah, the good old government inquiry. The tool you use when you want to appear to be doing something, but don't actually want to do anything about it. You could even step it up another notch and call a Royal Commission... but I don't think this is scandalous enough to warrant that... ;)
Drug use:
http://gamepolitics.com/2007/01/24/blitz-banned/
No reason at all:
http://gamepolitics.com/2006/09/24/australian-official-thinks-bully-rati...
Even the game developers have opinions that differentiate from the rest of the world:
http://gamepolitics.com/2006/09/09/are-video-games-art/
Games like Manhunt have been banned down under.
And yet when it comes to exporting film violence, Australia allows garbage horror because, oh, I don't know it's good for the economy?:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0339840/
Australian politicians need to focus on REAL matters like their current account deficit, Australian environment problems like salinisation, Child Labor, a wide-spread use of chemical insecticides, and one that America has too, obesity. They may also have issues with air toxics, depression and suicide.
// I am not quite sure why you can't hit the enter button without your post getting posted instantly, because this doesn't happen to me. I am using Firefox. Maybe it is an IE issue? Or maybe when you hit enter the submit comment button has been selected by accident.
As for taking down the game...no...hell no, when will folks realize that not everyone has the same morals?more to the point its his art if we at gp want to censor it by taking it down then we are no fucking better than Jack Thompson and should all go buy a "I
He's Australian. The Bill of Rights doesn't apply.
you know, you're right. it's in poor taste and obviously must be removed.
while we're at it, lets get rid of everything else someone might find in poor taste. i'm sure quite a few people find that Bill of Rights to be bothersome, it should be the next to go.