R
ecently, the Slamdance Festival, under pressure from sponsors, kicked out a finalist in the competition under pressure from corporate sponsors. That finalist was Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, a low-tech game in which you play as Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, the perpetrators of the Columbine murders in 1999. The game weaves dialogue together gathered from news reports, from Eric or Dylan’s journal, and so on, though the gameplay itself is fairly atrocious. Apparently the second stage of the game involves playing one of the two boys in Hell populated by cultural and pop cultural figures from present and past (ever wanted to hang out with Mega Man, Ronald Reagan, John Lennon, and Nietzsche?), but I didn’t have the patience to get that far myself. The game sucks, make no mistake, though the content is at least a little compelling.
Regardless of the artistic merit, the facts as I understand them are that Slamdance had actively courted the creator of SCM RPG! to enter it into the festival, which then judged it to be a finalist before bending over for the corporations and shredding their credibility by removing it from the competition. Imagine Dominoes Pizza deciding it objected to the theme of Brokeback Mountain and telling the Academy Awards to remove it. Imagine them doing it after it was already a finalist.
SCM RPG!’s creator, Daniele Ledonne, said of the festival’s organizers, “I don’t want to paint them as the villain in this. I don’t think the real issue is a couple of guys at Slamdance who decided to reject my game, it’s the larger pressures placed on them.”
He’s much more understanding about it than I would be, and I think he’s gotten it wrong. The corporate sponsors aren’t the villains here. They’re certainly not the good guys, but they’re doing what corporations are supposed to do: Look out for their own interests. They’re sponsoring the festival to benefit themselves and it behooves them to look after their own interests. There’s no story there.
The story is that festival organizers whoring the festival out and not taking responsibility for their actions. They wanted SCM RPG! in the festival, SCM RPG! was promoted to a finalist, and they, and they alone made the choice to kick SCM RPG! out. I understand they were under enormous pressure. That doesn’t excuse it. Life’s hard. You have to make choices, and sometimes living up to your responsibilities comes with a cost. A festival that’s supposed to promote independent movies and games comes across as pretty laughable when sponsors can simply have something removed that they don’t care for.
Today, Jonathan Blow, creator of another Slamdance finalist called Braid, announced that he’s pulling his game out in protest. I want to applaud Jonathan, as Raph has just done (you write too damn fast and well, Raph). I know Jonathan was looking forward to Slamdance and agonized a bit over the decision to pull out, and that he did so for the sake of principle, as he isn’t a big fan of SCM RPG! Three cheers for him! It’d be great to see other finalists follow suit, though I don’t think there’s any ethical imperative to do so.
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January 8th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
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January 18th, 2007 at 10:47 am
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January 6th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Ryan Shwayder
There are certain things that are sacred that you can’t make light of for many years. Columbine, 9/11, etc. If the creators actually intended this to be artistic, I wouldn’t mind it, but it’s very obviously meant because they are jackasses (read the description of the game, for example).
As someone who went to the school at the time, I do find myself somewhat offended by the way they portray it (and I tend to be offended by next to nothing). Again, if it were presented differently in a way that wasn’t obviously meant to offend, I’d have no issue.
I’m glad that they kicked it out, because a) the game sucks, and b) it was created for the same reason that people run around with really expensive leather clothes with spikes and crap in them (for attention and to be different).
January 6th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Zell
Note that it appears that financial pressure was, in fact, either absent or not of overwhelming importance:
http://www.watercoolergames.org/archives/000718.shtml
January 7th, 2007 at 12:20 am
Matt
I don’t think you’ve played the game, Ryan. I didn’t get the sense, at all, that they intended to be jackasses. And if was such jackassery, why did the game make it to the finals in the first place? The game is meant, I believe, to mock the way our society romanticizes violence. It’s ironic, not worshipful.
January 7th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Ryan Shwayder
It’s not necessarily worshipful, but it is intended to be offensive. I did a quick checkup and looked at the OLD website, which is what completely offended me in the first place. Here’s some of the poor taste that the site originally displayed, which is why I feel this game was NOT made artistically, and instead to offend:
Umm, yeah. “Fuckheads.” For one, a vast majority of those killed were NOT the jocks who taunted anyone. Most of them were extremely good people, and would never be described as “fuckheads” by anyone, including those who were made fun of by others at the school.
Also, not at all cool to say when you’re talking about real people who died.
http://web.archive.org/web/20050530233744/http://www.columbinegame.com/
January 7th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Matt
Lots of things are offensive to lots of people. Cartoons of Mohammed are offensive to some Muslims. Sexual images are offensive to many conservative people, as is foul language. I don’t find SCM RPG! offensive in the least, for instance, while you apparently do.
Once a festival that’s intended to promote independent games starts letting corporate sponsors dictate what content will be part of it, that festival’s integrity is completely gone as far as I’m concerned.
–matt
January 7th, 2007 at 1:45 pm
Ryan Shwayder
“Once a festival that’s intended to promote independent games starts letting corporate sponsors dictate what content will be part of it, that festival’s integrity is completely gone as far as I’m concerned.”
That, I agree with.
January 7th, 2007 at 3:41 pm
Psychochild
Geez, Ryan, cutting and pasting replies.
Anyway, the decision to remove the game wasn’t about sponsorship, but rather one person’s decision because of “a personal decision based on moral grounds” according to that article. Many other people working at the conference don’t agree with the decision, it seems.
One thing to consider, Ryan, is that this game wasn’t meant for you. It’s meant for people who were far removed from the situation and only got the filtered bits through the evening TV news. And, I certainly hope you don’t think that the only valid criteria for releasing a work is “nobody can be offended”, because you should get out of any creative industry and go flip burgers; no, wait, that offends some people, too.
But, seriously, you are not the target audience. Which is fine, because you don’t need the game to inform you of what went on. But, unfortunately, lots of people do.
Take care,
January 8th, 2007 at 1:59 am
Iruen
“Left Behind: Eternal Forces” is fine enough for being sold in supermarkets and this game is removed from a Festival that, let’s admit it, won’t reach as many people as Wallmart in their wildest dreams, due to offending people sensibilities?
At least this game seems to be somehow sarcastic over what caused such an attack, but Left Behind just looks like the guys who made it are actually serious about it.
January 9th, 2007 at 1:08 pm
Ben
“There are certain things that are sacred that you can’t make light of for many years. Columbine, 9/11…”
Ryan, I think you’ll find at the foundation of American principles the exact opposite of that statement. NOTHING can be too sacred, there is no such thing as too sacred. Once you give that immunity to one idea, it’s a quick slippery slope to burning books and branding homosexuals. That may be sensationalist, but it’s an easy logical path.
You don’t have to agree with an artists vision or content to agree with his or her right to make that statement. You claim it was obviously intended to do nothing other than offend, but even if that is the case you cannot discount it’s right to be, or the creators right to offend with it. Many people have argued, and I would agree, that it’s the unpopular and offensive ideas that MOST need the protections American freedom offers.
Of course, if the game was removed from the festival for lack of quality, because it didn’t belong, that would be one thing. It’s patently obvious in this situation that the game did not suffer from that lack in the eyes of the judges. Having made it to the finals, it was removed for other reasons. Whether or not those reasons were motivated by pressure from the sponsors we might never know. Regardless, the whole situation stinks of censorship, which is about as un-American as you’ll ever get.
January 9th, 2007 at 1:14 pm
Michael Teplitsky
I bow to those who pulled their games from the festival in protest.
January 9th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
Matt
More games are pulling out in protest as well. I read about a couple this morning though I can’t find the link at the moment.
January 9th, 2007 at 1:19 pm
Martin Espinoza
“There are certain things that are sacred that you can’t make light of for many years.”
What? There are no such things. In fact your use of the word sacred is quite telling in and of itself; you are caught up in nearly (or even perhaps literally) religious fervor.
But even more applicable to this particular event, he is not making light of the event. He developed the game specifically to make a statement about games as art and social commentary. The fact that you are complaining about it proves two things: one, that you are “part of the problem” when it comes to protection of the first amendment, and two, that you really don’t understand freedom of speech or the reason that it is encoded in our constitution.
January 9th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
WH
I wondered when someone was going to call that guy out for being a religious nutcase. You and I are totally on the same line of thought in that one.
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” - Mahatma Ghandi
January 9th, 2007 at 5:13 pm
JW
You guys did the right thing.
January 10th, 2007 at 2:17 pm
popo
For a festival that’s supposed to be “on the edge” this is turning into one enormous embarassment.
First off, its censorship, plain and simple.
Secondly, banning a game for being too violent removes all possibility that video games
have the potential to make an artistic statement. Afterall, when Cronenberg makes a violent film
the critical response always runs along the lines of: Yes, its violent, but its art.
If videogames are not afforded the same latitude by the festival, then the festival is by nature
denying their potential to be art. Needless to say — this is a bizarre platform for a
festival promoting the genre.
Thirdly, Slamdance is supposed to be “on the edge”. Its supposed to be the festival that
is what Sundance ‘once was’ — before the big studios, corporate overlords and big brand
sponsors stepped in. Banning a game whose subject matter runs contrary to family values
is hardly …well.. “edgy”.
What will be left in the wreckage of this festival (after all those with any artistic
credibility leave) is a group of game-makers who:
a) Have no artistic credibility
b) Are selfish
c) Are morally high-handed sorts like the Christian Right and the Family Values crowd.
End Result?
All I can say is “nice festival guys”. You could have become something important in the gaming world.
Anyone who stays in the festival should be profoundly embarrassed.
I sure wouldn’t want to win this year.