V-TECH RAMPAGE

May 15, 2007 10:20 PM

Is it 2000 bucks worth of offensive? A Sydney youth who has created an uproar with an online game based on the Virginia Tech massacre, says he will remove the game if he receives $US2000 in "donations". More via Melbourne Age
posted by mattoxic (31 comments total)

Ahhh, but it seems he was only joking
posted by mattoxic at 10:26 PM on May 15, 2007

But is the game any good?

I mean if it sucks, there's no point in people drumming up venom over it, or getting their panties in a wad. It won't fade into obscurity cuz it was always obscure. Doing things like posting it to the Blue or Slashdotting it just fuels the fire here. If it's good though, I'd like to try it. I'm just not interested enough to actually click on "play this game" cuz most games I've tried at New Grounds have been for shit.

I recall a few years back there was a game where you were a terrorist on the streets of some Middle Eastern city and you were wired to explode. I suppose enough angry people came along and threw enough money at someone (or threatened to take enough money away from someone) in order to have it censored, cuz I can't find that game anymore. In hindsight though, that game didn't glamorize the concept of being a terrorist bomb. If anything it applauded the absurdity of the concept, and brought how insignificant an act it is into sharp relief. I mean at best you could take out maybe three or four other people, and then you were gone too. Game over.

If this game actually makes some kinda statement, or hell if it's just entertaining and fun, then let it be. However, the fact this programmer is purposefully using the VTmassacre as a blatant attempt at being noticed? Doesn't encourage me to even download the game and try it out.
posted by ZachsMind at 10:32 PM on May 15, 2007

I want a game where Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold go up against Seung-Hui Cho and then in a surprise ending Kip Kinkel mows them all down with an AK-47.
posted by ao4047 at 10:35 PM on May 15, 2007

I'm wondering what Collective Soul would think about it.
posted by jimmythefish at 10:37 PM on May 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

What a terrible thing to do to a good song.
posted by T.D. Strange at 10:41 PM on May 15, 2007

It's shite. Like the columbine game

ZachsMind makes a good point, this is just like pay the 35k or the puppy gets it, but unfunny- and frankly most are probably too numb to be offended. Gets his 15 minutes of fame though.
posted by mattoxic at 10:41 PM on May 15, 2007

$2,000.00 US dollars = 32,080,000.00 Vietnamese Dong

So lets 32 million of us each send him a single Dong coin.
posted by orthogonality at 10:50 PM on May 15, 2007

The game is awful. Blocky graphics and painfully slow gameplay. Oh, and it's a fairly tasteless idea too.
posted by MrMustard at 10:51 PM on May 15, 2007

a couple of script kiddies could do the same thing that $2k would, why would anyone even pull this crap
posted by caddis at 10:53 PM on May 15, 2007

But is the game any good?

This is so far from being a relevant consideration that the light from it will only reach this location long after our species has vanished from the face of the earth.

The guy's an ass, it seems, but there are an awful lot of asses out there. It's bad for one's health to get too awfully worked up over today's assharvest, because tomorrow will bring another bumper crop.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:57 PM on May 15, 2007 [3 favorites]

"It's shite. Like the columbine game"

*doubletake*

Huh de bah wudzah?!

[rough translation: there was a Columbine game?]

...

I just saw a preview of the upcoming NBC remake of Bionic Woman and I'm thinking that's shite. Then I find myself comparing the idea of remaking a 1970s short-lived novelty spinoff to this. I was gonna patently refuse to watch Bionic Woman when it broadcasts, but now I'm thinking maybe I'll give it a try. I mean, there are worse ideas than remaking Bionic Woman. Not many, but at least now I know there's two: a game about the Columbine shooting and a game about Virginia Tech shooting.
posted by ZachsMind at 11:00 PM on May 15, 2007

Super Columbine Massacre RPG! I'm pretty sure it was it was linked here, too.
posted by puke & cry at 11:03 PM on May 15, 2007 [1 favorite]

It was linked twice, actually.
posted by puke & cry at 11:06 PM on May 15, 2007

"This is so far from being a relevant consideration that the light from it will only reach this location long after our species has vanished from the face of the earth."

Just for the record, you're comparing light from a celestial body in heaven to humanity's acknowledgment of its existence. We may be more relevant to ourselves, but that's not a fair and objective measurement of relevancy.

For the record, a star's light can emit heat greater than 200,000,000 Kelvin, shine for hundreds of thousands if not millions of years, are quite plentiful, and amazing sources of great energy.

Human beings came up with pop music. How are we possibly more relevant to the universe than light from a distant star? I'm just suggesting you re-examine your perspective a wee bit.
posted by ZachsMind at 11:11 PM on May 15, 2007

*shakes fist, howls*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:31 PM on May 15, 2007

How many video games are based on war?
Going to war is ten thousand times worse than going mental in a school.
But video games about war are OK?
And this isn't?

I don't get it.
posted by dickasso at 1:47 AM on May 16, 2007

I don't agree that war is quite "ten thousand times worse" than going mental in a school, but he does make a point. Would a flight sim where one of the missions has you piloting the Enola Gay be tasteless? Where exactly is the line?
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 3:37 AM on May 16, 2007

Flying an American plane is OK, pretty sure about that.
posted by mattoxic at 3:43 AM on May 16, 2007

Flying an American plane is OK, pretty sure about that.

At the WTC?
posted by Shave at 4:17 AM on May 16, 2007

Will someone please tell me the socially acceptible amount of offense I should feel about this? I mean, it's nice he put a dollar figure on it, so I can quantify it some how.

I was reading a piece recently about how Americans have forgotten the difference between grieving for a public tragedy and grieving for a private tragedy. I wish I could remember where. The difference, IIRC, comes down to how you grieve for a public tragedy. If you try to one-up your neighbor about how much it personally affected you (effectively putting a score, numerical value, or even dollar amount on how much you can grieve; like it was some vastly inflationary Dragon Ball Z 'power level'), you're doing it wrong.
posted by Eideteker at 4:26 AM on May 16, 2007

y= 10,000 times x_worse, where x is war and y is school shooting... or was it the other way around? Man, I suck at the algebra of suffering. Is there a page on Wolfram's Mathworld that can help me on this?

I think the point is that suffering is suffering, no matter what the scope. If it's your tragedy, it looms large, no matter what. But if it's not your tragedy, it's not your job to throw yourself into fits of grief. It's your job to be there to comfort those who are suffering. "But, but, I knew someone who once went to VT!" Are they dead? Maybe you should call them up and make sure they're ok, and that they don't know anyone who was still at Virginia Tech and was shot. Help them grieve. Don't be a drama queen.
posted by Eideteker at 4:32 AM on May 16, 2007

NewScientist has an interesting article this month about colliding Universes(!) - if there are multiple Universes, they could be colliding with each other leaving tell-tell signs - since other Universes have different types of matter and laws, they may go mostly un-noticed. Some research here.
posted by stbalbach at 5:30 AM on May 16, 2007

Sorry, the above post was in the wrong thread.
posted by stbalbach at 5:32 AM on May 16, 2007

Ironically amusing, though!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:54 AM on May 16, 2007

Jenga writes "I've always been curious about how that happens. Posting a comment in the wrong thread that is."

Too many open tabs in Firefox.
posted by Bugbread at 7:33 AM on May 16, 2007

I'm tempted to fly to Australia, shoot five of his friends, and then tell him to make a game out of it.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:36 AM on May 16, 2007

Ethereal Bligh writes "I'm tempted to fly to Australia, shoot five of his friends, and then tell him to make a game out of it."

"However, if you pay me $2,000, I won't."
posted by Bugbread at 7:40 AM on May 16, 2007

I like how you think.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:46 AM on May 16, 2007

A mediocre flash game based on horrific real-world events? On Newgrounds? My oh my, what an original idea!
posted by hypocritical ross at 9:56 AM on May 16, 2007

Good point about the war-based videogames -- pretty much any combat flight simulator will feature "heroic" USAF bombings of miscellanous countries.

I remember reading a critique of TV news that stated the rough principle of outrage a death would cause, something along the lines of 1 dead American = 5 dead Britons = 50 dead Spaniards = 1000 dead Serbians = 10k dead Iraqis = 100k dead Indonesians = 1m dead Rwandans.

I know MetaFilter is based out of the US so it's to be somewhat expected, but it sure feels like that around here sometimes too.
posted by modernnomad at 12:36 PM on May 16, 2007 [1 favorite]

Reminds me of Police Quest for some reason - probably the "you didn't do something you should have, so the whole game ends now" thing. It also reminds me a bit of Bruce Lee on the C64.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:53 PM on May 19, 2007