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By Carlos Macias
By Carlos Macias
Only on the Internet can you put people’s attention up for ransom.
A game based on the Virginia Tech massacre was posted on Flash-based game site Newgrounds.com on May 12.
Soon after the Australian creator, Ryan Lambourn, posted the game, he made a statement that he’d take it off…for a price.
Lambourn, in a sick display of disregard for the victims, asks for a $1,000 to take it down from the site, $2,000 to remove it from his personal site and $3,000 for him to publicly apologize for making the game.
This makes me wearisome of all the people this man is disrespecting.
He knows what he’s doing is wrong, as evident in all the statements he’s made, and thinks he should profit from it.
The real problem with such news is that once the mainstream media gets a hold of it, it will just add fuel to the heated argument that video games are evil.
No more encouraging news of guns traded for video games or dancing games as exercise. All of them will be replaced with one man’s recreation of a tragic event.
Barely a month has passed since the Virginia Tech Massacre happened and already a game recreating the events has surfaced.
Similar links may be made to “Super Columbine Shooter RPG,” a game based on the Columbine shootings in 1999, but it wasn’t made with the intent to blackmail people.
“V-Tech Rampage,” Lambourn’s game, puts the player in the role of Cho Seung-Hui as he plans and executes the shootings. It’s a crude game that all the while has Collective Soul’s “Shine” repeating in the background as you play. Lambourn points out on his personal site that it was one of Cho’s favorite songs.
Based on what he says, it seems like he made the game as a sort of tribute to Cho, rather than taking anything else into account.
There’s no mention of wrongdoing or all the people that it affects. It’s just a simple game reducing a grave massacre to a simple shooting gallery.
Shooting games are by far the most popular types of games made, but they’re usually of the science fiction sort.
Clear lines are drawn between good characters and bad characters. There are clearly two factions divided between heroes trying to save the world and those trying to annihilate it.
This Virginia Tech game has neither, and the creator makes no statement with his creation. The only statement he makes is that he is knowingly offending people and wants money to stop.
Luckily, no one has taken the bait so far, leaving his banking account empty.