News > VTech Rampage Creator Posts 'Ransom,' SCMRPG Creator Responds
May 15, 2007
Recently, a flash game about the Virginia Tech shooting showed up on Newgrounds.com. Since then, opinions have been voiced in anger, calling the game distasteful and disgraceful. In response, the game's creator, Ryan Lambourn has posted the following message on his website:
ATTENTION ANGRY PEOPLE:
I will take this game down from newgrounds if
the donation amount reaches $1000 US,
i'll take it down from here if it reaches $2000 US,
and i will apologize if it reaches $3000 US.
So, is this an e-ransom note? Is this guy just trying to make a quick buck and 15 minutes of fame - or did he try to say something of value?
Some portions of the game make me lean towards the latter, such as the sequence where Cho made a video - AFTER beginning his killing spree. The ease with which the player is able to avoid capture, then massacre the entire student body in Norris Hall has meaning, as well. It all suggests that there is nothing stopping events like this from happening in the future, and calls into question the security at institutions of higher learning, or any public place, for that matter. Additionally, voice-overs such as "nice kill, Cho," "massive damage," "bullet rush" and "50+ combo" satirize the immediate press assumption that Cho was a gamer, fueled by violent media.
Otherwise, the game is just a mindless shooter, and it is quite possible that any analysis of the game will read more into it than the creator ever intended.
In response to the game and subsequent controversy, the creator of Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, Danny Ledonne, had this to say in a May 15th comment on Lambourn's site:
"I just finished playing ‘VTech Rampage’ and have some mixed thoughts.
1) There are elements of factual synthesis to the game. Creator Ryan Lambourn has a sense of humor (morbid, certainly - but not beyond the recognition of the guy who made Super Columbine Massacre RPG) that arises in the quips uttered by Cho and by police officers that apprehend him. The use of Cho’s identity as “?” is found in the upstairs of Norris Hall and there are loose references to events as outlined in the media’s reports following the shooting. Also the use of Collective Soul (hardly the “angry rock music” that one would imagine from a mass murderer) provides an interesting counterpoint to the game’s violence. Whether this was intentional on Ryan’s part or whether this was merely the result of Cho’s favorite song as reported by the press remains up for speculation.
2) It would appear to me that Ryan has no intention of doing much other than making money and gaining immediate recognition after the Virginia Tech shooting. Inevitably, comparisons between SCMRPG and VTech Rampage are being made right now. Some bloggers despise both games equally whereas others recognize a level of commentary that SCMRPG attempted which was not evident in VTR. For myself I wish to point out that SCMRPG was never a for-profit endeavor and thus I never posted statements like that which is on the VTR game’s homepage:
“I will take this game down from newgrounds if the donation amount reaches $1000 US, i’ll take it down from here if it reaches $2000 US, and i will apologize if it reaches $3000 US.”
This quote seems to indicate that Ryan has no intention of leaving the game up permanently or having a channel for discourse (as I have done) but instead has unfortunately chosen an artist’s statement that reads more like a hostage note. Following Ryan’s demand, would anyone accept an apology made after a $3000 collection check? I’m not sorry for making SCMRPG nor should Ryan be sorry for making VTR; to imply that his apologies can be purchased for a few thousand dollars truly cheapens whatever efforts he is attempting to make.
3) While many are bemoaning how the game industry should distance itself from homebrew games, I am torn as to whether I should distance myself and my game from Ryan and his. I wrote after the Virginia Tech shooting:
“Societies throughout history have dealt with pain, tragedy, and suffering with art in a multitude of forms and ours is no exception. There will be poems about this shooting, there will be books about it, films about it, paintings about it, and indeed I do not believe the medium of interactive electronic media should be excluded from exploring the sorrows and challenges of the human experience.”
Now I am forced to confront my own words by asking if the VTR game does ANY of what I outlined as the “exploration” of “sorrows and challenges of the human experience.” I would like to ask us to consider not whether a game about the Virginia Tech shooting SHOULD be made but how we might go about making a game that accomplishes more than VTR does with the subject matter."
Interesting. Could we be seeing a more sophisticated and meaningful video game depiction of this event in the future? It would be nice, because as it stands, Lambourn's work only provides ammunition to anti-gaming legislation.
*Eddie R Inzauto - Senior Editor, GameWad.com
