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Violent video games again in cross hairs
(Omaha World-Herald (NE) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Sep. 19--The debate on whether entertainment media reflect or cause violence flared anew after last week's Montreal college campus shooting.
The alleged gunman in Wednesday's Columbine-like shooting had written in a blog, or Web log, that he liked to play "Super Columbine Massacre RPG!," among other video games. Before killing himself, the gunman killed one and injured 20.
In recent years, the video game industry has come under fire by parental groups and politicians.
Last year, the American Psychological Association called for a reduction in violence in video games and other interactive media marketed to children and youth. It cited research showing that exposure to violence in video games increases aggressive thoughts, aggressive behavior and angry feelings among youth.
But the Columbine game's creator, reached by phone at the youth community center where he works in Alamosa, Colo., and people at Omaha video game businesses say focusing on violent video games is unfair.
Danny Ledonne said he created the game not to encourage Columbine copycat shootings, but to prompt reflection on modern society as a whole.
Players assume the identities of Columbine High School gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as they plan and carry out the attack. In the second part of the game, they land in hell. There, a battle against demons and Satan begins in a shoot'em-up style game reminiscent of the popular video game "Doom." The gunmen realize they're stuck -- so they check back with life on earth.
Ledonne then features quotes from real people opining on what led to the shooting -- everything from the Ten Commandments' absence at the school to ineffective gun laws.
Ledonne's goal was to show that Columbine became a political platform for some groups, while tougher issues, such as unchecked hatred, were ignored.
"I certainly don't condone it," Ledonne said of the Montreal shootings. "A lot of people like my video game. Unfortunately, some of them don't have whatever social adaptations (they need) to understand where the game ends and reality begins."
Ledonne was a sophomore at a rural Colorado high school on April 20, 1999, when Harris and Klebold killed 13 people, then themselves, at their Littleton, Colo., high school.
Ledonne, who was bullied and felt depressed and suicidal, said the shootings were "one of the most formative events" of his life.
"Columbine actually forced me to look at what was going on in my life and look at what I needed to change," he said.
He graduated, earned a degree in filmmaking, and now works as a youth mentor, showing kids how to make video games, films or music.
"I'm a firm believer that if you can express yourself, you're going to prevent the type of malevolent actions like these," he said.
One video game researcher agreed that no single video game usually leads to such extreme violence.
But Kimveer Gill, the alleged gunman in the Montreal shooting, was clearly imitating the Columbine shooting and using the video game to see how another attack was carried out, said Craig Anderson, a distinguished professor of psychology at Iowa State University in Ames.
Anderson, an expert in human aggression and the influence of violent video games, said someone who commits an extreme act of aggression will have three or more of the risk factors, such as feeling bullied or observing that physical aggression is used to get one's way.
"But we can say in general that exposure to violent video games is certainly a risk factor," Anderson said. "It increases the likelihood of aggression or violent behavior."
Of course, not all people who play violent video games turn violent.
Pat Johnston, a store manager at an Omaha game shop, said his reaction to the Montreal gunman's affinity for violent video games was "So what?"
"I played all those games too," Johnston said. "I'm not going around shooting people."
He said that although violent video games can give kids ideas, most people use video games as an outlet for aggression or an escape from reality.
Still, games such as "Super Columbine Massacre" aren't what most people are playing.
Johnston, like other game store employees contacted, said he had never heard of or played "Super Columbine Massacre."
Video game researchers described it as a fringe game, paling in comparison to commercial blockbusters such as "Grand Theft Auto" and "Doom 3," which sell millions of copies.
Ledonne said his Columbine game has been downloaded at least 40,000 times from his Web site and at least another 60,000 times from another site.
Online games typically are produced by amateurs and are lower quality than games played on console systems such as PlayStation and produced by big budget media companies.
Online games also tackle taboo topics that wouldn't fly commercially for fear of societal backlash. In one, a player assumes the identity of Lee Harvey Oswald to shoot President John F. Kennedy. In another, players shoot immigrants crossing the U.S. border.
Reality-based games such as "Super Columbine Massacre" may be shocking, but they are legitimate forms of artistic expression, said Ian Bogost, an assistant professor at Georgia Institute of Technology, who researches video game criticism.
The multi-billion-dollar video game industry is just the latest scapegoat, said Ryan Miller, vice president of operations at Gamers, Inc., an Omaha-based video game retail chain.
Bill Goodman, a La Vista game player, agreed: "I sometimes think that the video game industry or even the movie industry sometimes gets a bum rap."
Bogost said video games such as the Columbine game are disturbing because reality can be.
"It was meant to give people a perspective on what it is like to be in the heads of killers," Bogost said. "We identify them just as monsters, and we refuse to recognize that there's any rationale (to their thinking)."
Copyright (c) 2006, Omaha World-Herald, Neb.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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