Rachel Easterbrook | Gaming gone bad

Taboo,” “risky,” “disgusting” and “atrociously realistic” are just a few of the reactions by mainstream press, parents and gamers alike to the upcoming video game School Shooter: North American Tour 2012. I would characterize my reaction as utter repulsion. Perhaps that has something to due with the fact that the proclaimed goal of the game is to “become the best school shooter ever.”

This game, which — for you gamers out there — functions as a modification to the first-person shooting game Half-Life 2, is an attempt to virtually recreate and rehash the shooting incidents at Columbine High School, Virginia Tech University and Northern Illinois University for the pleasure of players.

The game is completely appalling, not to mention disgusting. And as if the premise itself was not enough to repulse, the developers take distaste to another level with their description of School Shooter on its website. They claim to be a “small group of people dedicated to bringing you — the player — the best school shooting experience an angsty little shit as yourself could ever experience.”

While controversies over extreme violence are nothing new in the gaming world, School Shooter has rightfully attracted nearly unprecedented attention and outrage nationwide due to its sensitive subject matter.

As rising Engineering sophomore Surya Murty says, “There are other video games out on the market that are as violent and gruesome. The difference is that this game encourages the massacre of innocent children and teachers. Rather than attacking supposed ‘bad guys’, the targets are defenseless victims.”

It didn’t surprise me when I learned that a fervor of similar reactions throughout March and “threatening mail” spurred the original host of the game, ModDB, to remove their support of the game. According to their press release, ModDB asserted that they “disagree with the [game] but at the same time believe in freedom of speech and the unique ability … developers should have to create games (good-or-bad).”

Despite the fact that ModDB takes an almost sickeningly neutral position toward the game, their assertion that developers have a constitutional right to free speech certainly holds water. Nonetheless, the Pennsylvania State House of Representatives is in the process of drafting a bill to prevent the release of the game.

Rising Engineering sophomore Spencer Leigh disagrees with this potential bill: “Is this idea disrespectful? Yes. However, it is part of freedom of expression. I don’t think we should be attempting to censor the company if they want to release this game … It’s perverse, but it’s the rights of developers to create games with whatever premise they like.”

I agree that attempts to prevent the game’s creation and release are unwarranted on a legal basis. Just as with other disturbingly violent video games, there remains an important distinction between virtual acts of violence and those committed in real life.

With that said, I don’t believe that this game itself will encourage students to perform acts of violence in real life. However, School Shooter is wholly inappropriate for a variety of other factors. It stands to desensitize students to the very real issue of violence in schools and to turn national tragedies into just another game.

Descriptions on the game’s website also make it clear that the game will glorify not only the shootings themselves, but also the individuals who committed these crimes. I was horrified when I found, while browsing the game’s website, a section boasting that players will be provided “scores of students to shoot at while they run away,” extra points for “every horrible and vengeful murder” committed and “bonuses for things such as headshots.”

Tantamount to the desensitization to violence and glorification of spree killers is the fact that School Shooter is disrespectful to the victims and families of the victims of actual incidents that took place.

As rising College sophomore Molly Sloss puts it: “Depicting violence is one thing, but depicting real violence against real people whose families still feel real pain is another.”

With this surprising insensitivity, I can’t help but ask what’s next in the gaming world — a game that simulates terror attacks? “Become the best plane hijacker ever!”

Rachel Easterbrook is a rising College sophomore and a Daily Pennsylvanian copy editor from Sarasota, Fla. Her email address is reast@sas.upenn.edu.

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