RJ Layton

One, this was not at all an issue of free speech. This was a private organization that decided not to allow something to be shown at its event. There was a lot of talk about videogames being considered "second class citizens" compared to film, etc. Indeed, videogames are certainly considered in a different light from film. I, however, think that is a good thing. Videogames are their own medium. It was brought up in the backchannel that as those in the game industry we seem to have an inferiority complex when compared to film. I have to agree -- I think the signs that our medium is truly mature will not be when we have successfully emulated film but rather when we get over our collective "penis envy" of film and use the medium to achieve things that film cannot achieve. It will be mature when we ourselves consider the medium to be mature in its own right. I liken it to us as a collective moving out of our parents' basement and making it on our own.

Something that was touched upon often was the presentation of SCMRPG. Some downplayed it but I think it's an important topic. How things are presented has a large impact on how the public perceives things. Sure, as artists we'd love to say that people shouldn't judge things so quickly, but we have to face facts which is that people make immediate judgements based on how things are presented to them. SCMRPG comes to us looking like a RPG Maker game (if you've ever seen RPG Maker games) or in other words like an early RPG from the super Nintendo. In game terms, it looks something like a cartoon. Cartoons aren't bad, and can certainly be adult-oriented, but especially in this country cartoons are perceived as for children or at least family-oriented. Finally, the title screams to us in a joking fashion: Super Columbine Massacre RPG! Sure, it can be ironic, but combined with the cartoon visuals and the fact that it's about a truly tragic incident makes it a bit hard to stomach at first.

Finally, maybe you disagree with me, but I think that if a film had been created with these sorts of parameters: cartoon visuals and a title like "Totally Awesome Columbine Massacre: The Film!" you'd have a huge uproar over it. I made this point during the forum but it was glossed over/ignored, so if anybody would like to discuss it here then please do. If anything, I don't think it's really "videogames" being considered second-class citizens, it's more of a problem that things that are not visually realistic are not considered to be about serious matters. Videogames are just today getting to the point where they are looking "realistic" so we've clearly got a long way to go if we're trying to replicate film's success in that regard (again, I don't think we should try and emulate film). Also, videogames are typecast as being for pure entertainment. Like film and other mediums, it's going to take time for it to grow. As more open-minded people who have grown up with the medium become older, we'll be influencing the market more so these things will become more commonplace. I'm certainly not arguing that we should stop making videogames about contoversial subject matters, but that we shouldn't be expecting people to take them seriously. We obviously have a lot to overcome in the public perception, not just as videogames but as non-realistic imagery in general.

Something I thought was unfortunate was that it appeared I was one of the few at the seminar who had actually played the game in question (Super Columbine Massacre RPG!), and I had played it years ago so I fired it up again before seminar. The main reason for this was not so that we could talk about the game in more depth but more so that we didn't have so many people asking questions about the game itself and we could talk more about the issue in general. I spoke with Danny LeDonne, who was really a class act regarding my criticism of the game. The game itself, however, is not really the issue. This could be any game that was pulled from Slamdance for being about a controversial topic. This is really about the actions of Peter Baxter and its reflection on the gaming community rather than this one game. I've said before that I don't think the game is great, but that I appreciate that games are being made about subject matters such as Columbine. I respect what LeDonne was attempting to do, and I thought he was successful on various levels. That's all I really want to say on the game.

The last thing I want to talk about was what I felt I learned about IMD seminars in general. I don't think we should have forums on these topics without a moderator. Especially when we have something like 5 speakers. The first half of seminar was dedicated to the background of the situation and the feelings of the five speakers, which were all pretty well aligned in the first place. It is unfortunate that Peter Baxter was not present, because it would have been valuable to get his input. Meanwhile, the backchannel was aflame with a lot of discussion and debate and had some questions that I wish had been brought up during the seminar. This was hindered by the fact that we only had about 50 minutes to have discussion after the speakers had finished their piece, and each question or topic that was brought up afterward was something that ended up with each of the speakers offering their point of view, which often closely matched the other speakers present. With 5 speakers, this results in a lot of time dedicated to one question with not much real debate going on. Also, with so many people talking on the same subject, one after another, there often happens to be some sort of telephone effect. By this I mean that the conversation eventually steers itself to a topic completely different from that of the question, and this new topic is one that has already been discussed at length. Again, I think a moderator would have been good for handling questions and keeping the discussion moving as well as directing the questions so that we didn't keep circling around some of the same talking points.

I guess I should say here that I really thought the backchannel showed what it was good for during this forum. It got a lot of questions and debate going while other speakers were going, and it also allowed some more criticism that probably wouldn't come up during the actual forum because it could have quickly turned into a shouting match or something similarly ugly. I found that somewhat unfortunate, that people were often afraid to speak their minds. However, that was changed by the fact that when people did bring up interesting points (Julian brought up a few), they were either ignored or met with what seemed to be trepidation. It didn't seem like many people really offered up a viewpoint that stood out or could be argued over. In general, it was very tame, which honestly was surprising, as I expected some really heated debate at the forum.

To end, I want to reiterate that I appreciate the efforts of all involved in the seminar. I think it was great that we could pull something like this together for seminar. I don't offer this criticism as a damnation of the seminar or what occurred, but more as a way to improve forums like this in the future. I don't think this seminar was a total waste, and there was some good discussion to be had. I feel that I, as well as many others, were somewhat disappointed at the end of it because there weren't many deep takeaways or that "spark" of enlightenment afterward. I do think that there is room for improvement, and that is something we should strive for.