View From the Phlipside - School Shooter

My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media.  TV, radio, the movies and more.  I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion.  Call this the View from the Phlipside.

The realm of video games is open to all kinds of heated debate.  For myself I think blaming video games for the troubles faced by young people today is just a quick and easy excuse that let’s over look far more serious problems like poverty and the loss of hope that weigh heavily on our kids.  But there are lines that simply shouldn’t be crossed.  There’s a new video game that doesn’t just cross that line it goes screaming across it.  The game is called School Shooter - North American Tour 2012.

Gun Free School Zone

Now I’m not particularly well versed in the video gaming technical stuff but here goes.  School Shooter is what’s called a mod, that’s an add-on to a larger established program.  In this case the larger program is the long established Half-Life 2 game.  This mod gives you the chance to pretend to be a spree killer going into a school setting heavily armed.  The goal of the game is to kill as many unarmed students as you can in 5 minutes and then kill yourself.  As repugnant as it is to say I wish I were making this up.  The mods creator has stated that this is just “entertainment” and “just a game”.

Every time I read that article I want to be sick to my stomach.

I’ll be honest my favorite arcade video game is a first person shooter.  It’s called “Silent Scope”.  It’s a sniper game.  The difference is that first I’m shooting at terrorists and second they all shoot back.  Maybe you can’t understand someone getting entertainment from a game like that.  That’s fine.  But surely we can see the difference between that and a game based on wholesale slaughter.

The good news is that the backlash came almost immediately and the web site hosting the mod has pulled it.  Along the way a great many people in the gaming world have also rejected it.  If there’s a positive to come from this maybe it will be deeper conversations about what we find amusing and what it says about us.  Somewhere between this game and the folks who want to ban anything that has the tiniest of whiff of violence is a reasonable middle ground.

There is nothing reasonable, acceptable or rational with the idea that this game is entertainment or just a game.
Call that the View From the Phlipside

"The View From the Phlipside" airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY.  You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright - Jay Phillippi 2011