English Portfolio Entry no. 4

'Reality' game sparks outrage

Pay me to take it down, says jobless youth behind game

Electric New Paper, Singapore

Give me US$3,000 and I'll throw in an apology.

That's the snide response of a jobless Sydney animator to the furore sparked by his online shooting game.

Australian-based Ryan Lambourn, 21, posted a game called V-Tech Rampage on his own website and a US gaming portal three days ago.

In it, the player manipulates a character carrying a handgun around a campus in search of people to shoot. It boasts 'three levels of stealth and murder'.

It makes clear references to the Virginia Tech killings and gunman Seung-Hui Cho, the student who shot to death 32 people on 16 Apr before turning the gun on himself.

It also makes reference to a violent play written by Cho, titled Richard McBeef, by berating players who fail to kill 'Emily' - the name of Cho's first victim - with 'Are you always full of s..., McBeef?'

The game has generated a furious debate online, with many contributors to forums and newsgroups demanding that it be removed.

FOR 'LAUGHS'

Mr Lambourn said no one had taken him up on his offer to pay him to take it down.

'That's exactly the point I was trying to prove,' Mr Lambourn told AAP.

'These people talk and talk and are angry and are telling me 'you have to take it down' and no one's even come near it because they would rather talk about it.'

The unemployed man said he created the game for 'laughs'.

He said he had previously composed music about Hurricane Katrina and the death of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin.

Despite his demands for money, MrLambourn vowed that he would not take down the game under any circumstances, even if he was asked to by the victims' families.

'Yeah it's staying up - freedom of speech, man,' he told the Daily Telegraph. 'Someone is offended by something all the time - it doesn't matter what it is.'

He then claimed the cash demand was 'just a joke'.

'People were angry, so me and my friends thought it would be funny,' he said.

He said he empathised with Cho, as he had also been bullied at high schools in the US.

Mr Lambourn was born in Australia but lived in the US for some years before returning to Australia when he was 14.

He told AFP that he had left school in secondary two after been bullied in schools in five US cities.

Since then, he says he has become a self-taught animator, but is supported by his mother, who still lives in the US.

Mr Daniele Ledonne, who created a similar online game after the massacre of 12 people by two students at Columbine High School in 1999 said he was 'torn' over whether to support MrLambourn, as he did not agree with his demands for cash.

At press time, the game remained online.

As a humanities student I must confess that, if humans are supposed to posses a certain modicum of empathy, I find it very hard to believe that the creator of this game even deserves the title of human. The reason Lambourn can be so callous and utterly unfeeling about the victims and other members of Virginia Tech faculty, frankly, evades me. And his justifications only seem half-baked twisted arguments that serve only to degrade the value of human life.

The massacre was a hideous experience for the many people affected. The trauma and the horror of that experience is still fresh on their minds, even as they try to pick up the pieces and realign the psychological terror to realign their emotional syzygy. And we are only talking about the people who lived though the ordeal—what about the 33 members of students and faculty who died under the nozzle of Cho-Seung’s gun, some of whom gave up their lives the protect more people in the path of the rampage? Were these not people with feelings, aspirations, dreams? The brutal, merciless annihilation of such fellow human beings is a crime of indescribable proportions. We, those living, can only, and should, respect their memory. One would be inclined to think that any sane person would understand in at least some small way the suffering of these people, and not try to re-enact their suffering over and over again in something as casual as a mere game. One would be inclined to think that no person would even dare to insult and trivialize the lives of the people who died, making them seem useless flotsam and jetsam in an unfortunate accident. One would be inclined to think that no person would gain pleasure, save through pure sadism, through gunning down virtual people and hearing their screams, even as the virtual people are symbolically representative of the many affected people in the real world.

And what of Lambourn’s claims of “empathy” for Cho? I find it extremely hard to believe that a person who can ignore the feelings of hundreds of people and remain smug about it has so much empathy as to actually empathize with the perpetratopr of these crimes. I admit that I am not Lambourn, and am probably biased against Cho, finding it easier to relate to innocent victims more mentally smilar to me, but granted that Lambourn, due to his similar past experiences, may be able to empathize with Cho better than others, creating such a game is no way to express empathy. If Lambourn can truly understand Cho’s internal affliction, his anguish and suffering, then he should then be trying to help other people in this position, trying to make sure that no-one ends up at the same despairing ultimatum as Cho. Yet he creates a game that, contrarily, encourages other people subliminally to do the same. I think Lambourn should really learn how to express his emotions more appropriately and with more due sensitiviy.

What appalls me,though, is that Lambourn can actually dare to ask for money as a prerequisite for him to apologise. When people rightfully express outrage at what he has done, he not only ignores them at first but then shows the he has nothing but his own personal profit on his mind. And no true apology is one that is gained via payment--and no one is going to buy an apology which means nothing. What Lambourn is trying to prove is that no person is willing to satiate the selfish desires of a person who creates a game that mocks the very inherent dignity of people. Maybe Lambourn was doing it for mere "fun", but that would have been done in ignorance of the genuine feelings from others involved, something that I would never condone.

And now on to his primary justification for his actions: the Right to Freedom of Speech, probably the most oft-cited right of them all. What Lambourn does not understand, however, is that all rights stem from the concept of Human Dignity, the concept that every human has an inalienable, intrinsic value. It is because of this inherent value that Rights exist as a form of empowerment, realization, and the fulfillment of this potential. Human Dignity ultimately deserves protection above all other rights, because it is their source. And Lambourn, because he created this game that is inherently and necessarily degrading to the preciousness and value of human life, deserves, more than anything, to have his the Right to Freedom of Speech curbed to protect Human Dignity. Maybe Lambourn should take a step back and have a good look at what he is really doing before he tries to gain the moral ground.

(487 words)

footage of the game with Cho-Seung's favourite song playing in the background:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmOxRQkvaoo&NR=1