Wyoming Valley Counselor Disturbed by School Shooter Mod

This guy should totally go to Walmart and camp out in the electronics department until this game hits the store shelves.  Of course being a fan project it will never see stores, but we don't have to tell him that.  Some lessons need to be learned the hard way.  Like listening to nothing but muzak on a store intercom for a couple weeks straight.

-Ultimately what will do in mankind is a person's fear of their own freedom-

I wouldn't let my kids play it, and I wouldn't play it myself, but banning something because it 'might set crazy people off' isn't really a cure, just a delay in inevitable.

I'm not going to call this guy names because he has every right to find the game offensive and upsetting, I found the artist who used actual dead people and turned them into 'waxworks' much the same, so I didn't go to his art-shows.

Since your enemies will not even be armed in this game (most of the time) I consider it, at the moment, as something like the 'Modest Proposal', it is something that deliberately sets an awkward precedent in the name of drawing attention to itself or another problem.

Personally, I'd be more concerned that school shootings are becoming such an embedded part of US culture that films and computer games are being made about them in the first place.

Pete (or anyone else), is there any contact info for this man? If so, you should write in to him explaining what a mod is, and that it is not sold in stores.

Sent the following comment to the Times article:

As the author points out, this game is a "mod" created using tools that allow any individual to change various aspects of a commercially released game, Half Life 2.  The mod creation tools allows any individual to change characters, environments (buildings, land, etc), weapons, characters (both player and non-player (NPC)), and even the story from what was to commercially released to whatever the mod designer wants.  Additionally, except in very rare cases, mods are not the creation of the designers or company that released the original game.  They can, in fact, be the average hobbyist who decided to use their own individual imagination to create using tools and engines previously made available.  And they may not even release the mod commercially but share it freely, much in the same way a hobbyist shares a poem, a song, a story, or any other item they created or developed from previous material.

An example might be fans who create stories or even videos based on previous released products.  Star Trek being one example.  Many fans have produced fan fiction books and even videos released on the internet, free of charge, merely to share that material.  Companies, like Paramount, may or may not take action, even if the material is released free of charge.  Sometimes those companies even cherry pick who they will or will not go after or will or will not allow to release such material.  But, ultimately, the fan fiction is the sole creation of those who create it, and most intelligent individuals treat it that way, regardless of the attitude of the original creators' efforts on the original material.

Ambrosino whimpers and whines that a fictional product will be harmful, yet has no clear evidence of harm or even the realization, due to lack of research into the reality and nature of mods, that this product is NOT a commercial product, shown by his inclusion of fearmongering to retailers who would have never been offered to sell the product in the first place.  Does this mean that Mr. Ambrosino considers his lies, deceit, and misinofrmation, brought about by his zealous ignorance, to be less harmful to others, including children, than a fictional computer/video game who, by the mere fact that it IS fictional, has no need for morals because it IS fictional and fiction is fiction and reality is reality and the two shall never truly meet?  Is it really taught in his odd little world that lies, deceit, and misinformation, brought about by zealous ignorance is more "decent" than a piece of fictional media?

If so, then perhaps it isn't a media product that needs to be complained about to various authority figures and even the general public, to have children and others protected from, but HIM.

Nightwng2000

NW2K Software

http://www.facebook.com/nightwing2000

Nightwng2000 is now admin to the group "Parents For Education, Not Legislation" on MySpace as http://groups.myspace.com/pfenl

"Ambrosino added that his organization has never spoken out about violence in video games before, but that the game’s content "seems to be so far outside the boundaries of what is decent and acceptable," that he had to speak up."

Would you feel better if Checkerboarded Studios called the students "Opposing Forces" instead?

Andrew Eisen