This week I was shocked and disappointed to hear about a video game that depicts gun violence in one of our local high schools in Metro Vancouver, Port Moody Secondary School.
While the video game does not show students or teachers being shot, it does feature gun violence in the school in the form of a shoot’em up target game. The worst part is that the action takes place in a very true to life depiction of the school which you can see if you watch the video.
Listen, I don’t want to be a hypocrite. I have played Time Crisis, another shoot’em up game, from time to time and that doesn’t mean that I am going to go out and shoot anyone.
However, in this age of real life shooting tragedies it is disturbing that such a realistic depiction of the school would be used in this kind of violent context. It is reckless to put that kind of information into the public domain.
The Port Moody police have investigated and in a statement on their website, state:
“Although the creation of such a video game is likely ill-conceived in the current climate, it does not constitute an offence. Investigators from the Port Moody Police Department have interviewed the developer of this game and have concluded that he does not pose a danger to the staff or students of Port Moody Secondary.”
That may be true but it only takes one nut case to take that information and twist it into something more disturbing. Let’s hope it never happens.
In the meantime, I hope the administration of the school and the school district are doing everything in their power to shut down this game.
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Yeah my concern wouldn’t necessarily be with that kid (the creator) but with other kids who would use that environment in their playing of the game. As you say, for most it’s just a novelty but you never know who might take inspiration.
hi from iclw!
i totally agree! i talk to hubby all the time about what we would enforce as far as rules if our son ever gets into video games. cant believe thats in a school now too!
yeah it is kind of a sensitive map to be using in a game, thankfully they could probably release a patch that would eliminate this particular map from peoples options if people speak out enough about it. Poor choice in a map but, like most of these games, there is more than one map so I wouldn’t say shut down the game completely. Just adjust it accordingly, just too much information (map wise) if someone were to take things out of control.