KimveerGill
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The Political Game: The blame game
Each week Dennis McCauley contributes The Political Game, a column on the collision of politics and video games:Wednesday's tragic shooting spree at Montreal's Dawson College has prompted yet another media feeding frenzy over violent video games. Word that 25-year-old shooter Kimveer Gill played Super Columbine RPG, a non-commercial game design, was enough to push the video game angle into lead paragraphs in newspapers from London to Washington, D.C. to China. Hell, it even made the Drudge Report.To be sure, the clearly unbalanced Gill was no stranger to games, especially first-person shooters. His blog on VampireFreaks.com names Half-Life 2, F.E.A.R. and Call of Duty 2 among his favorites. He also played some of the commonly-cited poster children for game violence, including Manhunt, Postal and the GTA series. Gill also played less controversial titles like Warcraft III, Need for Speed Underground and Command & Conquer Generals. But Super Columbine RPG is the sound bite here, and it's no surprise that the media has jumped on that angle with both feet. Think about it -- a game based upon a horrendous school massacre being played by a lunatic who then commits his own deadly school shooting. If you're writing headlines, it's practically irresistible.
