Anger over Aussie's V-Tech massacre gameMay 16, 2007 - 7:39PM
A 21-year-old Sydney man has created the first known computer game based on the recent shooting spree at Virginia Tech university in the US, sparking a wave of criticism.
The game follows Cho Seung-hui's killing spree at Virginia Tech in April, in which he killed 32 people before turning a gun on himself.
The game's creator, Ryan Lambourn, who lives in Sydney's west, says he won't remove the game from his own website or seek to have it removed from amateur game sharing site Newgrounds.com.
Called V-Tech Rampage, the game can be freely downloaded from either site and has made headlines in Australia as well causing a stir on a number of blogs and online news sites around the world.
Mr Lambourn on Wednesday backpedalled on previous demands for money in exchange for the game's deletion, describing the ransom as a joke.
He had said on his website googumproduce.com that he would only remove V-Tech Rampage from the Newgrounds website if he received a $US1,000 ($A1,200) "donation".
For $US2,000 ($A2,400) he would remove it from his own website and for $US3,000 ($A3,600) he would apologise for the stunt.
He said no one had taken him up on his offer.
"That's exactly the point I was trying to prove," Mr Lambourn said.
"These people talk and talk and are angry and are telling me `you have to take it down, it should be taken down, you gotta take it down' and no one's even come near it because they'd rather talk about it."
The unemployed man said he created the game for "laughs" and that he had previously composed music relating to other events such as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the death of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin last year.
He said the game was supposed to provide an insight into the killer's mindset.
"What he did was caused by something," he said.
"From what I do know about him, from his plays, from what he did to prepare for it, he's very human, fragile.
"From what I can tell he's probably having a hard home life."
Mr Lambourn said he would not take down the game under any circumstances, including if he received a request from the victims' families.
"I'm afraid not," he said, but added: "I hope they'd never do that."
He said he empathised with the killer and that he, like Cho, had been a victim of abuse and bullying at high school.
Mr Lambourn was born in Australia but grew up in the US before returning to Australia when he was 14.
He said he left school in the eighth grade having been bullied and abused at several institutions in Texas, Maine, New Jersey, New York and North Carolina.
He described himself as a self-taught animator who was supported financially by his mother who still lives in the US.
V-Tech Rampage resembles another production that followed the Columbine massacre in 1999, in which two students killed 12 people before turning their weapons on themselves in a shooting spree at the Colorado high school.
Daniele Ledonne, who made Super Columbine Massacre RPG (SCMRPG), said he was "torn" over whether he should distance his game from V-Tech Rampage and its creator.
Mr Ledonne said SCMRPG was never a for-profit endeavour and that he had never demanded cash in exchange for the game's removal from the internet.
Meanwhile, Newgrounds is yet to remove the game but has created a forum for users to discuss the issue.
SourceV-tech Massacre GameNG Topic