A month after the Virginia Tech massacre, 21 year-old Australian hobbyist animator and game developer Ryan Lambourn created V-Tech Rampage, a web game that recreates the massacreâ??s events. He released the game on his personal website and popular Flash portal Newgrounds.
The game was universally reviled on websites and blogs. Some cited the very idea of a game about the massacre as an offense (â??We just find such a game to be in extremely poor tasteâ?).
Others noted a lack of sensitivity in the timing of the game (â??[Lambourn] waited less than a month. Which suggests that [he] is motivated primarily by getting his name in the limelightâ?).
Elsewhere, still others cited the gameâ??s structural coherence and other design merits (â??If you don’t follow the plan accordingly, the cops capture you early. If you walk into a classroom, the game engine makes the walls transparent. When you fire shots near pedestrians, they’ll freak out and start screaming and runningâ?).
And most highlighted Lambournâ??s demand for payment in exchange for removing the game from Newgrounds and his own site, including the apparently thoughtless offer to apologize if donations reached $3,000 (Lambourn later retracted the offer, claiming it was a joke).