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Media links Montreal mass shooting to games

By Brendan Sinclair, GameSpotPosted Sep 14, 2006 2:15 pm PT

Wednesday shooting spree in a Quebec college that left one dead tied to games by apparent killer's blog.

A 25-year-old Montreal man went on a shooting rampage at one of the city's colleges Wednesday, killing one and wounding 19 others before being killed by police, various media outlets reported yesterday. Today the same outlets are piecing together a picture of who the alleged shooter, named Kimveer Gill, was and are focusing on the fact that he played violent games, among other things.

Alleged Montreal murderer Kimveer Gill.

The BBC News is reporting that the shooter apparently posted numerous times on a gothic lifestyle site, indicating that he liked to play Postal as well as a Web-based game called Super Columbine Massacre RPG.

The gunman also posted scores of photos of himself posing with a rifle, a hunting knife, and a black trench coat. A journal entry from the morning prior to the shooting said he was drinking whiskey and had been "crazy" and "postal" the night before. In one post, he wrote, "Life is like a video game, you gotta die sometime."

A similar sentiment was expressed by convicted killer Devin Moore when he was arrested for the murders of two police officers and a police dispatcher. Moore, who was ultimately convicted, told the arresting officers: "Life's like a video game. You've got to die sometime."

The creator of the Super Columbine Massacre RPG has since posted a statement on his Web site, which reads, "I am, like most, saddened by the news of the recent shooting at Dawson College. I extend my condolences to those affected by this painful event."

Florida lawyer Jack Thompson wasted little time in linking the tragedy to his ongoing attempts to have violent games curbed. In an e-mail sent to various press outlets with the subject heading "Jack Thompson Right Again," the lawyer said the shooter "literally trained on his two favorite murder simulation video games to go on his college shooting spree..."

"The massacre in Montreal is simply the latest tragedy of mass killing linked to violent virtual reality murder simulators," Thompson wrote. "The worst is yet to come. Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., is set to release on October 17 the game Bully, which in every sense is a Columbine simulator."

Ironically, the Entertainment Software Ratings Board gave Bully a relatively tame rating of T for Teen earlier in the day.

376 Comments

  • fighterace10

    Posted Oct 30, 2008 10:35 am PT

    @JSharpe_187
    LOL

  • gangsterjc

    Posted Jul 18, 2008 12:11 pm PT

    Man amaricans are psycoh's! god video games are somthing to vent yourself with! not Training

  • WARxSnake

    Posted Jan 8, 2008 7:03 pm PT

    "
    ...USA should someday reflect on the gun policy it has. I don't think I would be as relaxed if I knew that all of my neighbours in my building are packing."

    do you even know where the hell Quebec is???

  • MartyredShadow

    Posted Aug 25, 2007 12:07 pm PT

    Normally I see the media is alarmist and ridiculous. But in this case... I mean, Postal is about being a psychotic killer, and Super Columbine Massacre RPG doesn't even need to be explained. It's likely that he sought out these games because he was violent and disturbed, but it this case it does seem like they probably were a bad influence on him.

  • Neil__

    Posted Jun 26, 2007 4:50 am PT

    You see this sort of nonsense all the time.
    Some untalented idiot using scandal and fear to try and get the sort of attention they are incapable of getting by normal sensible debate.

    If these people had any real intelligence they would see what they are saying is rubbish.

  • joemic393

    Posted Jun 22, 2007 6:02 pm PT

    So... lets count up the amount of high school / college shootings that happen in any given decade. I'm going to say roughly 4 or 5 which are thoroughly covered in the news media (...there might be more but I don't know about them simply because they aren't massively reported on). So 6 crazy people shoot up a lot of innocent people. Its known that most of these 6 crazy people play violent video games....

    ...How many other people play violent video games? Considering the marketing and the amount of money that goes into creating these games: MILLIONS OF PEOPLE! So lets say there are 4 million people who buy violent video games (I may be under-estimating the market size) and 6 of them are crazy people who shoot innocent people. That means that 0.00015% of people who buy violent video games will go nuts and shoot people! Lets apply these odds to ... hmm.... coffee? I'd be willing to bet the ratio of coffee drinkers to murderers is higher. My point: BAN COFFEE!!!!! .... hehe

  • mealex

    Posted Jun 22, 2007 12:03 am PT

    Jack Thompson is so full of **** You can't "train" on a video game.

  • CrzyOz300

    Posted Jun 21, 2007 9:25 pm PT

    If people actually believe was the main reason he killed someone they are out of their mind. If video games was the main reason then almost every gamer would be phyicotic. The man was just out of his mind, even if games didn't excist he would just go crazy from some violent movie so then the movie industry would be blamed, lol.

    Dude, Bully wasn't even close to a columbine simulator. Man i hate it when people talk out of there a$$ . Please make sure you know all the facts about anything before you start make accusations, or start to make statemets like that.

  • JSharpe_187

    Posted Jun 21, 2007 7:08 pm PT

    You know why he went on a rampage? Cuz his name's Kimveer

  • andypipkin85

    Posted Jan 7, 2007 10:17 pm PT

    yawn. Another ego-trip from Mr jack thompson.

  • pinktoque

    Posted Oct 12, 2006 4:32 pm PT

    Jack Thompson is a moron. If he'd like some facts on the TRUTH about violence and video games, he needs to read this article:
    http://www.gamerevolution.com/static/index.php?section=featureāŠ‚=violence&page=violence

    Funny how media and the government can hype up that video game violence causes things like school shootings, yet at the same time they publicly display graphs and charts that prove otherwise. Learn2Propaganda.

  • NobuoMusicMaker

    Posted Sep 20, 2006 7:31 am PT

    I don't think it's the games fault. It's the society. The games are just a reflection of what gamers want.

    I think these types of games act as a vent. Keeps your mind off the world into a world of imagination. It's not influence. The damage has already been done to that guy.

    And he had blamed society in his blog. Not in the same fashion as my statement, but how this world is run made him like that. He mentions how men disrespect women. Being a man himself, he probably been thinking pretty deep.

    So if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian President, announced he started playing MGS, should we assume he's building a Metal Gear to launch nuclear missiles? Shut up Jack Thompson. You're way out of your league here.

  • jillwarrior

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 3:43 pm PT

    HERES AN interesting note from all this, gamespot has removed from this website a newsstory they ran last week in which they had an interview with SUPER COLUMBINE MASSACRE RPG's creator and a link to the website of the game. why did they decide to delete this story??? can anyone answer that?

  • metalXIII

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 3:27 pm PT

    Right you can train on video games that are super fake! Postal, wow thats total BS! YOu cant train on something that isnt close to reality.

  • Cloud_Strife89

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 3:10 pm PT

    Right, because obviously the fact that he was a crazy gun-nut with mental issues who was drunk off his rocker had nothing to do with it, it's clearly the games fault. O btw Mr. Thompson, in the game Bully, you fight AGAINST Bully's not as one and are discouraged from fighting fellow classmates and teachers and there are no firearms or dangerous weapons in the game and certainly no killings, that doesn't sound like a Columbine simulator to me.

  • jakob_187

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 2:27 pm PT

    In all truth, Jack Thompson has a point when it comes to games like Postal or Super Columbine Massacre RPG. I mean, honestly...THE GAME IS CALLED SUPER COLUMBINE MASSACRE RPG!!! Not only is it a pathetic and downright wrong game, but it's definitely the kind of game that...well...a future violent killer would more than likely play! That's not to say those same people couldn't play something like Grand Theft Auto and do the same thing, but I don't know. The violence in video games argument is getting to be so damn pathetic, and honestly, most people only make these kinds of games with one reason in mind: sales. They know that the violence will create the controversy and in turn, the controversy creates free "forbidden fruit" publicity. The Grand Theft Auto series did present us with a very new idea of how to design a video game with open-ended environments and such...but they could've done the same thing with a far tamer demeanor.

    As for Bully, that's one thing that keeps ticking me off with Jack Thompson. I mean, the kid is a bully, but he's also bullied around to create his bully nature. It's a payback game, but he's not shooting kids with guns and crap like that. Nonetheless, Thompson calls it "a Columbine simulator". You want to know what a true Columbine simulator is? When you dress up as two guys in black trench coats that are completely disturbing people, walk into your school with heavy guns, and you open fire and start killing people. THAT is a Columbine simulator. I think Thompson is just mad because he's too old to understand video games, and moreover...the ESRB gave the game a T rating! They don't usually do much wrong with ratings.

    Here's a fair point I can make. I work at a PC and Xbox gaming center in Texas, and we are also a family-friendly center, which means we will not carry games like Doom 3 or Quake 4. The furthest we go for is Halo 2 and Unreal Tournament 2004, but 2004 is so fake looking that it's hilarious, and the parents haven't expressed any concern over it. Either way, we recently got Company of Heroes in. I want to say what a fantastic and fresh RTS game this is, and the gameplay is incredible, but it's our first age-restricted game as we are sure the popularity will be big (given the Victory Point battles are much like BF2, our #1 game). The reason it's age restricted is not because of anything other than the language!!! There is no need for the guys to drop an F bomb every time I attack something. It's stupid that the only reason it's rated M is for language!

    Why do we continue to tolerate developers allowing certain audiences to be excluded from incredible games? I'm not saying I don't play violent games (I love The Suffering games, and GTA III is still my fave of the recent GTA games...and yes, Soldier of Fortune is a guilty pleasure). I am, however, saying that I get more enjoyment from games that aren't that violent in a mature manner. Give me World of Warcraft or Battlefield 2 or some lightsaber duels or something...I have plenty of fun.

    But on this one case, with Postal and SCM RPG, I have to say I agree with Mr. Thompson.

  • McDog3

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 1:46 pm PT

    If he had been posting pics of him with rifles while in trenchcoats, wouldn't that be the first clue to try and help the poor man out? That photo of him above doesn't exactly make him look like the hunting type....

  • manapsal

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 1:07 pm PT

    idiot gives games a bad name by acting out crazy dream, and Jack Thompson licks it up

  • dragkill

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 1:07 pm PT

    "people need to man-up & take responsibility."

    I'm afraid to say that humanity does not go by that. We always have to find a scapegoat one way or another, because we try to avoid complete punishment.

  • grave_rob

    Posted Sep 18, 2006 12:31 pm PT

    this is one of the oldest & probably stupidest debates of all time. no one is to blame except the person pulling the trigger. you could put me in a room full of my worst enemies & hand me a granade. but I PULL THE PIN. not the fact that i've watched horror movies my whole life or played my 360 for an ungodly amount of hours. the deciding factor in action was me pulling the pin. you always have a choice. walk away or don't. people need to man-up & take responsibility.

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