In what can only be termed an appalling low point in human behavior, the creator of V-Tech Rampage, a highly-offensive and thoroughly-amateurish Flash game posted on Newgrounds, has demanded payment to take his game offline.
The author, an Australian by the name of Ryan Lambourn, has posted a message on his GooGumProduce website claiming that if he receives $1,000 in donations, he will remove the game from Newgrounds; for $2,000, he will remove the game from his own site; and if he receives $3,000, he will apologize for the whole mess. A PayPal donation link is also provided.
Newgrounds could remove the game from their site regardless of the author’s wishes, but at this point have not elected to do so.
Most of the feedback on the author’s website has been negative, although a few posters have offered kudos for his presumably-ironic-and-edgy creative efforts. The author himself states in a later post that the PayPal link was put in place as a joke, although he also makes it clear that he wouldn’t be averse to taking money if someone actually offered it.
Danny Ledonne, designer of Super Columbine Massacre RPG, offered his own comments on V-Tech Rampage, in which he states the game does not appear intended to open a “channel for discourse” as Super Columbine Massacre RPG did, but is instead simply a stunt to gain recognition. He refuses to offer a blanket condemnation of the game, however, and concludes by saying, “I would like to ask bloggers to consider not whether a game about the Virginia Tech shooting SHOULD be made but how we might go about making a game that accomplishes more than VTR does with the subject matter.”
