Authorities in Beauvais, France believe they have prevented a possible school shooting by a 13-year old “computer games enthusiast."
A TimesOnline story details the unfolding events under the unfortunate headline “Computer Games Fan ‘Planned School Massacre.’” Suspicion was initially raised when the boy, named Bastien, left extra early for school, eventually leading his parents to a blog post of his that read: “This is my last message because Tuesday November 17, 2009 will be the last day of my life. Sorry to leave you..." Police were alerted and sealed off the boy’s school, Saint-Esprit. The teen apparently saw police at the school and avoided it, ditched a shotgun and 25 cartridges in a field along the way. He was found later at a cyber-café.
A friend of Bastien said that, “He always wanted to go into the Army. He loved battles. He was passionate about history, warriors. He played video games up to one or two in the morning...” Other buddies told reporters that Bastien was a World of Warcraft player.
Even the Mayor of Allone, Christian Sadowski, painted Bastien as a gamer, saying that he knew the boy was a fan of computer games, adding, “Many young people end up finding it difficult to tell the difference between dream and reality. He played his little fantasy on the net and then carried it out.”
The boy was anxious about an upcoming parent-teacher conference as a result of receiving less-than-stellar grades.
GP: Glad they caught him obviously, but the secondary focus on games in this article is gratuitous as is usually the case. But as we, and Lorne Lanning, know, this is how the mainstream media rolls. At least they didn’t call WOW a “murder simulator.”
Update: GP reader Soldat_Louis rounded up and translated a handful of other stories and media outlets that played up the videogame link:
• "Considered as a good student coming from a normal family, the middle school boy, a video game adept, (...)" (Le Point)
• "According to a police source, 'bad grades could be the cause of the murderous intentions' of the student, a video game adept." (France-Soir)
• "It's on his blog that the student, a video game fan, has published his intention to make a name of himself (...)" (Le Télégramme)
• "The kid is considered as a good student. He comes from a normal family. He is a video game adept and maintains his own blog. (...) [The attempted shooting] revives the memory of [the Winnenden shooting]. Perpetrated by Tim Kretschmer, 17-years-old, also a video game adept, (...)" (La Dépêche)
Soldat_Louis also pointed us towards (and again translated the relevant part) a debate over “How to protect your children against the dangers of the Internet” that took place on French radio station RTL this morning.
Véronique Fima of the Action Innocence nonprofit group apparently came to the defense of games and gamers in the debate, while noting that in the case of the Beauvais story, the Internet played a positive role and assisted in stopping any violence.
On the point of videogames, she stated, “First of all, I wouldn't want them to be incriminated in the first place (...) rather than knowing that he was a video game aficionado, I would like us to ask the question : what was the deep discomfort that made this child act that way (...) All children and teenagers all play video games, yet they're not all mass murderers."
Gamers are used to confronting invading terrorists, nuclear attacks, and natural calamities—in virtual form. But those living in New York State could soon receive warnings about real emergencies through their favorite video console. State authorities are testing a plan that would see the Emergency Management Office issue alerts over online gaming networks in addition to regular channels.
The founder and CEO of digital consulting agency ICO Partners, Thomas Bidaux, has told GamesIndustry.biz that while boxed product will always exist, it will become little more than a marketing exercise for the very core gamers.
Speaking in an interview last week, Bidaux - the founder of NCsoft's European presence before setting up ICO Partners - also explained his belief that there will be a blurring between social and traditional games - and that one of the key challenges for developers will be learning to bridge the gap between the two.
"I think that physical distribution will always exist," he said. "It's just going to become marginal. It's going to become a marketing exercise, it's going to be collector's editions, something for collectors to have physical objects and everything's going to continue to move digital.
"The other thing that's going to happen in my opinion is the distinction between console and PC is going to be blurred with social games and iPhone games. Everything's going to merge in some way and become something so games will be connected. How long it's going to take, I don't know. It might be a long process because we all need to learn how to develop different things.
"Whether you are a physical developer and you need to understand other aspects of your work, you know, real time games, things like that. If you are a real time game developer and you don't know anything about social gaming you need to understand how different platforms work. The learning curve is steep for everybody, but it's going to happen eventually."
An article from the BBC that certain webmasters and scene members should also take note of, here goes:
As many as 340,000 children and teenagers are regularly bullied over the internet or on their mobile phones, according to a new report.
The charity Beatbullying said young people experienced most abuse on the instant messaging service MSN and the social networking site Bebo.
"We know the consequences of online bullying are just as traumatic as those of face-to-face bullying," said the organisation's boss Emma-Jane Cross.
"We want all social networking sites, internet service providers and mobile phone companies to take measures to identify and remove offensive material."
The release of the new research is timed to coincide with national anti-bullying week which this year concentrates on internet and mobile phone abuse.
Have Your Say: What can be done to stop bullying online?
'Faceless online'
Almost two thirds of the 2,094 11 to 18-year-olds surveyed by the charity in England said they had seen some form of online bullying.
"People find it very easy because they aren't actually looking at the person and they can't see what they feel like afterwards," 13-year-old Tim admitted.
Continue reading the main story
BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra have teamed up with all the major social networking sites to show you how to be clever with your settings
You can also get tips on self-confidence from artists like Cheryl Cole, The Saturdays and Alesha Dixon as well as Wiley and Kano
Visit the bullyproof minisite to download free wallpapers and badges for your desktop
Half the people surveyed had heard of people setting up a fake profile pretending to be another person; one in five had seen hate sites or groups set up to bully someone online.
Tim's classmate Bethan, 14, added: "Friends can sometimes be cowardly to your face but as soon as they press the sign in button everything just tumbles out."
Fifty-eight per cent of those targeted said bullying had taken place on the instant messaging service MSN, now renamed Windows Live Messenger.
Microsoft, which runs it, said it does not tolerate bullying on its network but "as with any communication service, these online communication tools are misused by a tiny minority".
It has created a special area of the Windows Live site where users can get advice on how to deal with bullying and report any abusive messages.
Thirty-two per cent of those bullied had also been the target of some form of abuse on the social networking site Bebo, which is aimed at younger users, compared with 11% on Facebook and 10% on MySpace.
'Not enough protection'
Bebo said it had strict terms of use in place which all teenagers signed up to when they registered.
It keeps a record of users' behaviour which can be passed on to the police in extreme cases.
"Unfortunately, anti-social behaviour, both on and offline, is an aspect of the society we live in but Bebo is committed to providing its community with the safest possible environment," said a spokesman.
Beatbullying thinks it should be easier for users to complain about abuse
All social networking sites let users report abusive material and ask for comments to be deleted from online profiles.
But almost half the children and teenagers surveyed by Beatbullying said the sites still did not offer enough protection.
The charity says social networks need to make it easier for users to complain about abusive posts.
It wants a commitment from the sites to take down offensive material within six hours.
"They do need to take more responsibility," said Richard Piggin from Beatbullying.
"There is a lot of material posted on those sites every day but there is more they can do in terms of moderation and referring on complaints."
"Young people have to take some responsibility as well. There is a lot they can do around their privacy settings and making sure they really know the people they are talking to."
"At the end of the day, everyone needs to know what is acceptable and what is not online."
Ruffian Games producer James Cope has revealed the studio's focus for Crackdown 2, and for games after it, saying the studio wants to remain a one-project team, delivering "great core action games."
While demoing the game, and allowing attendees to play a multiplayer match for the first time at Dundee's NEoN event on Saturday, Cope also stressed how important online play was for Crackdown 2.
"The games that are doing well now are the games that have persistence of life. You need to be able to keep your disc in people's disc drives," he said.
"If you're doing that you're onto a winner. We play games online, and we want to bring that element of quick skirmish action. We always thought Crackdown was perfect for online and always wanted to do it like this."
Ruffian Games was formed in January this year and its work on Microsoft franchise Crackdown 2 was confirmed several months later.
The studio, said Cope, began with a staff of 15 and now, 11 months into Crackdown 2, has reached 49. But that team will remain focused on Crackdown until after its release next year.
"As a company, we've got a really strong belief in staying as a single project company. We feel that enables us to make the best games possible.
"We're not putting people with really great skills in the position of having to manage multiple things. You always get that situation where one game, one project, becomes more important than the other and you dilute your key staff across that. We want to stay incredibly focused on making really great core action games. That's where the future of the company is."
The growth of the Dundee-based studio, Cope added, is something it's been proud of. "We've not just got a game that's on good track, we've got a company that's on good track as well."
And he admitted recruiting talented staff has been helped by the closures of other key UK studios.
"It's a little bit sad to say, but we've been fortunate from timings of closing of other studios. There's an ebb and flow to the games industry and studios are born and die. And we became a little bit lucky when a couple of key studios went under, like Midway. That helped us a lot."
Ruffian's setting up in Dundee created "a little bit of tension", he said. "Realtime really wanted to make a sequel. For one reason and another Microsoft couldn't sign the project at that time, and Realtime are trying to do APB and the timing just didn't line up."
Subsequently, Ruffian was formed by former Realtime World employee Billy Thomson, and Gaz Liddon and Gareth Noyce of Xen Group; Xen being a resource company brought in by Microsoft to help Realtime complete the original Crackdown.
The studio's been lucky, said Cope, that many of its key staff have an already-established working relationship with publisher Microsoft, making the design process for Crackdown 2 that much easier.
"There have been some things Microsoft wants to see. But they line up really well with what we want anyway. It's about retaining that franchise and not going too far away from that original franchise idea but also put it into new directions. That's a difficult design balance but we've actually been lucky. But not through lack of hard work. We've had a very good relationship with Microsoft. Some of our key staff have had dealings with Microsoft for a long time. We worked on games like Fable 2, PGR4, things like that, through Xen. So we've had this long-standing relationship.
"You always get objectionable bits and pieces, like, how difficult the game's going to be. The developer always argues they want it to be more difficult than the publisher wants – that's normal. And it's good we can have a healthy laugh and chat about it. We like them as publishers."
Channel 4 commissioning editor Alice Taylor has said the channel is currently looking for educational content for its 2010 schedule, a significant portion of which will be made up of games.
Speaking at this year's NEoN event in Dundee, Taylor expressed Channel 4's interest in commissioning indie game companies to create a range of content for it, from Facebook applications to XBL Indie games.
Since making the decision to spend its GBP 5 million annual education budget on internet native content rather than traditional television programmes, Channel 4 has made significant inroads in reaching its teen audience.
History series 1066 now boasts over 8 million plays and Bow Street Runner – an historically accurate point and click adventure – picked up a BAFTA last year. Similarly, the new Derren Brown fronted online series Science of Scams is attracting increasing numbers of viewers to each new episode.
Future projects, said Taylor, would continue to cover typical teen issues such as sex, health, body image and alcohol, as well as lesser touched upon topics such as happiness, religion and death. Channel 4 had identified particular issues, she added, such as the disparity in numbers of girls studying science at higher education level compared to boys, and aimed to address issues that could be acting as boundaries for them in an attempt to encourage girls to study science subjects.
Channel 4 has three key criteria for its online content, said Taylor. It needs to be playful, sociable and useful. The word 'game' she uses in a broad sense, since its titles vary in form, from a Facebook app for discovering books to a DNA and genetics focused online series revolving around a filmed documentary.
Examples of upcoming projects for the coming year include Pressure, an online comic; Privates, a sex education game pastiche of Gears of War; and Ada, a PC downloadable platform game about climate change.
Budgets for Channel 4 content have ranged from GBP 40,000 to GBP 850,000, said Taylor, and the games are always free to users. The platform is typically PC – either Flash based or downloadable – although the channel is looking into publishing on XBL. Since most teens don't have iPhones, it's less likely it will publish games on that format.
The developers Channel 4 works with are 100 per cent independent, and the majority used in the last year have also been first-timers with the channel, said Taylor, who cited Six to Start, Zombie Cow and Beatnik as examples.
Studios interested in submitting ideas for games are always welcome to do so, she added. In particular for 2010, the channel is looking for games that cover the areas of entrepreneurship and careers.
BAFTA has revealed that it has been working on a Young Game Designer scheme, currently being piloted in conjunction with the organisation's Game Committee and the Paddington Academy, which it hopes to extend into a national competition next year.
The idea follows the success of the Me and My Movie competition, which runs in association with CBBC, and if the pilot is successful will be launched at the Video Game Awards in March next year.
The aim, according to an email from BAFTA, is to "inspire 11-16 year olds to explore the creative possibilities and career potential of videogames," with winners being announced at the Children's Awards next November.
Gamercize has announced that it is to launch a Game4Life campaign in association with the UK's National Health Service and its Change4Life brand, which will include discounts for customers until December 7.
Visitors to the official website's shop will be able to enter a "game4life" code to receive GBP 50, EUR 70 or USD 100 off the cost of purchase of a Gamercize Family Fit system, currently selling for GBP 699.90.
"Gaming is part of everyday life for a large number of the population," said Gamercize CEO Richard Coshott. "Recently I was waiting with a mass of people for the latest Call of Duty title on release day and saw how massive the appeal is.
"With the new Gamercize Family Fit comes the opportunity to play games from Modern Warfare 2 to Mario Kart for fitness and health improvement. The benefits of Gamercize are it doesn't feel like exercise while you're playing and it doesn't change the original game play."
The campaign will focus on two key messages, according to a company statement:
Up and About encourages less time to be spent in sedentary screen time, which can be converted into a heart pumping healthy alternative with Gamercize active gaming products.
60 Active Minutes sets out a guideline for physical activity that Gamercize can also provide, with up to 650 calories per hour working out while gaming.
More information on the issue of fitness, particularly in children, is available in an editorial by Dr Matthew Capehorn, from the National Obesity Forum.
The Entertainment Software Association has announced that its 11th annual gala event, A Nite to Unite - For Kids, raised over USD 800,000 when it took place last month.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot was honoured at the event with the 2009 ESA Champion Award, cited in recognition of building up the publisher from a tiny start-up 23 years ago to a global business today.
"This outpouring of support from the video game industry this year brings the total giving to the ESA Foundation to USD 11 million," said ESA president and CEO Michael D Gallagher. "This generous giving allows the ESA Foundation to support some truly compelling charitable organisations, including Web Wise Kids, Hope Lab, ThanksUSA and the One Economy Corporation."
Previous recipients of the Champion Award have included Shigeru Miyamoto and George Lucas, while among the co-chairs for this year's event were Microsoft's Robbie Bach and Epic Games' Michael Capps.
Labour's Sion Simon and the Conservative's Ed Vaizey have both pledged their support to action group Gamers' Voice.
The group was set up by Labour MP for West Bromwich East Tom Watson this week, to give a voice to games players in the corridors of power – it already has over 12,500 members on its Facebook page.
"Sion and Ed are a little bit different to other MPs. They both have responsibilities in Labour and the Conservatives for policies towards the games industry. And I think they're both genuine in wanting to help," said Watson.
Watson is inviting gamers to send questions for Vaizey and Simon, and hopes the MPs will answer them shortly.
"It's about time gamers had a voice to represent the huge success of the UK video games industry," said Shadow Culture Minister Vaizey. "We spend too much time attacking games and not enough time celebrating their huge success and contribution to the economy."
"We make games better and play games more in this country than anywhere else in the world. It's an important industry and an important part of millions of people's lives," offered Simon,
"But it's a very young industry which is still finding its voice. I think this group is an important step in that process, and I'm glad to be a part of it."
