Halo 2 & The Virginia Tech Massacre (What They Mean To Me)
By William on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 10:16 AM PST In Gamer Life
I wrote an article back on April 19 titled ‘Did The Virginia Tech Murders Rob Me For My Love Of Halo?’ This was back when I was writing for a much smaller site. Halo has always been one of my favorite games and a great way for me to catch up with friends and avoid the stress of the real world. A couple days after the shootings here in Blacksburg, Virginia on April 16th, I finally got a chance to take a little break and decided to fire up the Xbox and play a little Halo. Within maybe 10 seconds of my first and only match that day, the feeling of complete and total fear overcame me as people were coming at me with SMGs. Keep in mind that I am an honorably discharged combat veteran. I guess that perhaps I was prepared for war, but not for this. I instantly shut off the console and was freaked out a little bit. I started to wonder if I would ever play a violent game again.
Since that time, I have slowly gotten back into FPS and violent games, but I cannot lie and say that the sound of gunfire does not bring back some memories. I will never forget the gunshots I heard that terrible morning and the images of that day are permanently burned in my mind. I believe I wrote the article out of frustration that people around the world were immediately blaming the massacre on video games. I was mourning the loss of a good friend and a large group of other Hokies I didn’t know, but now will hold them close to my heart for as long as I live. I couldn’t believe that people were ignorant enough to blame what happened on games. I realized then that video games simply cannot cause violence of that magnitude, but the violence certainly changed the meaning of the game for me.
I have been playing video games my entire life; everything from casual Mario level games to hard core violent ones. Video games have never caused me to do anything violent. I am a very peaceful person by nature. However, the real world has changed what games mean to me. It’s not as traumatic for me to play Halo now as it was back then, but the feelings are still there in the back of my mind. Real world violence can stick with a person forever I think. In-game violence isn’t traumatic on it’s own and certainly seen as a form of fiction by pretty much every gamer. I still look over my shoulder quite often in public and my awareness of the world around me has increased. I think I am still mourning the loss of a great friend and probably always will. It’s simply hard to completely move on when you know that for as long as you live, there will always be unanswered questions. I don’t write about this too often, but sometimes it’s the only thing on my mind.
I still notice all the articles surfacing that claim games cause violence. I try to stay out of the debate as often as possible until I simply cannot take it anymore. I certainly cannot be objective enough about the topic to be considered unbiased. People need to realize that games are a form of escape for guys like me and definitely not real. We just want to get away from the real world for a little while sometimes. I am pleased that the gaming community has done their best to shoot down the lies of special interest groups who want nothing more than power themselves. They are people who cannot understand life, so they make up excuses for everything. Anyone who can remember and honor the great Hokies who were lost here without making up false stories about the situation is a friend of mine. It may not mean much to everyone in the world, but I am talking about my home and the Hokie spirit. This is quite a magical place here at Virginia Tech and people who have not been here probably do not understand the pure love and respect we have for each other. Some of you may have heard of the theory of ‘six degrees of separation’. Here in Blacksburg, many people say that we have ‘two degrees of separation’.
*Photo at top taken by “Kezins” (aka me) outside Norris Hall.
I felt that you were unusually quiet on Halo-2 last night. I am far from Virginia, and sometimes forget what you and many others are still going through at the moment. It took me a full year to get over the loss of a close friend, and the circumstances weren’t nearly as tragic. Forgive our idiocy in Halo-2, we’ll try to remember what you’re going through and take that into account next time we get together on Live. I was happy to see you online though. Don’t forget that. I’ll be getting a 360 soon, and we can play some poker with vision-cams. That’ll be sweet, and I’ll still be able to trash-talk.
thanks man. It seemed our matches yesterday were kind of crazy too. I am terrible at sword matches particularly when the other team has host.
Poker sounds good. Casual games like that are always a good break from things sometimes. I hate to admit it, but I play Uno and Boom Boom Rocket often
I was a hokie not too long ago, and can imagine what took place in Norris because I had several classes in that building. I am a fan of first-person shooters, and have played a lot of Battlefield. After the event at VT, it didn’t feel the same playing, although I have started playing as time goes by.
I agree with you, it is just about having fun. However, I do believe there is a small percentage of gamers that can be effected by violent games. And out of that smaller percentage there may be a few individuals that will act out violence. Generalizing the idea of video games causing violence is wrong though. Those that would commit violence have a disposition in the first place.
Anyways, hope everything is going well in Blacksburg. I wish I was still attending.
GamingBOB, I definitely understand what you are saying. Things in Blacksburg seem to be good right now, but I guess we’ll see how things go soon when everything for fall gets into high gear. I still think things are a little surreal for most people.
It’s good to see other Hokies checking out our site
I live in Virginia, and near Virginia TEch. i was new to the area when the shooting occured. I felt myself actually cry that ngiht, for people in a state I barely new. THe next day I felt horrible, but everyone else seem to ignre what had happened, some even made disgusting jokes about it? I admit, i didnt expect much maturity from Highschoolers, but we are so desensitised to violence nowadays that I am, in hindsight, not amazed at the sudden lack of care.
It happened with 911, people forget what happen, even blame it on others then the ones who actually commited the crime to make themselves feel better. The same is happening with this horrible shooting and videogames.
It’s easy to not care when you are separated from things I guess. This sort of thing in my mind happens in far off places, not in my home town and on the campus where I am at. So I can understand it in a way. When Columbine happened, I remember thinking it was terrible, but I am not sure if it really bothered me at all because I wasn’t personally involved. Since that time, I have definitely developed more empathy for others in the world.
Although some people have acted a little strange and hateful towards us since what happened, I can say that there were far more people who reached out and helped us through a tough situation. Other colleges in particular really showed their love for us. At home games this year for football, we will be giving the visiting teams standing ovations when they hit the field, which is something I have never seen in my life.