On high schools and Counter-Strike maps: a blogger’s two-cents worth

We just reported earlier about the rather belated news of the expulsion of a Chinese student. He was expelled from Clements High School because he was spotted playing a game of Counter-Strike on a map that, according to the police, was based off of his own high school’s floor plan.

Unfortunately, because many facts have been hidden from the media, I, for one, am very skeptical about such a claim. I’ve searched high and low for more information on the story, but all of it revolved around relations to the Virginia Tech shooting and some executive board members soiling their underpants fearful of another incident. The most specific of facts were hidden, but to what aim? Fairness? Speaking of fairness…

Authorities claimed that hallways in the map were reminiscent of the student’s high school’s hallways. Granted that may be so, is the high school made up of just those hallways?

It’s sad that we ended up drawing speculations here, but because the evidence (the map layout coupled with the high school floorplan) was never revealed to the media, can you blame us for doing so?

But let’s take this into another point of view. There are many issues that gamers and some third-party onlookers have raised with this development, just about equally for and against the rash decision of the district board. First is the issue of maps depicting real-life locations and understanding what map making entails.

The second issue that people have had, which includes the 17-year-old senior’s supporters, involves blowing the Virginia Tech shooting to proportions way off the “common sense Richter scale.” In fact, it either began to look like the budding of another racial stereotype or, as one district board member claimed, the first of probably many overreactions, thanks to the VA Tech shooting and anti-video game activists. But let’s tackle these one by one.

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We just reported earlier about the rather belated news of the expulsion of a Chinese student. He was expelled from Clements High School because he was spotted playing a game of Counter-Strike on a map that, according to the police, was based off of his own high school’s floor plan.

Unfortunately, because many facts have been hidden from the media, I, for one, am very skeptical about such a claim. I’ve searched high and low for more information on the story, but all of it revolved around relations to the Virginia Tech shooting and some executive board members soiling their underpants fearful of another incident. The most specific of facts were hidden, but to what aim? Fairness? Speaking of fairness…

Authorities claimed that hallways in the map were reminiscent of the student’s high school’s hallways. Granted that may be so, is the high school made up of just those hallways?

It’s sad that we ended up drawing speculations here, but because the evidence (the map layout coupled with the high school floorplan) was never revealed to the media, can you blame us for doing so?

But let’s take this into another point of view. There are many issues that gamers and some third-party onlookers have raised with this development, just about equally for and against the rash decision of the district board. First is the issue of maps depicting real-life locations and understanding what map making entails.

The second issue that people have had, which includes the 17-year-old senior’s supporters, involves blowing the Virginia Tech shooting to proportions way off the “common sense Richter scale.” In fact, it either began to look like the budding of another racial stereotype or, as one district board member claimed, the first of probably many overreactions, thanks to the VA Tech shooting and anti-video game activists. But let’s tackle these one by one.

There are many maps in Counter-Strike that have a likeness to locations for many different types of people. CS_Deathmall represents a pretty bland (uninteresting) mall at best, for example, but because it’s pretty generic, it can represent your own local mall.

In fact, the name of the map itself could be bait for the School Shooting Specialist himself. Just because someone decided to create a map thathappened to look like a local park nearby and plays on it doesn’t immediately mean that the player aims to gun down people there in real life.

There are so many games, perhaps too much to mention, that sport realistic maps of real-life locations. In fact, some of these games depict the locations so vividly, it’s actually like you’re really there. If a student plays these games, should he be barred from going to that place?

Take Ubisoft‘s Tom Clancy‘s Rainbow Six: Vegas. It depicts the City of Sin in amazing glory. It’s a wonderful shooter and a very violent one at that.

If this blogger plays a level of sporting “depictions” of a real-life casino (and does it pretty well, may I add), by the critics definition of “take things seriously,” I should be barred from ever setting foot in that casino – in fear that I could draw up a Kalashnikov and spray paint the expensive, velvet-clad, crimson red walls…red.

Is it fair? Of course not. But seeing as it’s not fair either to bar a senior student from graduating (arguably one of the most phenomenal and climactic points in a person’s life) just because he played a map that looked like his school, should people be surprised why there’s a sudden uprising against the expulsion decision?

But that’s not all: modders and map makers all agree that the best way to create a complex level in any map editor is to base your map on a real-life setting. In fact, for many of us (surprise!) map makers, it’s almost a general rule. You can probably say it’s similar to programmers’ “Hello World!” rule of thumb for their first program on new languages. Many of you map makers could probably relate, because it’s almost as well established as tradition.

Another issue that’s becoming a really big social concern is that because the gunner in the VA Tech incident was Asian, suddenly authorities are putting “Asian” and “Counter-Strike” and “map that looks like school” together, turning it into another racial stereotype. Is the world going to eye Asians as people who go postal in schools? Let’s put this into another perspective from the other side of the world: how many shootings have there been in Asian high schools?

You’re probably wondering why I wanted to spill my own opinions on the whole school shooting hullabaloo. Well, it’s because the search for more scoop on this story always had an article taking the side of the school or some person talking about video games and violence and trying to put two and two together, which made me wonder why no one else is bothering to voice out for the other side of the battlefield?

I’m no savior, but I hope that the Fort Bend Independent School District board reconsiders their rash punishment. I’m not blaming them either for their slight short-sightedness in the matter. They’re not avid gamers at any length, so I presume that they’re just using common sense in league with their parenting capability.

As parents, however, they should be able to see that such a move could have already damaged the student’s hopes and dreams, leaving a scar for him to be bitter about. And drawing from the conclusions of some psycho-analyses on the VA Tech shooter, this could mark the root of a whole new chain for similar Virginia Tech incidents.