What do you make of Doug Lowenstein's comments? Does the ESA have any authority over "the notion of the video game?" Or is Lowenstein just trying playing a practical card, trying to distance the industry from more inflammatory press?

I am not a game person. I can't lie about that. But in my opinion this is the most stupid thing I have ever seen. I am a big fan of John F. Kennedy and this is just repuslive. I think this "game" is degrading to JFK. If I could I would do everything in my power to keep this game out of stores. I understand it is just a game, but to people like me it is much more. I hope you all will have the decency not to buy this game and have a little more dignity. I am sorry if I have offended anyone this is just ny opinion.

>Or is Lowenstein just trying playing a practical card,
>trying to distance the industry from more >inflammatory press?

Lowenstein is a lawyer. One thing they teach you in lawyer school is to control the definitions. "Your honor, what wasn't murder, it was self-defense".

So, i think is a very practical movie. Doug represents the Entertainment Software Association. If this isn't entertainment software, well, darn, then it's out of their jurisdiction.

In that sense, this could be a very canny move. I could see future legislation that distinguishes games for fun from games for learning from rhetorical games.

On the other hand, it's easier to protect rhetorical speech than it is entertainment speech. Just ask Lenny Bruce. So, on second hand, this might be a very stupid move.

At any rate, we all know that it's a game. If nothing else, it was built by a game developer and marketed and sold as a game.

My feeling is that the cultural climate doesn't yet exist where people could see this game (and it definitely is one) as a serious and valuable way of understanding the event, which all goes back to the "are games art?" debate, and even the "are games about having fun?" debate (actually, they're probably just two sides of the same coin). Even for gamers who believe that games already offer more meaningful experiences besides 'fun', the overwhelming interpretation of simulation and videogame tropes like points is that they're being used for hedonic purposes. Shooting JFK, in the right spots and in the right order, is just about having fun.

That's very true, though, that Traffic is undermining their own rhetorics of seriousness by offering a cash reward, and even by calling it "JFK Reloaded", which clearly recalls The Matrix Reloaded and suggests a level of play not in keeping with their serious aims.

As someone who has visited Dallas, written on the assassination and teaches on conspiracy, I found this a fascinating simulation. Oddly enough, it confirmed my views, that shooting JFK was not that difficult for an experienced shooter (and Oswald was not the amateur of legend.) The game doesn't really simulate the firing, as the telescopic sight compresses the sighting too much, but it does a decent job.

Major discovery? Why didn't LHO shot the driver. Every time I do that, the car either slows, stops, or crashes, sometimes throwing the passengers out. It makes shooting the President easier anyway

Your post displays a poverty of imagination, morality, and empathy that beggars belief. How about a "game" where you are a concentration camp guard ushering Jews into the gas chamber, or torturing them? Or a game in which you are a Mansonoid, disemboweling the pregnat Sharon Tate? You sick fuck!!

"How about a "game" where you are a concentration camp guard ushering Jews into the gas chamber, or torturing them?"

Must have read your earlier work Gonzalo...:-)

You call it a "weird" game......of all the descriptors you could choose for this game, you choose "weird". Now THAT is in itself weird and interesting. I think "abhorrent", "poisonous", "hateful" or "ludicrous" are much more appropriate descriptors. You choose to waffle on this issue: "we're not REALLY defending the game...but then again.....". Don't you think people can see through your little maneuver?? Of ALL the things in this world that one could defend!! Lol.........you choose to defend a KENNEDY ASSASSINATION GAME!! Wow......my hunches about the whole video-head crowd seem to true, sad to say........

By the way, you should be careful. There are consequences for all the choices we make. Based on my first-time visit to your site, and the information I've learned about this game, I am prepared to fight tooth and nail against you and your industry/crowd.........whereas 24 hours ago I had no opinion really, either way.........but then again, no one ever said that caution and concern were hallmarks of people who sit down in front of a screen and design or play your little games......lol

As insensitive and disgusting this simulation/game is, I commend frasca for at least discussing it intelligently and not having the emotional overreaction so prevalent among many. I'm most annoyed by how some people react to this by a desire to suppress it or ban it. You have every right not to purchase a bad product; but you have no right to limit other's choices based on your personal tastes.

"I don't like it, so no one should be allowed to do it" seems to be a growing attitude in the USA. I guess that's the "moral values" people are talking about.

ever heard of simulation? we live in a world of simulation. this game is hypersimulation (baudrillard). the bellicose and uncritical responses to the game illustrate its danger to our society. we already live under a simulation of order. the game re-represents an historical media event. it's faked-up graphics and not real space. check out Ant Farm's video The Eternal Flame (1975), which is a re-enactment of the assassination at the exact location + new tourist spectators. why not have various models to think about the events? is the zapruder film sacred because that's been the real/reel event repeatedly played?
We already have entertainment like Oliver Stone's JFK in the background of this new game. also there have been innumerable sniper guns in video games. it's not even an original technique. jfk reloaded barely has anything new to say except that the characters are based on historical figures in exact (virtual) locations and that the player is responsible for the historical accuracy. $10,000 for the winner, who really attacks conspiracy theories. computer games destroying rhetoric.
so far, i have watched the demo. it hardly captures the mood of the event. no real immersion. it's only a scientific/ballistic model. no psychological weight. i'd rather watch bruce conner's Report (1963-67), which represents the jfk assassination thru mass media radio panic. it also has the famous news footage of the actual rifle held high in the air repeated several times.
i'd play this game (if i can unlock it for free) to give it a closer look.
i don't like the paranoia. i am a videohead. born in 77. nothing wrong with us.

To: "Traffic" regarding their "JFK Reloaded" program.
We the undersigned wish to express our outrage and protest to "Traffic" and the world at large regarding their "JFK Reloaded" program. A computer program simulating the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy as gamers play the role of Lee Harvey Oswald is in the poorest of tastes, and will be hurtful to the Kennedy family.
We request any and all interested parties sign and pass on the url of this petition to their acquaintances to facilitate our protest.

I woudl bet a Dollar to the hole in a Doughnut that noen of you Blakers that "hate" this "game" even took the time to read around on the site. You heard what the media said about it and locked your brain onto rejection of the Idea.

I dont find this in poor taste at all. What I find in poor taste is all the lies the GOvernment spit out about what happened.

I think this is a very awesome and powereful re-enactment of what happened. It has educated me abotu what took place and also increased my feelign of how tragic this was in deed. A very sad day for sure. I feel that even more now than before, JFK did not stand a chance in that senario.

Fantastic! What a marvellous insight! - not the game, to hell with that - I mean peoples' reactions, here and elsewhere.

There are:

The knee-jerk reactions about how dreadful this is (did any of these outraged people object to EA, SCi and others releasing Vietnam games, where the player slaughters hundreds for entertainment? I suspect not.)

The poster on Spong who said he didn't care about this game but he'd happily buy a game where he could shoot George W Bush

The way that some of the discussions again have opened up popular political wounds (I'm thinking of the UK posters who manage to connect this through to Noraid and then fall out on-line with right-wing Americans)

etc.

etc.

etc.

Doesn't anybody agree with me when I say that the one-man-shooter theory that Traffic is trying to bolster with "JFK:Reloaded" was sufficiently bolstered last year at this time, when news was released of an animated computer-generated model simulating November 22, 1963?

I feel as if Traffic is desperately using that excuse to defend their oft-attacked product... Why does a simulation need to be interactive? It's rarely denied that this product is in bad taste.

As for the release of games in which players play soldier and kill enemy Vietnamese, etc... This, I believe, is oftentimes overlooked because the enemies usually don't have big names that players would know, or separate identities- They all blend together on the other side of the firiing, you know? With JFK... well, everyone knows JFK. He was one of the greatest leaders of the global community.

Excellent post, Gonzalo. You're quite right about the educational aspect of the game -- you really can infer some interesting stuff about how viable it was for Oswald to have acted alone! And I think you're also right that had Traffic not offered a cash prize, it would have been regarded as less distasteful.

While you also make a great point that this controversy is at least in part because the Kennedys are rich and powerful, I don't quite buy the idea that the reason nobody protests games in which you kill Vietcong soldiers is that they're poor and politically powerless. Because the fact is, plenty of war games allow people to enthusiastically kill Russian soldiers, German soldiers, Japanese soldiers, and even American soldiers. And you'd expect to find a huge outcry in the latter case, but you don't. Why?

Because in those games, the people you're killing aren't very well individuated. Even in games with graphics superb enough to be able to see the sweat dripping down the face of someone you're shooting, the person isn't an individual: You don't know his name, his history, his background, or who his famiy is. Indeed, that's precisely why you're able to kill him -- on the screen as in real life. As the military has long known -- and as was neatly documented by David Grossman in his *On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society* -- it's incredibly hard to get past people's inherent distaste for killing. To get someone to kill, you ideally have to put as much physical distance between them and their victim (which is why it's so comparatively easy to do with a bomber or long-range shell, and why only a tiny number of soldiers have ever killed anyone with a bayonet). And if you can't put physical distance between the soldier and his victim, you have to psychological distance -- either by dehumanizing the enemy, or by training the soldier to simply shoot at anything that moves in the wrong zone.

The point is, the JFK game is one of the very, very rare games where the most players (even me, a 35-year-old Canadian who wasn't alive when Kennedy was shot, and who, frankly, has no particular feelings of affection for the Kennedy family whatsoever ... in fact, I really don't "get" Americans' veneration of JFK) know a lot about the people you're killing. The facial models are highly recognizable, and the killing is at close distance. That's practically custom-designed to produce high levels of inherent disgust in most players. A regular kill-the-Vietcong game -- or kill-the-Americans or kill-the-Covenent game -- does not have individuated enemies, and thus has far, far less emotional impact. That's partly why you don't see anywhere as much outcry about them.

In that context, what I found interesting about the game is that it didn't have any structural elements that acknowledged or responded to the emotional valences of the situation it was setting up. It was seemingly designed purely as a physics sim; in fact, given the yuk-yuk intertexual Matrix reference in the title, the designers seemed to be signalling that the way-cool bullet trajectory stuff was the real show here. And it was, quite spectacularly and quite genuinely, I think! I mean, that's the stuff that I found most engaging and impressive.

Hey Clive, I totally agree with your point. It is totally different to kill a specific person/character than a somehow vague anstract notion of "enemy".
However, there's been quite an outcry about the Palestinian games where you shoot Israelis. The games are just regular FPS, only that the graphics are different. Same about Ethnic cleansing, the neo-nazi game (which, interestingly, is so underground that I have never been able to get a copy. I could buy it, of course, but that's one of the serious game researcher problems: you do not want to fund wackos with your research).
In both of these examples, you kill abstract persons, however there was a very strong reaction by the media (specially on the second game).
Every culture has its sets of values, its usual suspects and official good and bad guys. It's part of how ideology works. True, politicial figures are easier targets, but abstract enemies are not equal to every player.

Yes, that's undeniably true. The ideological content of the games is powerful and important to what they mean, and who they present as a viable enemy -- just as the political power of the Kennedy family is a good part of why everyone's freaking out about this game.

Have there ever been limit cases in games that test this out, I wonder? I.e. a game where you kill someone who is modelled on real life and is recognizable, but isn't "powerful"? Probably not, insofar as anyone famous enough to be modelled recognizably in a game is likely to be famous *because* they're powerful.

I am asian, and want to learn more about Kenny, and I also like to try this game. But for some reason DEMO I downloaded for free doesnt work. Will someone borrow me their account, and send it threw my email? My email is

Parksangyoul2001@yahoo.com

I want UNLOCKED version.
I also think this game is pretty stupid.
It would been better if this game is where you are the police officer and trying to solve what happened, or something like that rather then shooting at the president......

I am Asian, and want to learn more about this email. I want to get a UNLOCKED version of this game and try it for my self. Will someone loan me their UNLOCKED account? If you are willing to borrow me your account for me to try, my email address is :

Parksangyoul2001@yahoo.com

I also think this game is pretty stupid, and I rather play the role of a detective, trying to solve what just happened, or someone else.............

I am Asian, and want to learn more about this

GAME.

I accidently said I want to learn more about EMAIL.

Geez...

See, I've got a lot of love for Gonzalo Frasca - but I just don't agree there at all.

Everyone wants to see people doing new and interesting things with games...but this is just tastless. Videogames are a respected medium now, and we should be treating them as such - by accepting that not every "different" type of game is inspiring and needs to be applauded.

Sometimes ideas are just plain bad. It's too recent, it's too offensive, it's not really pushing anything forward and all it's going to do is supply (fair) anti-games ammo to all the non-believers out there.

This sort of stuff just makes me depressed. Is increasingly controversial degrees of violence all games can do?

Hi, Gonzalo:

The question of the game/simulation distinction is made a bit fuzzier in that the cash award is not for more efficiently killing JFK or killing more or fewer by-standers, but for committing the assassination in exactly the way that the Warren Commission described Oswald doing.

The designers of the game have come out on the record as supporting the lone-gunman theory, and believe that ultimately, they will be able to award the prize and thus provide support to the idea the Oswald could have acted alone. This is the motivation for the focus on the quality of the ballistics simulation.

This makes the status of the game fascinating - it's not just a rhetoric, it's distributed analysis by simulation using game elements, of a politically charged, contested historical event. From that perspective, I think this game is crucially important. It isn't an educational game per se, neither in a traditional sense nor in a Friere sense, for a number of reasons. I know we like to bring out the magic word "education" to elevate the status of the thing and protect it against clucking nay-sayers, but I think this is doing something more interesting than simple education.

If anyone is as upset or angered over the creation of this game. Please sign this online petition calling for the retraction of JFK Reloaded from the Public Marketplace and an apology from Traffic games.

I would like to thank the hosts of Watercoolergames for providing a forum of intelligent discussion (both praising and critical) about our recent release JFK Reloaded.

In creating the title we knew that much of what we were doing was new and potentially provocative, but is refreshing that many of the key 'non-sensationalist' ideas we wished to demonstrate have been explored and highlighted by the contributors to this site.

Although I can assure you that we are not pursuing a series of 'Reloaded' titles, we will continue to produce a variety of games that offer a unique and challenging alternative to conventional titles, utilising technology that we love and understand.

Kirk -- welcome to WCG. Thanks for your comment; we hope you'll check back and keep in touch with updates on the progress of the game.

If nothing else, Mr. Ewing, the making of this game is very irresponsible.

I tried the new shooting demo, and the animation shown in different cameras is not very accurate to what is physically happening.

I think that Traffic Games is honing this "simulation" to fit into previoulsy concluded ideas about the reality of this event. It is one thing to try and objectively simulate a scenario like this. I have no problem with that.

But to give a cash reward in hopes of proving a theory about this assassination?

This is no educational tool. This is no simulation. Despite all of the claims about physical accuracy and detail, a faithful simulation is in actuality being sacrificed in order to make it look like what Oswald did checks out.

A prime example: I tried the demo. One of my shots hit the President in the lower back. On the Zapruder angle, this shot made him clasp his throat with both hands. An animation, no doubt, to look like the actual film, and without regard to the physical space inside the game that your company seems to care so much about.

I think a contest for a cash prize and educational value are opposite attributes when it comes to simulations like this one.

Don't tell me this is an educational endeavor. Not for $10 a download.

And, by the way, you may have a hard time "improving" your game to make it easier for someone to replicate those magic shots without sacrificing some physical accuracy or precision in scoring.

And awarding $100,000 to someone for sitting in their dorm room playing a game using a mouse isn't going to prove anything about the possibility of a real human being firing a piece of shit rifle that accurately.

In fact, many people that have played the game have commented that the Warren Commission report on the shots seems much LESS feasible than ever before because the shot that Oswald misses is way out of the line of fire that is so crucial for the last two shots.

I got a full version game, you cant enter the contest, but if you are interesting to get this game "FREE", instead of paying 10 bucks, email me. P.S there wil be NO ENTRY TOKENS. $10 bucks....this is just stupid. They could just released it for free. People are making cracks already, and posting on the web for people to download the full version free. I wanted to try the full version, but 10 bucks on this piece of shit is total waste, so I downloaded mine for free. Thats why I am giving away the cracked full version. Its only 20 MB TOO!!!!!! EVEN .99 CENTS GAME HAVE AT LEAST 200 MB of files. (If you cant understand any thing I am saying, forgive me, I am asian.)

If you wanted to try the full version for FREE, I will send you through email, or AIM. My email is:

Parksangyoul2001@Yahoo.com

My AIM is:

TerristSniper

Yes, my AIM does sound bad, but I totally respect John F. Kennedy, and also against this game.

If you're against this game, don't play it, if your friends ask, recommend against it, but DON'T attempt to censor it.

That is a far more evil betrayal of JFK's memory than some piffling game.

i am sorry, but previous massage i said about downloading for free, I was just kidding. I was soo mad, and I dont know what I was typing............... And NO i didnt download it for free. I bought it wiht 10 bucks like everoyne else.

I might get in trouble if I gave it away free with MY account anyway.

All you have to do is mention the words JFK Reloaded and the discussions starts in earnest..

I now have completely independent proof that this sim is rigged. Play it. During the replay, position the "floating camera" to the infield across from where Zapruder is standing. You should be looking at were Zapruder was standing. To the left you should be able to see the fence that extends towards the overpass. Make sure you are close to "ground level view" (about the height of a person taking a picture), and be far enough back that you can see the road and a bit of the infield grass. The left frame should end at about where the road goes under the underpass.

Now comes the good part. Find the photographs of the aftermath. There is the one with the cop running in the infield. Both of his arms are away from his sides and he is clearly running across the grass. He is still in the infield, running in the direction of the grassy knoll but not yet at the pavement the road.

If you have a copy of the book "The Killing of a President: the complete photographic record..." you will find [on page 50 and page 51 and page 54 (inset) and page 56-57 (full spread)] photos of the same area I described above. Basically these pictures show everything at about ground level (not an aerial view) from Zapruder’s perch to the underpass as seen from the infield.

In the historic pictures, the top of the fence runs parallel (horizontally) at nearly the same height as the concrete that Zapruder was standing on. In the sim the ground rises above this so that the bottom edge of the fence is above the line of concrete that extends out from where Zapruder was standing.

In the historical pictures the "line" extends across the horizon in a uniform way (from Zapruder to the overpass) while the road slopes downward from the right side (near the depository) to the left side (near the underpass) and goes under it.

In the sim, the road slopes just fine, but the ground has a significant rise just to the left of the concrete retaining wall that extends out beyond Zapruder's perch. When you compare the two from the same angle it is very clear. In the sim there is an extra rise just to the left of the concrete stairs going up beside the knoll. In the original pictures, no such rise exists. In fact, the rise is so pronounced in the sim that the whole length of the fence slopes back down toward the top of the overpass. The sim ground is clearly sloped while the real area is level.

This means this sim makes it impossible to explore the grassy knoll view properly.

This means the sim has been designed to make it impossible to view correct sightlines from the fence at the grassy knoll to the location of the final headshot.

Since it seems odd that only this one area in the sim would be so badly misrepresented, it seems to indicate that it was intentional.

Anything intentional has intent (it has a purpose or a reason). It is therefore reasonable to wonder why the makers would do this.

It is unfortunate that Americans, on the whole, lack the intellectual capacity to stay focused. The last 50 years have been utterly dominated by an unelected oligarchy. Americans who complain when viewing this"game"are simply stupid and ignorant. The whole point of it is you can't recreate what happend on Nov. 22 1963, from the 6th floor of the Texas Schoolbok Depository. Lee Harvey Oswald did not kill the President. This same Oligarchy engineered the 9/11 incident. You should all be ashamed for being so stupid and nieve. Wake up America!!!!

hey god-boy (alpha omega) why r u trashin the guy b4 u? he's got some good stuff going on, r u saying he's out to lunch?

the game's f---n' rigged why trash the guy? besides u sound like yur on the same side...

Comment from Sheriff on December 08, 2004

If you're against this game, don't play it, if your friends ask, recommend against it, but DON'T attempt to censor it.

That is a far more evil betrayal of JFK's memory than some piffling game.

Censor (transitive verb).
Inflected Form(s): cen·sored; cen·sor·ing /'sen(t)-s&-ri[ng], 'sen(t)s-ri[ng]/
: to examine in order to suppress or delete anything considered objectionable.

No one is trying to "censor" this game. We are trying to point out its myriad factual flaws and innaccuracies, as well as (specifically) discussing the implications of manipulation within the physical space of the game.

I see nothing wrong with calling out whoever designs something and claims that it is an educational tool or factually accurate when it is demonstrably otherwise. Thank you, Bill, for keeping your eyes level and examining this game. People should know that their children are being lied to and preached to in order to keep them dumb.

Exploding illusion and fallacy is the first step in getting a new lease on life.

This isn't a game. It was simply labeled as a game as a marketing strategy. Get the fuck over it. It will make money and do very well for its creators. As for the one-shooter theory... THAT IS THE POINT... they are simply conveying to the world that it isn't possible to have a lone shooter. I respect JFK and what happened was horrible, but the truth needs to get out.

Hey, "The Truth", you are wrong. Since the creators intentionally distorted the area known as the grassy knoll (see my description above), you can be very sure that they not only made it for money, but made it to convert people to the lone gunman story.
And just because the game seems to actually prove that Oswald's shot was impossible, does not mean they set out to prove that in the beggining.

The terrain is wrong in the game.
Just go into the game and look at the fence line that stretches across the grassy knoll area. You will have to look at it from the infield.
Then compare it to the pictures from the same angle in many of the books. Hell, there's an online camera with a 360 view if want.

You will see that in the real Dealey plaza the fence line is level and extends naturally from Zapruder's perch to the tripple underpass. It is level and never changes hieght.

In the game the fence rises up so that the bottom of it is above where Zapruder's head would be, and slopes back down on a steep angle down to the tripple underspass.

This is very clear. There is no question that the two are different. It is not a matter of inches. The game has the apex of the fence at least 3 feet higher than in the real plaza. You don't have to take my word for it. Go, look, and see for yourself.

Then you will know "The Truth".

assinating people is fun

I thought something was amiss in the geometry of the Dealey Plaza model but had not gone to the effort of comparing to photos as you did. In the sim replay mode, I did check out the view from the palisade fence on the grassy knoll and wondered... My hope was that the game designers would release a second version where you could try other sniper locations such as the knoll or the Dal-Tex building.

It seems you are correct, Bill, that the grassy knoll is way off! I went to the infield to look at the knoll and it takes off at a hell of a slope toward the sky and back down again!
I can't believe the lengths that these people seem to be willing to go to support the single shooter story!
This game has obviously twisted and distorted the actual lay of the land in order to make its case. As far as I'm concerned this is more proof that JFK was killed by members of the most un-reachable level who still hold sway over everything we see and read and even play today.
But they always expose more of themselves every time they produce another cover story like this one.
Congratulations, Bill, for your vigilance. Perhaps some of the doubting few will finally be swayed by this most recent electronic reality distortion.

I consider it to be a poor game. No matter how hard it's promoted.

LOL!!! I love this game.

oops, i almost forgot the link.

http://www.rit.edu/~bmb0248/boooing.jpg

HAHAHAHAHA