After the news broke that the Slamdance film festival had pulled finalist Danny Ledonne's Super Columbine Massacre RPG! from competition, Level Up posted a strongly worded opinion piece objecting to the organizers' actions. We'll have more to say about this later. Our NEWSWEEK colleague Jonathan Mummolo updates the situation:

When Super Columbine Massacre RPG! was axed from the Slamdance Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition list of finalists last week, a fissure in the gaming community emerged. Some thought the game tasteless and poorly designed; others defended it as topical and denounced the event's organizers as unjustly censoring a gamemaker's work. Among the outraged are five other finalists who have all quit the festival in protest. Since Saturday, the makers of Braid, flOw, Everyday Shooter, Toblo and Once Upon a Time have all withdrawn from competition. And today, seven finalist teams sent a joint letter of disapproval to Slamdance organizers, calling for the game's reinstatement.

"If this was a film instead of a game, it wouldn't even really be a question," says Jonathan Blow, who withdrew his game, Braid--which took nearly two years to develop--on Saturday. "As long as we persist in believing that games are just for kids...we're not going to get where we need to go." Slamdance President and co-founder Peter Baxter says he sympathizes with the protestors. "The decision was a real struggle," he tells NEWSWEEK. "Just consider the families and how recently this tragedy has happened. The gut told me that it was not right for the wellbeing of our organization." Instead, Baxter told NEWSWEEK he is now considering adding a debate on the merits of SCMRPG! to the festival schedule. Multiple e-mails between festival officials and finalists confirm that such as forum has been added to the itinerary.