Renegade gamemaker Danny Ledonne has had a wild ride since authoring the now-infamous Super Columbine Massacre RPG! in April 2005. But despite being accused of everything from desecrating the memory of the victims to inspiring a school shooting in Montreal, Ledonne still stands by his work. In the most recent chapter of the indie game's saga, several finalists in the Slamdance Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition (currently underway) dropped out to protest festival co-founder Peter Baxter's decision to remove SCMRPG! from the contest. But Ledonne says he's still going to Slamdance, and he's bringing his camera to document the fallout. NEWSWEEK reporter Jonathan Mummolo interviewed Ledonne. Here's what he had to say.

There was a pretty big protest on your behalf leading up to Slamdance. Six teams dropped out, but it seems like things have cooled down now.

They may have cooled down because they're dead. There are as few as four game developers that are going to actually be in Park City. I'm still going to go and see the people who are there and hang out. I keep getting these e-mails from the other finalists. There's only seven games left in the festival. The game developers' competition has been supplanted by this event that's going on Sunday where we'll all sit down and talk about what happened. It's going to be more funereal than anything else.

I hear you're planning to shoot for your film, "Columbinegame Dot Com," at Slamdance. Why are you making this film?

It's not a way for me to justify the game. I think I've done that enough in the press. I think I just want to make sure people understand this is not a film about what happened at Slamdance. Slamdance is really just one chapter in a rather interesting series of twists and turns for this game and the future of serious gaming.

How long have you been working on it?

I guess if you want to think of pre-production as me getting in touch with people who I think would be interesting in the story, I guess last summer. I kind of walked into it backwards. I'm now actively starting to make arrangements for interviews that I'm shooting and looking into funding and distribution options. The ball is slowly rolling.

What do you hope to capture at Slamdance?

I'm going to bring my camera and I'll capture whatever I find there. I want to certainly videotape the panel discussion that's happening on Sunday. [Slamdance officials] Peter Baxter and Sam Roberts have agreed to be interviewed and I want to interview any of the other game contestants that are there.

What are your plans for the film once it's completed?

I think it will take on a life of its own. The game certainly has. My goal if anything is to really change a few minds at the end of the day as far as what games are and what they could be. I think the film's certainly festival-bound. I think it'd be really humorous if I submitted it to Slamdance.

What's your take on the argument that game content should be treated differently than film content, because games are interactive whereas films are a more passive experience?

I don't find that argument interesting and I tell you why: Every medium is in some way different than every other medium. Film is different than photography. We should accept that as a reason for any given medium to be rejected? Either we will allow videogames to address controversial subject matter, or we don't deserve to have them. The reason I made this game was to really issue a challenge to the idea that video games can only be about sort of vapid, childlike things.

What about the college shooting in Montreal last year? There was a lot of talk about the perpetrator mentioning your game on his blog. What do you say to people who think there's a connection there?

If anything, the reporting after the Montreal story made my point for me about why I made the game. What was of interest to [the media] was what video games he played-No one's blaming black trench coats, no one's blaming whiskey-It's easy to attack video games. There were school shootings way before videogames. If we pulled every videogame out of the market, there would still be school shootings. I think that most of these kids have some pretty deep psychological issues. They hate life. They say it. They feel really outcast from society. Having a more accepting culture where kids don't feel so isolated is a much better start than banning games.