Suicide game developer tackles Telegraph

By Robert Purchese Published 18 November, 2008

Rejects outcry against Flash title.

Dave Lasala, creator of controversial Flash game Billy Suicide, has hit back at organisations campaigning for its removal from the internet.

His comments come after The Telegraph contacted the Samaritans and PAPYRUS (Prevention of Young Suicide), and printed responses claiming the game was both "irresponsible" and a "catalyst to influence the behaviour of people who are already vulnerable" to suicide.

"I wanted the game Billy Suicide to be an exaggerated self-portrait," Dave Lasala explained to Eurogamer. "I also wanted to use it to look at a difficult subject with a sense of humour. I feel I have some authority on the subject, having rescued two brothers from suicide attempts.

"Anyway, it seems to me that people blame violent art, angry music and horror movies for negative behaviour because it's easier to reduce complex issues down to a neat one-sentence solution, like, 'If there were no violent movies there would be no violence.'

"I would encourage everyone to check out the Oscar-winning documentary Bowling for Columbine for an in-depth examination of this behaviour. That being said, the object of the game Billy Suicide is to keep him alive," he added.

Billy Suicide, which you can play on Funny-Games, casts players as the titular character who must survive a day without topping himself.

The skill comes in juggling Mental Health and Financial Health slider bars. The former ping-pongs between Depression and Anxiety, with Stable the safe middle-ground. Activities such as drinking coffee, watching TV, playing guitar - Billy is a musician - and watching pornography affect this slider.

Meanwhile, the Financial Health slider is pushed up by making money on your computer, but gradually deteriorates when doing just about anything else.

Keep Billy alive until the evening and his girlfriend rewards him. But fail, and he'll swing from the rafters or blow his own brains out.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (34) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Madafunkola #1 3 years ago

    From your brief description I'd say that it highlights the difficulties in balancing life for people with depression or other mental health issues, maybe not quite striking the right tone, but by no means encouraging suicide.
    Let me guess - these protests come from a group of people who simply read the title?

  • el_pollo_diablo #2 3 years ago

    How can you look at suicide with a sense of humour?

    - of course you can.

    And for the record, other 'serious' things you're allowed to look at with a sense of humour include religion and politics.

    And how exactly is it like physically walking into a hospital and mocking cancer sufferers?

  • ArcMonkey #3 3 years ago

    Sounds like it. Just played it, it does in no way encourage suicide. Or does it make fun of suicide, suicidal people, or people who have trouble coping, like Nick suggests.

    If the people protesting have so much time on their hands, why not play the game first?

  • Iora #4 3 years ago

    Been 2 suicides in my family to date... and i still don't see the problem here. There is a difference between a kid with cancer and someone choosing to end it of there own free will...

    Thin line maybe but I guess everyone can go back to pretending like it doesnt happen and whisper about it behind closed doors.

    Besides your actively trying to stop the silly sod from topping himself... I can think of numerous games over the years that had my doubled with laughter after manipulating a character or two of a cliff, blowing the heads of people, Chopping them up, setting fire to them, throwing them from great heights, impaling them, the general murder, maim and brutalizing of game characters for over a decade now = all fine and dandy but try to stop a guy killing himself and we've suddenly gone too far.

    "I think this is insensitive RABBLE RABBLE RABBLE" groan... nobody cares go back to bottling up your repressed indignation. Or better yet have you heard about these religious people man are they whacky!
    Edited by 1 at 18/11/08 @ 17:04

  • corposant #5 3 years ago

    I'd expect nothing less of the mainstream media to deliberately stir up controversy in order to sell newspapers, but The Samaritans and PAPYRUS should know better than to be drawn into this sensationalist piece of news making. They have an important agenda, but having a cheap shot at a deliberate parady shows them up to be humourless and pretty desperate for publicity. They really ought to know better.

  • Riggers #6 3 years ago

    The guy is a knob head, how can you look at suicide with a sense of humour?

    http://ww w.amazon.com/Book-Bunny-Suicide... ?

  • NonniR #7 3 years ago

    ArcMonkey.
    The answer to your question is really simple. And the answer is: Because people are idiots.

    Hell, look at the title Eurogamer have on this news article "Suicide game developer". Not that I'm bashing EG (or implying they are idiots) or anything but it's easy to read that and think "Jesus, what's wrong with people?!" and immediately start protesting about "violent Wiistation 360" or something.

    It's so easy to fool the general public it's sickening.

  • Iora #8 3 years ago

    amen... you just have to see the headlines of the lesser rags to send the warning signs.

    It can't be a sensationalist paper without the word nazi in it somewhere.


    Eurogamer is no different. If something is ambiguous they'll sit of a fence and sling shit at both parties, choosing those juicy quotes and using them completely out of context... 5 seconds later the post count begins climbing as people jump in shouting "YEAH this guy IS an ass hat"

  • Shakey_Jake33 #9 3 years ago

    @NickD09 - And how many games do we play that make light of controversial, potentially offensive issues? Some would argue that you can't make light of the people dieing in war by making a video game about them. See where I'm heading with that? We can't get just get on the moral highground when something happens to clash with something that we personally find offensive.

    Not meaning to single out you specifically, but it's an attitude that's strikingly similar to the whole '10000 people on Facebook against XXXXX' fad that's been going around recently, where the fact that our own moral/ethical objections are merely one in a pool just goes out of the windows.

  • kangarootoo #10 3 years ago

    "It's like going into a hospital and taking the piss out of a kid with cancer."

    Well, no. It isn't.

  • kangarootoo #11 3 years ago

    Some really good posts in here.

  • The-Bodybuilder #12 3 years ago

    >""Anyway, it seems to me that people blame violent art, angry music and horror movies for negative behaviour."
    Nah, they're angry because your game is distasteful muck disguised as freedom of speech and art, you knob.

  • benstarkie #13 3 years ago

    Won't someone think of Baby P/Knifecrime/credit crunch etc etc etc

    A sense of humour is the only thing that keeps me from blowing my brains..... oh.... hello there irony, have you lost weight?

  • kangarootoo #14 3 years ago

    "Nah, they're angry because your game is distasteful muck disguised as freedom of speech and art, you knob."

    Since was was "taste" something to be defended with such vigour and anger?

    I wonder how many lives have been lost over the years in the defense of good taste, or through attacking what is seen as bad taste.

  • dr_faulk #15 3 years ago

    I'm very sensetive to suicide, after having a friend who fell victim to it. I still get upset over it, even bleary eyed, but one always has to have a sense of humour. I think once anything brings attention to suicide..... feck it, I don't know. Look, freedom of speech and expression: just let the guy put his game up.

  • benstarkie #16 3 years ago

    can one 'fall victim' to suicide?

  • neilka #17 3 years ago

    You can kill yourself in virtually every game ever made.

  • penhalion #18 3 years ago

    No Idea what the fuss is about with this game. It's just a simple and pretty boring game. Zero replay value in it at all.

  • ozzit #19 3 years ago

    I assumed this would be about Karoshi, a far superior (and at times fiendishly difficult) game where the aim is to kill yourself in new and interesting ways. Karoshi translates to "Death from overwork".

    I and some workmates got completely addicted during a particularly boring weekend shift.

    [link url=h ttp://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=362308
    ]http://gm c.yoyogames.com/index.php?showt...[/link]

    and

    [link url=h ttp://gmc.yoyogames.com/index.php?showtopic=369491
    ]http://gm c.yoyogames.com/index.php?showt...[/link]

    Enjoy!
    Edited by 1 at 18/11/08 @ 18:01

  • TheBoyChris #20 3 years ago

    Free press - go him :)

  • toy_brain #21 3 years ago

    Karoshi is pure awesome. Potentially dodgy subject matter aside, it contains so many 'thinking outside the box' moments - constantly breaking its own rules in new and interesting ways, that I just couldnt stop playing till I'd finished the final-final-no-really-this-is-the-final-level-I-mean-it stage. (Its just that kinda game).

    As for the actual game in question, never played it.
    Should I?

  • Rev.StuartCampbell #22 3 years ago

    "PAPYRUS (Prevention of Young Suicide)" is the WEAKEST ACRONYM EVER.

  • Gaol #23 3 years ago

    That was one shit flash game.

  • Xerx3s #24 3 years ago

    "The guy is a knob head, how can you look at suicide with a sense of humour?"

    Humour is just another way to deal with an emotion that is - as he points out - difficult to express. I can relate to that for my own personal reasons. If he indeed saved two people from committing suicide, I'd put infinitely more value in his opinion than that of those doo goodie newspapers.

  • Nithron #25 3 years ago

    Indeed. People don't seem to understand that when it comes to humour, nothing is out of bounds. In fact, some things are actually funny because they are taken so seriously; not in spite of the fact.

    It seems that they can't differentiate between finding a joke about Subject Matter X funny, and actually finding Subject Matter X itself funny. Nobody thinks suicide is funny. However, jokes about it can be.

    Same thing goes for jokes about dead babies.

  • Omroth #26 3 years ago

    Offense is taken not given.

    You know what's more important than not offending people? Free speech. This is (a) not invading privacy and (b) not inciting hatred so as far as I'm concerned no one has any right to censor it.

  • djed #27 3 years ago

    HOLY SMOKE THAT GAME IS SUBVERSIVE AND PROBABLY RESPONSIBLE FOR A WHOLE HEAP OF SUICIDES, BAN THIS SICK FILTH AND ITS CREATOR.

  • CHAZBIGPOTATO #28 3 years ago

    I'm a Luton Town fan. I'm listening to Luton Town in extra time away to Altringham in a FA cup first round replay, its 0-0 after 3 hours and nearly fifteen minutes against a team in middle of the blue square premier, add to that the fact that we've only scored 19 points so far this season and we started on minus 30 and the commentator on 3 counties radio has a knack of making even the most exiting games sound like paint drying.

    Now if that isn't enough to make anyone feel suicidal nothing will.

  • CHAZBIGPOTATO #29 3 years ago

    Yesss! We won on penalties!

    Come on Luton!
    Come on Luton!
    'ome on Lu'on!
    'ome on Lu'on!
    uu oh ooo un!
    uu oh ooo un!

  • TriggerHippie #30 3 years ago

    Its a day in my life!

  • Futaba #31 3 years ago

    Rigger's have you ever even read that picture book? It's funny, but not in a 'lets laugh at suicide' way.

  • chukcyQ #32 3 years ago

    Suicide/mutilation games seem to be pretty popular! Ever wanted to tear Pedobear into pieces, and listen to the children to laugh!? :D

    <a href=htt p://www.kongregate.com/games/ttursas/drop-dead>Drop Dead</a>

    Awesome game, I've spent hours pushing Pedobear around and watch him die in a bloody mess!

  • warlockuk #33 3 years ago

    You can have fun with suicide. It isn't like they're mocking every person who ever killed themselves ffs, people need to chill the fuck out. As someone already linked - the Bunny Suicides books are pretty funny.

    Doesn't mean that they're mocking people. Chill the fuck out :)

  • actionfitz #34 3 years ago

    @Riggers
    18-Nov-08 17:06:31

    The guy is a knob head, how can you look at suicide with a sense of humour?

    http://ww w.amazon.com/Book-Bunny-Suicide... ?
    ---

    Exactly.
    There is no such thing as a subject to held sacred and immune from humour. Sometimes shit gets so bad the only options are to laugh or cry, laughter in the face of tradgedy can be extremely cathartic.
    I can say with authority that sharing humour regarding the subject of personal loss can be an effective means of dealing with grief.
    I just wish our self appointed moral guardians would get the fuck off their high horses and stop spewing out their bottled indignation on our behalf every time they think they have a chance at selling papers.

    If this game was based on some real poor sod that off'd himself, that would be callous and insensitive...
    but given the context of the game and the background of the developer... the Telegraph can go fuck themselves.
    I guess their problem is with the medium, you wouldn't find them up in arms about a book, movie or song about suicide.
    The evlolution of interactive media as a form of expression necessitates developers exploring subject matter outside of the guns, aliens and sports genres.