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Absolutely. This is becoming a common practice among law enforcement officials looking to avoid creating more mass shooters.We know for a fact that some mass shooters, including Adam Lanza and Nikolas Cruz, were inspired by other killers, including the Columbine killers. There is evidence that Patrick Crusius, who targeted Hispanic immigrants in El Paso, got some inspiration from Brenton Tarrant, who slaughtered Moslems in mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.We also know that the fame (infamy?) inspires others for years. Just this year, a young woman from Florida committed suicide in Colorado because she was not going to be able to repeat the Columbine massacre on its 20th anniversary.U.S. Representative Tom Craddick told a local newspaper that Ator once failed a background check, but we have no information as to what background check (Ator was a truck driver, so there could have been more than one) or why Ator failed.Ator’s criminal record showed only a deferred adjudication conviction for criminal trespass, a Class B misdemeanor in 2001, and evading arrest in 2002, for which he received 24 months of probation. While the second charge might have been a prohibition in terms of an NICS inquiry, it would not necessarily mean Ator was prohibited from owning a gun in Texas. State gun rights are restored if the convicted person completes their sentence and five years following that completion without any trouble with the law. This means that while Ator could not have bought a gun from a licensed dealer, he could legally purchase a gun from a private individual or at in a private sale at a gun show.

There were two things that doomed Kingdoms of Amalur; releasing in February 2012 with a fairly generic game that might have done a lot better a year earlier, and over-inflated requirements for success. This would have caused many problems for even an experienced studio, never mind the debut game from a studio.Kingdoms of Amalur: decent looking but a bit generic and no Skyrim2011 was a pretty good year for fantasy RPGs, with three studios with already established IPs releasing sequels to their previous game. In first was Bioware’s Dragon Age II released in March 2011. Bioware were probably the leading western RPG studio at the time (having released Mass Effect II the previous year). Dragon Age II was … all right, with an 82 on Metacritic, and sold a couple of million copies in its first couple of months. Two months later CD Projeckt Red released The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, a very interesting game and far better than its predecessor even if not the monster its successor would be. With an 88 on Metacritic and a not very well known studio it sold 1.7 million copies in its first year. And in November 2011 the well established Bethseda, probably the second biggest western RPG studio at the time, released a little game called The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim to acclaim, receiving a 94 on Metacritic, breaking sales records.Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning had the misfortune to release in February 2012, three months after Skyrim - which meant that a lot of fantasy fans were still playing Skyrim (many still are!). It was a decent game, scoring an 80 on Metacritic - but was neither a Witcher 3 nor a Skyrim. It was considered a little generic at the time but decently done, without the hooks to draw you in and interesting lore or characters of The Witcher or being a sequel to an excellent game like 2009’s Dragon Age: Origins (91 on Metacritic) from the studio that had released Mass Effect II the previous year (94 on Metacritic). So it sold - but not like either the Witcher II with Geralt and storytelling or like Dragon Age 2 with an established IP. Instead it sold 1.2 million copies in its first 90 days.For a studio making their debut game 1.2 million copies in their first 90 days is far from a failure. It’s better than most games do, period. But according to the Governor of Rhode Island it needed to sell 3 million copies to break even. To put that into perspective it took Bioshock just under two years to sell 3 million copies.Requiring a studio to have a Bioshock-sized success as their very first game just in order to break even is insanity.Kingdoms of Amalur was a decent but not outstanding game - but even if it had done as well as The Witcher II it would have failed badly. The Witcher II was a much better game by a studio with more experience and more of a track record. And comparing its performance to that of Witcher II and Dragon Age II Kingdoms of Amalur did pretty decently for a fresh IP that was a solid but not outstanding game.And it failed because, even after the ambition of a first game that had to succeed like Bioshock to break even within two years, they decided to work on an MMO with the same IP. And MMOs are really expensive to make and kind of a moonshot to pull off. If they’d kept their ambitions modest both for Kingdoms and then not going for an MMO they might have been able to follow the same trajectory as CDPR with an interesting first game, a better second one, and an absolutely outstanding third one once they’d built up their team and skills.

Bioware.Look, the writing has been on the wall for a while now. While Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age Inquisition were arguably good, the last great game they made was Mass Effect 2, nearly a decade ago.In more recent times they released Mass Effect Andromeda, which while a financial success[1][1][1][1] wasn’t received well. You know a game didn’t perform to standards when DLC is cancelled and it’s being sold for a couple bucks two years after launch.But hey, that wasn’t the real Bioware, it was made by a secondary studio carrying the Bioware banner. Andromeda was rushed, and while there was severe incompetence and disorganization displayed by senior Bioware staff[2][2][2][2] who clearly didn’t care enough about the project, the real Bioware is busy making Anthem. Even more, it’s a loot-and-shoot game like Destiny 2! Mix the decent gunplay from Andromeda with top-notch story-telling that Bioware can deliver, and what do you get?Oh…So, speculation time. Anthem is going to flop. It made many of the same mistakes that Destiny 2 did, and we saw what happened there - Activision and Bungie cut ties[3][3][3][3]. And in gaming these days, “flop” is a bit of an odd term, since it no longer strictly means that the game won’t turn a profit. With a corporate juggernaut like EA, flop more accurately means “fails to live up to expectations”, and “expectations” are never as low as merely turning a profit. They’ve got shareholders to appease and quarterlies to hit, after all. Blizzard-Activision just had one of its most successful (profitable) runs of business in their history, and they laid off 800 employees because it wasn’t profitable enough[4][4][4][4].This is how corporate gaming works.Now, if EA didn’t own Bioware, this probably wouldn’t be such a huge deal. Disappointing, yes, but they’d have the ability to go try something else. And if EA didn’t also just launch Apex Legends, this wouldn’t be a big deal. But EA does own Bioware, and it did just release Apex Legends, and the two will compete - and be compared - to each other by EA’s suits. Apex Legends hit 25 million players incredibly quickly, and it’s dubious Anthem will ever get half that. Ever. Sure, Apex Legends is free-to-play, but whales ensure that profits pour into these games.EA has a long and cherished history of killing off studios[5][5][5][5], and they’ve repeatedly tried to will into reality the myth that single-player games are dead[6][6][6][6]… despite games like The Witcher 3, Breath of the Wild, Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War and Spiderman doing stupid good business. Still, it takes time, effort and creative freedom to make those games, and EA has little interest in that anymore. Andromeda and Anthem will be used as justification to at best switch Bioware into making multi-player bastardizations of their once renown IPs, but more likely they’ll be slowly cannibalized before being suddenly shuttered.Keep in mind this isn’t just based off of one bad Metascore or poor sales figures. It’s also based on EA’s history with under-performing studios, the general nature of corporate gaming and their current direction EA is moving. The Bioware of old has no future in that sort of company, and there’s no good way this ends for them.Footnotes[1] Mass Effect: Andromeda was a financial success[1] Mass Effect: Andromeda was a financial success[1] Mass Effect: Andromeda was a financial success[1] Mass Effect: Andromeda was a financial success[2] The Story Behind Mass Effect: Andromeda's Troubled Five-Year Development[2] The Story Behind Mass Effect: Andromeda's Troubled Five-Year Development[2] The Story Behind Mass Effect: Andromeda's Troubled Five-Year Development[2] The Story Behind Mass Effect: Andromeda's Troubled Five-Year Development[3] Bungie splits with Activision, keeps control of Destiny [3] Bungie splits with Activision, keeps control of Destiny [3] Bungie splits with Activision, keeps control of Destiny [3] Bungie splits with Activision, keeps control of Destiny [4] Activision Blizzard Reports Record Revenue as They Fuck Over 800 Employees[4] Activision Blizzard Reports Record Revenue as They Fuck Over 800 Employees[4] Activision Blizzard Reports Record Revenue as They Fuck Over 800 Employees[4] Activision Blizzard Reports Record Revenue as They Fuck Over 800 Employees[5] Studios EA Has Killed: A History[5] Studios EA Has Killed: A History[5] Studios EA Has Killed: A History[5] Studios EA Has Killed: A History[6] Linear single-player games no longer popular says EA of canned Star Wars game[6] Linear single-player games no longer popular says EA of canned Star Wars game[6] Linear single-player games no longer popular says EA of canned Star Wars game[6] Linear single-player games no longer popular says EA of canned Star Wars game