What are you doing on the 27th? We will be showing off some #VR and #AR at @vs_realm for the #atlgaming event 🎑 #FrightShowdown 👻 Thanks @thegrayjedi for including @lifevisionvr (at VS Realm ESports Arena) https://www.instagram.com/p/BpDdikzAYhX/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=v72y50qfjova
Tragedy struck the gaming community Sunday afternoon when a champion gamer’s decision to open fire at a Madden NFL 19 qualifying tournament at GLHF (Good Luck Have Fun) Game Bar in Jacksonville, FL—killing two people and injuring ten others before killing himself.
David “Bread” Katz won other Madden tournaments in 2017 and traveled from Baltimore to compete — only to be eliminated, witnesses said. But Katz wasn’t done. As his competitors continued to game Sunday, Katz got a handgun and clearly targeted other competitive gamers, walking past patrons in other parts of the restaurant and opening fire in a back room. Horrified fans watched the violence unfold on a livestream online.
Friends, family and fans mourn victims of Madden Jacksonville shooting-- Eli ‘TrueBoy’ Clayton and Taylor ‘SpotMeplzzz’ Robertson. Clayton, 22, and Robertson, 27, were both prominent members of the competitive Madden NFL community and were beloved by fans, and other competitors in the gaming space.
Taylor Robertson (left) and Eli Clayton | Twitter
Eli "trueboy" Clayton
Clayton was a former member of the Calabasas High School football team in California is described as “one of the best in competitive Madden,” and a “frequent face in EA Majors.” Clayton boasted a 40 percent win rate, according to his EA Madden profile.
"Elijah's family wants you to know that he was a good man. He did not believe in violence. He never even had a fistfight. He loved football and out of all the video games he could play -- he settled and mastered Madden. He made a good living gaming and he saved his earnings so he can afford to go to college to continue his education."
Taylor "spotmeplzzz" Robertson
Robertson, who was from West Virginia, had career winnings of more than $80,000 and had won the Madden NFL 17 Classic is described as “one of the toughest opponents in competitive Madden”, according to his player profile on EA Sports. Robertson also was a first team all-state football and basketball player.
A vigil was held at the school Monday, where Robertson's friend Andrew Evans told WVNS-TV he was a couple of years younger than the star athlete so he looked up to him as a hero and that, "he was the most humble human being to have the abilities and the talents that he did."
Community
As the game community bands together to mourn the loss of two of their own, there’s an additional underlying sadness that this resulted from a fellow gamer. It goes against everything that is the gaming community and strikes a cord with gamers everywhere. Gaming culture as a whole is full of wonderful giving, loving people with so many in this community who just want to help.
The Madden NFL publisher Electronic Sports released the following statement:
The entire gaming community has spent much of the past couple of days online coming to terms with the violence that unfolded in Jacksonville:
Tony Montagnino, "G-Tech," was one of the victms shot, said he was struck twice in the lower body: "One went through. The other was lodged," Montagnino tweeted. "Still doesn't feel real. Saw a lot of things today I wish I hadn't seen. But I also saw a community of people rally around each other and a massive amount of support from friends and family to check on everyone. I'm thankful for everyone of you guys in the community. I love y'all."
x D3liveranc3 x (@mpinter9): “To anyone ive ever blasted or talked smack to on stream I sincerely apologize. I was always talking to the gamertag in the corner of my screen and never the human being on the other end of the sticks. Things gunna be different going forward. I respect everyone out here doing this.”
This Will Not Define Us
“This will not define us." That's the message that the Jacksonville gaming community is sending out.
"We don't want to see this being what defines us," said founder and president of GAAM, Ryan Paul Daniels, in a Facebook Live Sunday night. (GAAM, or Games Arts And Music, defines itself as a culture company that throws events revolving around video games and "tries to bridge the gap between the gaming and non-gaming audience," according to its Facebook page.)
He described the gaming community as a close, tight-knit friendly and supportive group.
"A majority of my friends, I wouldn't have if it wasn't for this [gaming] community," he said in the hour-long broadcast. "This is a group of great people ... This is a group of people who don't judge one another, who care for one another, who support one another."
Daniels also said Sunday's events may have scared the gaming community. "We're all afraid now, he said. "We're afraid of where we are going to go to be with each other. We're afraid of what the media is going to say about us."
Even so, Daniels told his fellow gamers to stand up against those fears.
"It's ok to be afraid. It's what we do in the face of fear that will define us," he said. "I think, we're all standing together in this. Standing up to this fear shows what kind of people that we are. We're the people that will stand strong together. We're the kind of people that will love one another."
United We Stand
As a gamer and a member of this community, this tragedy affects me very deeply. I am both bereaved and enraged that this incident was the result from a fellow gamer. For me, this community means acceptance. It means family. It means home.
These gamers gathered together to celebrate their love of gaming and compete with their fellow community members and never once anticipated that one of them would turn violent against them.
It also upsetting that during this tumultuous time in our country where people are already looking toward video games as the reasoning behind gun violence, that a gamer would do this. This tragedy will only aide in the crusade against violence and video games, which is a topic that I do want to discuss but out of respect to the victims, I will touch upon that in a future point in time.
I know this has deeply shaken our community as we regather our bearings. Tragedy unites more than it divides and gamers will be talking about this for a long time. Together we will continue to stand strong, support one another, and continue to use games for change.
