Danny Ledonne

Danny Ledonne
Ledonne at the Montreal Independent Games Summit in November 2007.
Born	Danny Antonio Ledonne (1982-01-18) January 18, 1982 (age 35) Alamosa, Colorado, US
Alma mater	American University
Occupation	Film director, producer
Years active	2002–present

Danny Antonio Ledonne (born January 18, 1982) is an American film director and former video game developer. From 2011 to 2014, he worked as a professor in Film and Media Arts at American University and served on the board of the Southern Colorado Film Commission and became the director for the 2015 edition of the festival. He is possibly best known for the documentary Playing Columbine about the controversy surrounding his 2005 video game Super Columbine Massacre RPG!.

Ledonne attended the Alamosa High School in Colorado. He graduated from school with a 4.0 grade point average and was voted "most likely to succeed" by his peers. From here he went on to study film at Emerson College in Boston, Massachusetts. It was during his time at college that he discovered a programme called RPG Maker, which allowed a developer to create and design their own game for the PC. In 2005 he released his first and to date only video game called Super Columbine Massacre RPG! that replayed the events of the Columbine High School massacre. Ledonne created the game to explore what caused the gunmen to commit the atrocity and to dispel the myths that violent video games had played a role in the massacre. Upon its release, the game was met with heavy criticism from the public and the mainstream media over the subject matter of the RPG and even led PC World to declaring it the game #2 on its list of "The 10 Worst Games of All Time."

Ledonne defended the game despite its negative reaction citing that the story of the attackers resonated with him with his experience at school. He said:

"I was an easy target to be picked on, and that started in kindergarten," he said. "It was the kind of bullying that most kids who were bullied experienced [...] When you get pushed every day, and when you are ostracized not once, not twice, but years in and out, your perception of reality is distorted [...] These things really do warp your understanding and your perception of humanity in some almost irrevocable way,"