via Reviveinteractive
Valve Corp., the parent company of Steam, a video-game marketplace, has removed a school shooting video game off of its online platform following widespread outrage. The game, called “Active Shooter”, allowed players to re-create school shootings by entering schools and killing students. The game was pulled days before it was set to be released on June 6.
“Active shooter” was developed by Revived Games, published by Acid and lead by developed named Ata Berdiyev, who had previously been kicked off of the Steam platform under a different business name. Acid Publishing Group was planning to sell the game for $5 to $10 on Steam. In a statement, Valve said it would not carry any games by Acid and that it had removed other games that Acid had published on the Steam platform.
Before being deleted, the official description of the game was as follows: “Pick your role, gear up and fight or destroy! Be the good guy or the bad guy. The choice is yours! Only in ‘Active Shooter,’ you will be able to pick the role of an Elite S.W.A.T member or the actual shooter.” Furthermore, on the game’s Steam page, a warning read: “Please do not take any of this seriously. This is only meant to be the simulation and nothing else. If you feel like hurting someone or people around you, please seek help from local psychiatrists or dial 911 (or applicable).”
According to the New York Times, Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jamie was one of the 17 victims in the Parkland shooting, said of the game: “This is gross, this is profiteering, this is unacceptable.” Data from the Gun Violence Archive states that there have been over 100 “mass shootings” in 2018 alone, 23 of which were school shootings.
On Tuesday, May 29, an online petition to stop the release of the game had gathered more than 100,000 signatures as of Tuesday afternoon.