A new blood-thirsty video game called Active Shooter lets players choose between taking on the role of a SWAT team member trying to stop an ongoing school shooting or the role of the shooter themselves (playing as the shooter lets you see a tally of the number of civilians and police officers killed). The developer also initially promised to add a ‘civilian survival mode’ shortly after launch, which will challenge players to survive for as long as possible inside a school environment with a gunman on the loose.1
As you might imagine, the game sparked outrage online.
The anti-gun violence charity Infer Trust asked Valve, the company behind the Steam online games store where Active Shooter would be available to purchase, to take the title down before it went on sale on June 6.
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A spokesperson for Infer Trust said:
“It’s in very bad taste. There have been 22 school shootings in the US since the beginning of this year. It is horrendous. Why would anybody think it’s a good idea to market something violent like that, and be completely insensitive to the deaths of so many children? We’re appalled that the game is being marketed.”2
Thankfully, Valve did the right thing and pulled the title. And PayPal closed Acid Softwares (the game’s developer) account.
The game’s creator, known as ‘ACID’ on the Steam online store, published a statement in response to the criticism:
“Since this games storefront has been live, I have been stormed with accusations and heavy critics from people across the globe. While I see everyone’s points of view and where are they coming from – I wanted to clarify a few things:
First of all, this game does not promote any sort of violence, especially any soft of a mass shooting. As I said in the description of the game:
<Active Shooter is essentially a dynamic SWAT simulator in which dynamic roles are offered to players.>
Originally when this game started its course of the development, I have planned on having SWAT only based game-play. Then I thought about adding more gameplay to it by adding additional roles: of the shooter and the civilian. While I can see people’s anger and why this might be a bad idea for the game, I still feel like this topic should be left alone. As I mentioned on steam discussion forums, there are games like Hatred, Postal, Carmageddon and etc., which are even worst compared to “Active Shooter” and literally focuses on mass shootings/killings of people.
I have wrote to Valve regarding this game and waiting for the reply. After receiving such high amount of critics and hate, I will more likely remove the shooters role in this game by the release, unless if it can be kept as it is right now.
Thanks a lot for taking your time to read and leave your responses!!!”3
However upset (and rightly so) some have been, Steam users flooded the comments section in support of the game and pleaded with the developer to release the game with the controversial shooter element intact. To date, the game has not been released.
What do you think about games like this? Bad idea or merely roleplay?
