‘School shooting simulation’ video game pulled following outrage from victims' parents

A video game billed as a “school shooting simulation” has been pulled from the gaming platform Steam after parents of victims’ expressed their outrage.

An online petition with more than 200,000 signatures had called for the “Active Shooter” game to be taken down from the store and platform owned by Valve Inc ahead of its 6 June release.

The petition, started by self-described activist Stephanie Robinett, said Valve “is taking the stand that this game is legal because of free speech and everything else that tech billionaires hide behind when they are doing something the public knows is absolutely, morally corrupt but legally fine - but we cannot stand for this”. Steam has since deleted game, published by a Russian company called Acid, from its platform.

The game would have cost approximately $5 to $10 if it had been released and players had the option of being a member of a SWAT response team member or an actual school shooter to “hunt and destroy” people in their path.

Players could "slaughter as many civilians as possible" if they chose to be the shooter, a description of the game that had been removed on the publisher’s site.

Ryan Petty, whose 14-year-old daughter Alaina in the 14 February mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, tweeted that the game is “despicable” and “unacceptable”.

"It's disgusting that Valve Corp. is trying to profit from the glamorization of tragedies affecting our schools across the country. Keeping our kids safe is a real issue affecting our communities and is in no way a 'game.’” Mr Petty said in a statement.

"This company should face the wrath of everyone who cares about school and public safety and it should start immediately. Do not buy this game for your kids or any other game made by this company," Fred Guttenberg tweeted. His daughter Jaime was also killed in the Florida school shooting.

Valve Inc responded in a statement saying that the developer of the game was actually an individual named Ata Berdiyev, who it described as “a troll, with a history of customer abuse, publishing copyrighted material, and user review manipulation”.

Mr Berdiyev had allegedly been taken off the list of approved vendors according to Valve and said Mr Berdiyev’s “subsequent return under new business names was a fact that came to light as we investigated the controversy around his upcoming title. We are not going to do business with people who act like this towards our customers or Valve”.

However the company did not address why it approved the game, knowing its contents but that “the broader conversation about Steam's content policies is one that we'll be addressing soon”.

Per the BBC: “The publisher has denied Mr Berdyev was Active Shooter's developer and declined to comment further pending the publication of an interview given to PC Mag”.

The publisher also accused the media of “twisting its words” in an online discussion thread on the Steam platform where an individual posting as the publisher said “hey, why not” when asked if the targets in the game were modeled after children.

The person then struck out the comment and said it was “bad sarcasm on my part”. “Games like Hatred, Postal and Carmageddon are literally about mentally unstable people slaying dozens of people," it posted, adding: "You cannot simply say OK to one and not OK to another”.