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Valve Slammed Over 'Horrendous' Steam School-Shooting Game (eurogamer.net)

Posted by msmash on from the bad-taste dept.

Several readers have shared an EuroGamer report: Just a week after the Santa Fe High School shooting in Texas that saw 10 people fatally shot and 13 others were wounded, Valve has come under fire for a Steam school-shooting game that encourages you to "hunt and destroy" children. Active Shooter, which at the time of publication is live on Steam and due for release on 6th June, is described by its developer as "a dynamic S.W.A.T. simulator." The idea is you're sent in to deal with a shooter at a school, but you can also play as the actual shooter, gunning down school children.

Now, an anti-gun violence charity has called on Valve to pull the game from Steam. The developer of Active Shooter is called Revived Games, the publisher Acid. Revived Games' credits include White Power: Pure Voltage and Dab, Dance & Twerk. "Acid", who plans to add a survival mode in which you play as a civilian and have to "escape or perform a heroic action such as fight against the shooter itself," took to Active Shooter's Steam page to defend the game. "First of all, this game does not promote any sort of violence, especially any soft [sic] of a mass shooting," Acid said.

12 of 351 comments (clear)

  1. Rinse. Repeat. by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Anyone remember when Postal came out?

  2. Not against by jwymanm · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I kind of giggle at stuff like this. I understand it offends but mocking current state of affairs actually helps relieve tension about it. I can even picture the pick your Avatar screens where you swipe between random socially dysfunctional white males. I say this after having a school shooting 2 miles from me and being genuinely worried and horrified for every child involved. You can have both laughter and absolute anger/disgust towards something. It's two entirely separate parts of you that each come from (at least in normal healthy people).

    1. Re:Not against by Jeremi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Is the game mocking mass shootings, or glorifying them, or something in between?

      Whatever it's doing, it sure looks clumsy and tasteless from here.

      I suspect it's the product of some naive, young, male programmers, who have spent too much time alone, dealing with other people only as vague online constructs, and thus never developed much empathy or understanding regarding how their words and actions can affect other people. When everything and everyone is nothing more than pixels on a screen, nothing matters, so why not make a game about mass shootings?

      --


      I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
    2. Re:Not against by amicusNYCL · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Is the game mocking mass shootings, or glorifying them, or something in between?

      Whatever it's doing, it sure looks clumsy and tasteless from here.

      You think? What about the complete disparity between people getting angry about a game involving school shootings, while also having absolutely no willpower to actually do anything about real school shootings?

      --
      "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
    3. Re:Not against by zlives · · Score: 4, Insightful

      i am sorry, this is not the right time to talk about gun control in games. lets wait till the game has been out of news for a while for our tender sensibilities, and then we can not talk about it.

    4. Re:Not against by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Is the game mocking mass shootings, or glorifying them, or something in between?

      Whatever it's doing, it sure looks clumsy and tasteless from here.

      You think? What about the complete disparity between people getting angry about a game involving school shootings, while also having absolutely no willpower to actually do anything about real school shootings?

      Ih, there's plenty of will power to do "something" ... the problem is that none of the "something's proposed would actually do anything useful.

  3. Re:US is at fault by amicusNYCL · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I might suggest looking to Australia for examples we can use, regarding gun turn-in or buy-back programs. Maybe a start would be to further limit the kinds of guns that most people can buy. The vast majority of the public, for example, does not require a semi-automatic rifle of any kind. Every time any member of my family in Texas has gone hunting, the rifle was bolt-action. There are very niche use cases for semi-automatic rifles where special permits could be issued, but there's no reason they need to be generally available.

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    "Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
  4. Cops and robbers by Stormwatch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Let's play cops and robbers! But everyone has to be cops because robbers are bad!

    --
    Circumcision is child abuse.
  5. Re:DOOM by vux984 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yup. I did my university... quake2 iirc

    I mean, seriously... great level subject. Long underground hallways with pipes carrying water, electrical, and even steam (!!) connecting buildings ... labyrinthine wings, most rooms with multiple exits, lots of interior and exterior windows, rooms within rooms, hub-spoke layouts, theaters, open stair cases, interior balconies, the science wing had bona fide radioactive storage, biohazard storage, greenhouses, centrifuges, lasers, loading areas for trucks, etc, etc... the grounds had courtyards, reflecting pools...

    It practically begged to be a death match level.

  6. The real problem is having an open discussion by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    of school shootings. Particularly one that might lead to stronger gun laws. This is also why the CDC can't, by law, do any research on gun violence.

    A better question is why the NRA is so vehemently opposed to gun laws. You don't see the Auto makers campaigning against driver's licenses and insurance. My guess is they're worried stronger laws would bite into impulse buys. A coworker the other day went to buy a pistol for target shooting and home defense and go excited and walked out with an AR-15 and several boxes of ammo. His wife was pissed. If he'd had 7 days to think it over he'd have cancelled the order and settled for the $400 pistol over the $1000 AR-15.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
    1. Re:The real problem is having an open discussion by El+Cubano · · Score: 2, Insightful

      A better question is why the NRA is so vehemently opposed to gun laws. You don't see the Auto makers campaigning against driver's licenses and insurance.

      Maybe you don't see it because those are state level issues, while lots of firearm-related legistlation is national. Even state-level firearm-related legislation receives media attention because it is a political hot-button. What you do see folks like the NRA advocating for is the enforcement of current laws. The church shooter in Texas from some months ago comes to mind. The Air Force failed to report his convinction to the FBI, so he was never stopped from purchasing a gun. In fact, most new proposed legislation related to firearms would not help matters in any way that would not be helped by simply enforcing the existing laws.

      My guess is they're worried stronger laws would bite into impulse buys.

      Right, because gun makers are out there just hoping for people to make impulse buys. I think you don't understand how most businesses work. The ideal is to get repeat customers. If you make something consumable, like toothpaste or razors, you have a built-in incentive for people to buy more (it runs out). There is a certain amount of that with guns (ammunition). What they really want is for people to buy firearms, responsibly use them, then buy more in the future. However, the manufacturers know that bad publicity hurts their business. Just like what happened to the beef industry with Oprah. In fact, while we are guessing, I would bet that the marketshare of firearms purchased on impulse is approaching a rounding error compared to thoughtfully purchased firearms.

      A coworker the other day went to buy a pistol for target shooting and home defense and go excited and walked out with an AR-15 and several boxes of ammo. His wife was pissed. If he'd had 7 days to think it over he'd have cancelled the order and settled for the $400 pistol over the $1000 AR-15.

      Since cars kill far more people in the US than firearms every year, what would you think of a 7 day waiting period on the purchase of any sportscar?

  7. Re:US is at fault by PopeRatzo · · Score: 3, Insightful

    That is a last resort and to take that from responsible gun owners is crazy. If I wasn't home, I would want my wife to have access to a gun because while she waits for the cops, she would be otherwise defenseless.

    Get a dog. It will make you safer than owning a gun will, and won't make you more likely to commit suicide or kill a family member.

    If you have a dog, that home intruder won't even try to come into your house. Bad guys avoid dogs, but they look to steal guns

    A gun in the house increases the risk to your family.

    https://academic.oup.com/aje/a...

    https://www.scientificamerican...

    https://www.vox.com/cards/gun-...

    --
    You are welcome on my lawn.