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Valve Slammed Over 'Horrendous' Steam School-Shooting Game (eurogamer.net)
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.
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.
Anyone remember when Postal came out?
Valve Slammed Over 'Horrendous' Steam School-Shooting Game
USA Slammed Over 'Horrendous' School-Shooting
Too many firearms, guys.
aaaaaaa
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).
Where you hunt and murder the teenagers.
The sociopaths are showing themselves all over if you merely look. America is very sick.
[ grabs popcorn ]
OK! Carry on.
Let bash Valve for having a school shooting game on their service.
Let us all forget the horrendous lack of gun control in this country. Its video games that are the problem.
What next, removing all the shooters from Steam.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
You cant be free without guns.. just ask any American.. or Somalian.. or Iraqi..
#sofree!
#blessed
It's called "training." Same reason the USMC used Doom for fire team training (with custom levels that start at 1% health and have no stimpacks). It creates a physics-realistic way to determine what countermeasures do and don't work in an active shooter scenario.
Someone needs to slap the SJW's with a dose of reality. And keep slapping until it works, or until the SJW expires: the only reason to resist this is to reinforce their insane insistence that repealing the 2A is the only option that can be considered; which in turn is how they avoid talking about the fact that such actions never work as intended.
Asset flip.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Eh. A large percentage of the US population doesn't care about school shootings. They just shrug and go back to jerking off with their guns. I fail to see how a game about school shootings is any more offensive than actual school shootings.
I don't respond to AC's.
A buddy of mine used a WAD maker/editor to make a very good rendition of our high school in the 90's. Of course, DOOM was made of monsters and folks enjoyed it and took it for what it was. (this was in the 90's). I shudder to think of what would happen to us now if we were in high school and did this. Probably end up in federal....prison.
Anyone for "common sense" speech controls? You're not against "common sense" are you?
What kind of speech-nuts or speech-extremists would argue against common sense limitations on a Constitutional right? They didn't have computers when the US Constitution was written, after all.
Violence in video games is perfectly fine and acceptable for everyone to enjoy! Now here is a long list of terms and conditions in which it isn't. By the way, if your game has sex or nudity in it, we won't* sell it.
*Exceptions are available!
You cant be free without guns.. just ask any American.. or Somalian.. or Iraqi..
#sofree!
#blessed
Somalia, Iraq, somewhere in Africa or the Middle East is where a lot of those putzes seem to think they live. They put the camo on, the flack jackets, boots, and strut around with their AR-15s...in suburbia USA.
I love living in the USA so I don't have to deal with war lords and their gangs. If I lived in a country where I felt I needed a gun, I'd leave.
And the ironic thing is that the those camo wearing clowns are in fact turning this country into a Third World shithole where we have armed gangs running around.
EVERY country that has heavily armed populace running around is a Third World shithole. It's very stressful to be always on the lookout for someone with a gun about to shoot you. You can't do anything productive or creative. You become backwards.
And I was see, all the smart people leave and move to civilized places on Earth where they don't have to worry about being shot by someone.
Whatever - it's too late.
O Cananda! O Canada! ....
The idea is you're sent in to deal with a shooter at a school, ...
How many points do you get for staying outside and hiding behind a dumpster?
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Let's play cops and robbers! But everyone has to be cops because robbers are bad!
Circumcision is child abuse.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/866890/Active_Shooter/
This sig is false.
It is pretty fucking sick.
A work of art if you ask me.
~Loving pacifist vegetarian. Life is more complex than that. Art is suffering.
The laughs really start when you hear the comments afterwards.
Things like -
"Guns don't kill people . . . . [yada-yada]"
"Teachers should be armed . . . [blah-blah]"
"He seemed so normal . . . [yakity-yack]"
Might as well laugh, because you can't make this up, and it won't stop.
I wonder whose kids would have to be butchered for the law to change?
And yes, it could be changed if the politics were not so profitable.
"EVERY country that has heavily armed populace running around is a Third World shithole."
Except the US.
Steam/Valve are big enough that bullying them wont work. If advertisers cut advertising on Steam theh will lose a huge chunk of advertisements and Valve's revenue stream isn't very dependent on advertising so it's hard to make Valve feel pressure.
Furthermore, because boycotting wont work the remaing avenue is legal, and in the US the Supreme Court found video game content to be protected speech, that wont work either.
So in the end this is just whining.
There are lots of kids these days with anxiety over all of the school shootings. Being able to express themselves in a virtual environment can really help people with severe anxiety or even PTSD.
The street gangs were a problem long before "AR-15" was a meme.
Oh. Right. I forgot about all the gang infested areas of the country causing the bulk of gun related deaths every year.
Nope. It's that group you mentioned that's the problem. Not the other demographic that can't be talked about because its racist to do so.
Go look up actual gun crime stats and see what they're showing....
And. Even taking that in to account. Gun deaths aren't even remotely close to the highest killer of Americans every single year. But, we aren't out forcing the diet restrictions on people or enforcing portion control, now are we?
...lets the Terrorists Win don't'cha know
crazy dynamite monkey
The whole point of simulation is to imagine the full scenario, explore all the angles that can be systematically imagined.
If you're playing Sim City - while imagining power grids, water flow models, traffic patterns, and industrial/commercial is all fascinating to see it all play out as a model - most folks will end up throwing in a horrible disaster or two, just to see how those systems will react, falter, fail, and sometimes recover.
And it does help to see those things play out - to see these enormously important things break - to know that they are big, but still fragile in their own ways, when they're seen in a neutral mathematical and simulation background.
That said - that's not really how lots of these games really play around with those subjects. Yeah - when the games are just trying to push the buttons of the players and audience, rile up a reaction - then it's just bad writing.
Even that said though - the game Dungeon Keeper is still a favorite of mine. It's a game that places you as spectral force digging out exactly the kinds of grid-based dungeons that old RPG games would have you exploring. As such, your tools were largely gathering monsters, feeding them, readying them for combat, expanding territory, then using various kinds of harm on adventurers you defeated (jailing, torture, killing) for various benefits. It really held to that perspective with its mechanics - complete with dread-voices narrator of events - in a narratively interesting way. It was genuinely good writing - while being about unethical characters and outcomes.
But no one generally became more cruel through playing Dungeon Keeper - if anything, it taught me about the family of motivations you have to follow to 'justify' torturing your enemies as a valid tactic - and why none of them add up to a good idea in any way. The game wasn't pushing the buttons on the audience, so much as it fairly deconstructed how our 'regular' stories were also pushing our buttons, in its own over-the-top way.
Kids see bullies winning the perennial getting-away-with-it game every day. Every one of them knows they could 'win' by fighting more violently using tools. Imagining only the glory of that outcome, and not the full scenario is the core flaw... well, in most crime, not just school violence.
I say the better answer is a more rigorous exploration of that space - a simulation that goes full circle - that shows that this violence only results in scenarios where bullies at large get away with more, because even with complete surveillance, folks will only bother to look back in broken circumstances - and it will still tend to only result in innocent people getting punished meaningfully, since punishments tend to mean almost nothing to bullies, and the process only entrenches them in that path. At least with the logic of school rule enforcement here in the US.
You don't even need guns to explore that space. Just avoid cheaply pushing buttons with your narrative.
Ryan Fenton
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.
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This type of thing does absolutetly NOTHING to benefit or harm in this regard.
Address the problems that CAUSE school shootings in the first place then you might get somewhere. And I'm not talking about drugging people with SSRI's, which based on evidence, CAUSES these problems.
Back in ancient times of game systems, in Seven Cities of Gold (I think) on the Atari, you could wantonly attack peaceful Indians ... or keep slaughtering ones that had stopped resisting.
They went into some kind of weird tribal dance of utter despair that really freaked me out and made me never want to try that again. Brrr.
But my point is you could do it.
Granted, they were so pixilated and cartoonish that I don't think even those who believe video games inspire violence could really think that game would ... so it;s not quite the same thing.
I'm shocked it took someone this long to make a school shooting game.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Good ol' American Exceptionalism
but video games and school shootings have nothing to do with each other.
I'm thinking and praying really hard, so there's no need to slam, duplex, or double dirty chairbang.
well, you can be one without any defence
I much prefer Yandere simulator.
You can murder your classmates in a variety of unique and interesting ways.
The thing americans need to keep in mind is that not every country has a school shooting every week.
For some of us this is just entertainment.
In any case, even americans should find this game fun.
After all, they play endless versions of WW2, vietnam war, and towel head shooters, and they seem to have no problem with those.
Suddenly it's making fun of their home grown killings and it's unacceptable?
Sounds like hypocrisy to me.
Hey brother-in-law! This is where you're currently hiding!
Well... I know you're physically hiding under your bed right now... But I knew you were doing something.
Hey, I've got news for you. You know how you're afraid of being shot all the time? Which is the excuse you use for not ever getting out from under your bed and getting a job? Ya. That?
Well... The last shooting in your area was years and years ago. So you know. If you at least come out and come join us for pizza you'll be ok.
You want to help stop more school shootings? The Press needs to stop publicizing them. All they're doing is turning these shooters into celebrities, which in turn is emboldening the would-be school shooters, and so on, and so on.
The US is a Third World Shithole, with an unrealistic self image.
we've had a shooting at a school literally every week this year, and most of them qualify as mass shootings.
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is not research. That said, as of this year you're right. See here.
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with just as much vehemence. Sorry, but that's not a goal post you get to move to. Cars kill fewer people because they are heavily regulated. It took weeks before my kid was ready to pass a driver's test and she had to show she was a responsible driver.
And you better believe they're out there hoping for impulse buys. Nobody _needs_ an AR-15. You _want_ one.
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before you burn me at the stake this game could be used by law enforcement to train themselves on what the bad guy is going to do assuming this game is multiplayer. the arma series is used by the army in the same way.
Not bullying. Not at all. That's why kids shoot up schools instead of, say, shopping malls where it would be easy to rack up a way higher body count. That's why they shoot their former classmates and teachers instead of simply kicking open and spraying bullets into the first classroom they get to.
But you can't say that. How DARE you blame the poor, poor children? Just because they had a little fun with the evil, evil shooter.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Anyone remember when Postal came out?
Yeah, and don't forget Bully, NightTrap and the whole host of other controversial games that have been released over the years. The best was Doom, slammed for satanic and violent content when it was new. I'm sure that John Carmac is still crying in his Cheerios over all the money he lost out on because he made a game that was controversial.
This sort of thing is always an exercise in futility. I am all for reducing gun violence, but censorship isn't the answer. This game looks to be in pretty poor taste, given the current epidemic of gun violence, but it isn't going to help or hurt the issue by banning it. In fact, it seems pretty stupid to even waste time talking about it since it is distracting from the main issue of keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people.
If society thinks this game is a bad idea, it will not sell very well, problem solved. Valve isn't even really involved in the development of it, so don't go dragging them into the conversation.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
You only have these luxuries because of firearms and the right of self defense. 3rd world shitholes exist because criminals, mafias, and corrupt governments run unchecked against a disarmed population.
You can spew this hateful stupidity only because of the people that you hate.
Analogy failure, possible due to psychopathic tendency inhibiting to empathise/understand other people viewpoints or rights.
How much to eat it is a personal choice.
Whether you get shot in a school shooting is not a personal choice.
The United States is as outlier among developed nations regarding gun homicide rates, particularly for school shootings. Guess it’s not so “great” after all.
Generating controversy is a great way to get free advertising.
Personally, I don't care, there are all sorts of horrible things in games and movies. People know the difference between fantasy and reality.
In "play as the shooter mode", have it where you can never die, the SWAT team always arrests your ass, and you spend the next 50 years getting butt raped by some very big strong bad men, and forced to be the cell block's "bitch", makeshift halter top, diasy dukes, Kool-aid makeup and all. Between forced butt sex sessions, you have to clean the inmates' cells, cook their meals, iron their jumpsuits, and in the Macgyvered way that inmates have to do it, take the fall when a shank is found during a shakedown....Hey, we can have 2 games in one here!
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.
.50 cal machine gun purchase requiring a 27 page form filled out in triplicate, a mental health exam, a criminal background check in every major nation, and a colon exam for good measure.
I found out a few years back that this is already the case. If you are a collector or historian type, you can get a permit to own fully automatic weaponry and other really dangerous(tm) stuff like ww2 machine guns, bazookas and the like. I think that there is a more rigorous background investigation involved, and it appears to more or less work, since you don't see people robbing banks or shooting up schools with Thompsons and SAWs.
I always thought that a good weapon permit process should follow a nice curve. The more dangerous a weapon is, the more hoops you have to jump through to own it. It could range from a BB gun purchase needing a Diver license check to make sure you are over age 16 to a M2
Owning a gun is a right, but is also a responsibility. We just need to make sure that only responsible people get the right.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Which developer, or developers, need a thorough ass-kicking? You've got three guesses, and the first two don't count...
I misread it. So the ban is still in effect.
You do understand that the wording of that amendment is effectively a ban, right? Because just about any research done is going to show that sensible gun laws (e.g. gun control) are what reduces gun violence and injuries.
When it comes to anything controversial you always leave yourself an out. The wording lets Congress critters claim, much as you have, that there is no ban, even when they know no research will be done as a direct result of the amendment. It's the worst kind of dishonesty.
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ISIS try and take over the towns near me and you can fucking guarantee I'll be acquiring firearms.
Mocking Iraq for gun ownership is somewhat fucking asinine.
>Except the US.
And many others!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
France, Canada both allow gun ownership.
And why does the USA have the most guns? It's fucking simple--well, only if facts are allowed in this discussion: The USA has LUXARY GOODS because it's a super-high-GDP country. The rich in the USA buy nice China, nice cars, and nice guns. They buy nice guitar, nice, boats, nice TVs.... and more guns.
The people who own the MOST GUNS in the USA (3% of all citizens own 133M guns!)[1], are rich people, who aren't using a single gun to commit a single crime. (But then, we can't play the "guns == violence" card anymore. So let's ignore that.)
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us...
So the question is, if a few people own most of all guns... and aren't committing crimes with them. What's the actual crime rate of actual guns owned by the 97% of the rest of the population, and how does that compare with the rest of the world?
Because the UK has nil legal gun ownership, and they still have mass shootings. And as we all know, drug and alcohol prohibition worked great, so gun prohibition is a sure thing.
shouting fire in a movie theater is a crime and should be. Suggesting one of your legion of followers should go kill somebody is too. No right is absolute. Even life when it contradicts my right to self defense (e.g. you're trying to murder me).
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That this game was made and they have supported it against criticism shows how sick recent generations have been made, not by video games, but by 50 years of movies with the theme of "just revenge." These movies have a protagonist who is put upon by bad guys to the point that he stands up and "gets his back" by going on a psychopathic killing spree. The audience is supposted to cheer and applaud him. Normal people can ignore this kind of revenge behavior in real life, but there is always going to be a small percentage of disturbed children and men who use movie lectures on correct behavior as a model for their own.
E Proelio Veritas.
She went after violent video games a number of years ago. Where are you Tipper?
By then it would be too late to acquire the gunfu to use them effectively. Great shots start practicing well before puberty.
Get them now, they're cheap, and it pisses off the morons.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Valve did nothing wrong. Why don't these guys sue the Government for failing to prevent their own emotional trauma?