Steam pulls ‘school shooter’ game from its store

This is a follow-up to my post about the most recent ‘school shooting’ video game which I posted here. If you haven’t read it yet, I ask that you please read that first before continuing.

Over the holiday weekend, there was a slew of news articles about the parents of school shooting victims who were outraged over the game. I was all ready to write a post asking them to just ignore the game. I understand that it’s a slow news weekend and the media is shoving microphones in your face looking for a sound bite. I also understand that you’ve endured a pain that only a few but increasing number of people understand and your outrage is understandable.

However, that post was rendered null and void after the video game platform Steam removed the game from its store. That does allow me to talk about the game by name since I doubt the so-called developer will be making any money from the world’s largest online distributor of PC games. The game was called Active Shooter and Steam has pulled the game from its store not due to any outside pressure, or so they say, but because the developer was a known troll who had been banned from the platform previously.

Steam said in a statement that the creator of the game that simulates a school shooting had previously been banned from the popular platform but changed the name of his business to return to selling games. The company called the game’s creator a “troll with a history of customer abuse.”

That developer has published other controversial games called “Tide Pod Challenge” and “White Power Pure Voltage.”

As an aside, I looked at the Steam page of White Power Pure Voltage and it wasn’t a game about anything racist. It seems that only the name was designed to court controversy, but I digress.

My point is, we’re at a time where video games can be made by just about anyone. They’re no longer the sole domain of giant game companies. So when one of these games comes out that’s designed by a basement-dwelling edgelord, the best thing to do is ignore it and it will wither on the vine. I realize the media is constantly throwing controversy in our faces, but as a society, we need to reserve our outrage for more serious matters. If we’re outraged at everything then we’re actually outraged at nothing.

By the way, Hatred is still available on Steam.