Valve has finally taken down the controversial game Active Shooter from Steam, but it looks like the move was made for the wrong reason.
Active Shooter received massive backlash because it serves as a school shooting simulator, at a time when parents across the United States are gripped in fear due to the recent school shootings across the country. The issues related to the controversial Steam game, however, do not end with its removal from Valve's online distribution platform.
Active Shooter Faces Massive Backlash
Active Shooter, which recently appeared on Steam ahead of its June 6 launch date, created intense controversy due to its subject matter. The game functioned as a school shooting simulator, with an option for players to take on the role of a shooter terrorizing the halls of a school.
"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?" said a spokeswoman for anti-gun violence charity Infer Trust.
"First of all, this game does not promote any sort of violence, especially any sort of a mass shooting," said publisher Acid in response to the criticism against Active Shooter. It added that the option to play as the shooter will likely be removed before the launch of the game, leaving the option to play as a SWAT team member or as a civilian.
Valve Removes Active Shooter From Steam
It took several days, but Valve finally took action against Active Shooter and removed it from Steam. The decision, however, was not due to the contents of the game but rather because of the history of its publisher and developer Revived Games.
In a statement, Valve said that the man behind Acid and Revived Games is Ata Berdiyev, who was removed from Steam last fall under the names of [bc]Interactive and Elusive Team.
"Ata is a troll, with a history of customer abuse, publishing copyrighted material, and user review manipulation," Valve said, adding that it discovered Berdiyev's return to Steam under new business names with the investigation of Active Shooter.
"The broader conversation about Steam's content policies is one that we'll be addressing soon," Valve said to end its statement, delaying the discussion about the content of Active Shooter to a later time.
From Valve's statement, it appears that the content of Active Shooter was an afterthought in the removal of the game from Steam. This signals an even wider issue for the digital distribution platform, raising the question on why Active Shooter was allowed to be added to Steam in the first place.
