Active Shooter: Video game criticised by parents of mass shooting victims for encouraging killing children

The company that developed the game say that it does not promote violence

A screen shot from the video game, which appears to show kill tallies (STEAM)

A video game that would allow users to control an active shooter has sparked outrage online from politicians and those directly impacted by the recent mass high school shootings in Florida and Texas.

The game, which is called Active Shooter, is described online as a “Dynamic Swat simulator” that lets players choose to work as a Swat team member responding to a shooting, or as the shooter themselves. A screenshot of the game appears to show a kill count — with separate tallies for civilians and police killed — for those who choose to emulate a mass murderer.

A video also appears to show a shooter firing at civilians as they try to get away. Some screen shots suggest that the shootings can take place in schools.

Active Shooter is scheduled to launch on June 6, according to a web page on digital video game marketplace Steam.

At least two parents of students killed during the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting have spoken out to criticise the video game, saying that it is one of the worst things they have heard or seen since the February shooting that took their children.

“I have seen and heard many horrific things over the past few months since my daughter was the victim of a school shooting and is now dead in real life,” Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime was among the 17 victims of that shooting, wrote on Twitter. “This game may be one of the worst.”

Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was also killed, criticised the game and said that the people designing the game should have known better.

“The last thing we need is a simulated training on school shootings,” Mr Pollack told The Miami Herald. “Video game designers should think of the influence they hold. This really crosses the line.”

The outrage has led to more than 100,000 people signing an online petition on change.org urging Valve Corporation — the online platform where the game is set to become available — to cancel the launch.

An email to Valve for comment was not returned. Revived Games, the company that created the game, wrote in a post on Steam last week that the video game does not promote violence, and especially does not promote mass shootings.

Steam — the actual distribution platform developed by Valve — allows anyone to publish a video game on its platform for $100, though the platform has guidelines prohibiting games with hate speech, and ones where pornography or adult content is not properly labelled.

“This is inexcusable. Any company that develops a game like this in wake of such a horrific tragedy should be ashamed of itself,” Bill Nelson, a US senator representing Florida, wrote on Twitter.