What is the problem that the school shooting game 'Active Shooter' poses to the gaming industry?
Following the February 2018 mass shooting in Florida, in which a gunman entered a high school and opened fire, killing 17 students and staff, America has seen growing debate over gun control measures to prevent further mass shootings. Amid this debate over gun control, a shooting game based on the theme of 'invading a school and shooting and killing students and special forces' attracted attention. However, Steam, a game download site, banned the game publisher just before release, preventing the game from being released. The banning of this inappropriate game raises the question of whether it is acceptable to refuse distribution based on the game's nature.
Active Shooter: Valve's Steam removes developer of game that simulated mass school shooting - The Washington Post
Valve Has Removed a School Shooting Simulator From Steam, Calling the Developer a 'Troll' - Motherboard
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/evkp3a/active-shooter-removed-from-steam-by-valve
The issue in question was a shooter game called 'Active Shooter,' developed by Revived Games and planned for release by publisher ACID. While the game is ostensibly a SWAT simulation game in which players take on the role of a SWAT team member and take down a criminal who has barricaded himself in a building with a gun, Active Shooter allows players to play as both the SWAT team and the criminal. The trailer for Active Shooter gives a glimpse into the game's contents.
Active Shooter - Steam Launch Trailer - YouTube
The mission is to wipe out the criminals who are barricaded as SWAT ...
As the criminal, your secret mission is to fend off a fierce SWAT attack.
In Criminal Mode, 'CIV KILLED' and 'COPS KILLED' are displayed on the left side of the screen.
Shoot and kill SWAT...
The theme of Active Shooter is to massacre civilians.
You can see the culprit swinging his weapon from the shadows.
The gunman threw a grenade at the fleeing people.
On May 18, 2018, a mass shooting occurred at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, in which a student shot and killed 10 people. The issue of 'school shootings' came to the forefront, and ACID's release of Active Shooter drew significant criticism for its content. While ACID did not explicitly state that the game is set in a school, the trailer clearly shows that the theme is a school shooting, where a gunman opens fire on a school campus. Not only was the shooting at a school a school massacre, but the fact that all the civilians the shooter encounters on the school grounds are women was also criticized as discriminatory.
ACID had planned to release Active Shooter on June 6, 2018, for $5 to $10 (approximately ¥550 to ¥1,100). However, at the end of May 2018, ACID, the publisher, was banned from Steam, where the game was registered, resulting in the cancellation of Active Shooter's release. According to Steam, both Revived Games and ACID were run by a Russian developer named Ata Berdiyev. Berdiyev had a history of misconduct, including harassment of other users, copyright infringement, and game review vandalism. Steam therefore banned all of Berdiyev's associated accounts in order to remove him from the platform.
Active Shooter was ultimately banned, but there is debate as to whether banning a game from a platform based on its content is appropriate. Banning a game based on the quality of the game by a game distribution service like Steam can be seen as censoring content , which infringes on the freedom of expression of game creators. It's not hard to imagine that Steam's reason for banning Active Shooter was 'past rule violations,' a clever attempt to avoid making a judgment on the quality of the game.
The Active Shooter issue prompted Steam and other game distribution services to reconsider where they should draw the line on game distribution restrictions. Shortly after banning Active Shooter, Steam announced its policy of 'accepting all games as long as they're not illegal.'
Steam will limit content restrictions on the platform to zero, allowing games of any genre to be distributed 'as long as they're not illegal' - GIGAZINE
Steam has announced that it will accept all games, but will introduce 'filtering tools' to accommodate those who may find certain content offensive. However, the question of 'what games should be filtered' inevitably requires judgment similar to content regulation, and there is a possibility of arbitrary enforcement. Navigating a game streaming service, which requires balancing complex interests such as game creators' freedom of expression and game players' freedom to play or not play, is likely to be extremely difficult.
Related Posts:
in Education, Software, Web Service, Game, Posted by darkhorse_log