‘School Shooter’ Game Sparks Controversy

A game which is bragging that you can actually take on the role of the shooter themselves has sparked some major controversy around the globe, with anti-gun charity Infer Trust slating the fact that it’s being marketed in the first place.

The game is called Active Shooter, created by a studio called Acid isn’t technically being sold as a way of mowing down innocent children, although during the trailer the gunman can be seen open firing into civilians in a ‘school like setting’. Whether this particular map is going to be named school is yet to be seen, as the game isn’t due until 6th June 2018.

Usually titles like this slip through the cracks without so much of a whiff, but because there was a recent shooting at SantaFe high school in Texas, it’s sparking an online debate on whether or not this game should see the light of day. One Steam comment read “keep up the good work” while others expressed their hatred towards the title.

It’s a hard one to debate. This game is extremely disrespectful to the memories of the countless victims that have fallen to various shootings, school or otherwise. Also, the only real gameplay video we’re given to preview is based at a school with civilians roaming around. Whether or not these NPC characters are classed as students is to be seen, but again, school setting and civilians doesn’t exactly scream anything else other than students or teachers.

However we must look at the other side of the argument too. We have had violent games being released onto the market now since the dawn of the gaming era. Going back to early years, Soldier of Fortune gave players the chance to hack off enemy limbs with a big knife and Postal 2 lets you burn and then urinate on your victims. Call of Duty included a mission which saw players mow down crowds of people inside an airport and GTA V gives you a pretty close to real idea of what it would be like to throw a hand grenade into a crowd and watching it go off. Fallout 3 let you turn kids into chunks of meat and Skyrim lets you slay innocents with giant swords and bows and arrows. Granted, these games give you a choice in the matter. You didn’t have to gun down the airport civilians in CoD, or go further than your regular bullets in SoF and avoid kids all together in Fallout. But Active Shooter does tally the amount of civilians you take out. Not sure if there is a reward system for a higher number yet.

On the surface though, this game is yourtypical terrorist vs counter-terrorist, cops and robbers type game, similar to Counter-Strike, Rainbow 6, PayDay 2 among others. In PayDay 2 I could slaughter the civilians inside a bank if I wanted. I think the problem here really comes down to location. Would this game really have had as much press exposure if it wasn’t based in a school setting? Or if it was called something else other than Active Shooter, the callsign police forces give gunmen during these types of school shooting heists?