‘Active Shooter’ game angers Parkland parents

Victims’ kin call for blocking of its release

The online game unfolds from the point of view of an attacker, aiming a weapon down a school corridor or throwing a grenade into an auditorium. The character creeps around corners and up staircases. Bullets spray, blood spatters. SWAT team members are shot dead. Civilians are splayed out on the floor.

The game is Active Shooter, and it is not scheduled to be released until June 6. But it has already run into controversy after several recent school shootings, including massacres at high schools in Santa Fe, Texas, and Parkland, Florida.

‘This is not responsible’

Parents of victims of the Parkland shooting have amplified the opposition to the game, calling for boycotts and seeking to block its release.

“Nothing will bring my daughter back, but there is a role for adults to have in terms of being responsible, and this is not responsible,” said Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter, Jaime, was one of the 17 victims of the February 14 shooting in Parkland. “This is gross, this is profiteering, this is unacceptable.”

Active Shooter was developed by Acid Publishing Group, which has an online page in English and Russian. The developer is planning to sell the game for $5 (Dh18.36) to $10 on Steam, a publishing marketplace run by Valve Corp. of Bellevue, Washington.

“Pick your role, gear up and fight or destroy! Be the good guy or the bad guy,” the description of the game says. “The choice is yours! Only in Active Shooter, you will be able to pick the role of an Elite SWAT member or the actual shooter.”

Discussion about violent video games and their effect on young people’s behaviour was renewed after the Parkland shooting, which the police said was carried out by a former student, Nikolas Cruz.