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U.S. NEWS Thursday 14 June 2018

Developer defends school-shooting

game as victims complain

By DAVE COLLINS egogo, which is refunding by parents whose children
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — contributors. The removals were killed at Sandy Hook
The developer of a school- followed complaints and Elementary School in New-
shooting video game is online petitions by anti-gun town in December 2012.
vowing to continue selling violence advocates in- Twenty first-graders and
it online as parents of slain cluding parents of children six educators were shot to
children and other mass killed in school shootings in death at the school, includ- This screen shot taken from YouTube shows a still frame from the
shooting victims work to Parkland, Florida, and New- ing Nicole Hockley's son, video game "Active Shooter."
get the game wiped off town, Connecticut. Dylan. Associated Press
the internet. "You cannot censor us and "Even more than five years
The "Active Shooter" game what we do," an Acid Twit- later, I'm still not ready some criticism, but not as cus on real-life issues rather
was created by Anton Ma- ter posting said . "Our game to face all the details of much as it got," Berdyev than a video game. There
karevskiy, a 21-year-old de- does not violate any ToS Dylan's last moments," wrote. "It's a video game, are lots of other games
veloper from Moscow, Rus- (terms of service) nor pro- Hockley said in an email not reality. It also does not which are even worse, but
sia, and is being marketed motes any violence and/or urging people to sign the promote any violence or people seem not to care as
by his entity Acid Software. extremism. #ActiveShooter petition to Bluehost. "The hate. People need to fo- much."q
Acid said in a Twitter post- will remain on our website fact that someone has pro-
ing Tuesday that it will not and continue its course!" grammed such details into
be censored and cited free One of the sites included a game for others to play is
expression rights. a discussion section where beyond sickening."
The game is branded as a one person recommended The game also was recent-
"SWAT simulator" that lets adding more "blood from ly condemned by parents
players choose between shot civilians (LOTS AND of children killed at Marjory
being an active shooter LOTS)" and increasing noise Stoneman Douglas High
terrorizing a school or the and chaos to add to "the School in Parkland, Florida.
SWAT team responding to drama." Ata Berdyev, of Seattle,
the shooting. Players can The new webpages, how- who is helping Makarevs-
choose a gun, grenade or ever, were shut down Tues- kiy promote the game,
knife, and civilian and po- day night by Bluehost, the told The Associated Press
lice death totals are shown Burlington, Massachusetts, in emails Tuesday that the
on the screen. Acid had company that hosted the new sites generated about
been selling an early ver- new sites, according to 300 free downloads of a
sion of the game online for Acid, which vowed to get demo, 14 sales of the initial
$20 and plans to release a them back up and running. game version and four pre-
new version next month. Representatives of Bluehost orders of the new version in
Acid recently set up two did not return a message less than a day.
websites for "Active Shoot- seeking comment. Berdyev said Makarevskiy
er" after the game was Bluehost was asked to re- "does not keep up with US
removed from the web- move the sites in an online news" and the release of
pages of video game petition organized by San- the game was "just a bad
marketplace Steam and dy Hook Promise, an anti- timing."
crowdfunding site Indi- gun violence group formed "He obviously expected