After a maelstrom of controversy that had mainstream news outlets and an anti-gun violence charity weighing in, Valve has removed mass shooting game Active Shooter from Steam.
The unreleased game drew furor last week over its shameless exploitation of tragic subject matter. Valve, meanwhile, took flack from fans and outlets alike for allowing the game in the first place. Today, Valve yanked the game’s store page listing from Steam—along with every other game by Revived Games and publisher Acid. Why? Turns out, this developer had already gotten a well-deserved boot from Steam once before.
“This developer and publisher is, in fact, a person calling himself Ata Berdiyev, who had previously been removed last fall when he was operating as ‘[bc]Interactive’ and ‘Elusive Team,’” a Valve rep said in a statement to Kotaku. The rep went on to describe him as a “troll” who has “a history of customer abuse, publishing copyrighted material, and user review manipulation.” While Valve was investigating the Active Shooter controversy, it figured out Berdiyev’s real identity.
“We are not going to do business with people who act like this towards our customers or Valve,” the rep said.
What that means is that Valve didn’t exile Berdiyev from Steam explicitly because Active Shooter was a steaming mound of insensitive dog vomit. However, the Valve rep added that it’s not turning a blind eye to concerns about the kinds of games that are allowed on Steam.
“The broader conversation about Steam’s content policies is one that we’ll be addressing soon,” he said.
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