Active Shooter, the school shooting FPS that caused an uproar when it appeared on Steam last week, has been removed from the platform, and both the developer and publisher—Revived Games and Acid, respectively—responsible for the game have been banned from the platform.
"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 explained.
"Ata is a troll, with a history of customer abuse, publishing copyrighted material, and user review manipulation. His subsequent return under new business names was a fact that came to light as we investigated the controversy around his upcoming title. We are not going to do business with people who act like this towards our customers or Valve."
Interestingly, while Berdiyev's behavior was cited as the reason for his (and the game's) removal from Steam, the matter may also spur action on Valve's broader policies regarding what's allowed on its digital storefront—or, maybe more precisely, the lack of them, a shortcoming that's been brought into particular focus since the launch of Steam Direct.
"The broader conversation about Steam's content policies is one that we'll be addressing soon," the rep said. That's a conversation that's long overdue—and one that I hope Steam users will have the opportunity to take part in.
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