Active Shooter and its developer have been removed from Steam

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.

Andy Chalk

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.