What is the problem that the game "Active Shooter" attacking the school and shooting guns got into the game industry?

In February 2018 a man entered a high school in Florida province and a gun was shot by 17 people including students and staff died, triggered repeated fire gun shooting incident in the United States Discussions calling for gun control are gaining momentum. While such gun control theory was questioned, Steam of the download sale site of the game just before the release, although it attracted attention as a shooting game with the theme of "Invade the school to shoot students and special forces" By releasing the game publisher with BAN, it did not come on sale. Over the BAN of this unscrupulous game, is it allowed to refuse delivery due to game reasons? The problem is raised.

Active Shooter: Valve's Steam removes developer of game that simulated mass school shooting - The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/05/29/what-parkland-parents-think-of-a-new-video-game-that-lets-people-shoot-up-a-school/

Valve Has Removed a School Shooting Simulator From Steam, Calling the Developer a 'Troll' - Motherboard
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/evkp3a/active-shooter-removed-from-steam-by-valve

The problem became a developer Shooter game "Active Shooter" which developer Developed by Revived Games and Publisher ACID was planning to release. It is a simulation game where the face is SWAT and it is a simulation game to control a criminal who held a gun in a building, but the Active Shooter was a content that you can play not only on the SWAT side but also on the criminal side. In Active Shooter's trailer movie you can check the contents of the game.

Active Shooter - Steam Launch Trailer - YouTube


With the mission of wiping out the perpetrators who stand as SWAT ... ...


The mission behind to prevent SWAT 's brawl as a criminal.


In criminal mode, "CIV KILLED (number of civilians killed)" and "COPS KILLED (number of police killings)" are displayed on the left side of the screen.


Shoot and kill SWAT ......


The theme of Active Shooter is to kill the public and fendish.


You can see how the criminal is sprinkling from the shadow.


The criminal threw it to the person who ran away was a hand grenade.


In May 18, 2018, gun shooting incident that 10 people are shot and killed by high school students in Santa Fe, Texas has occurred, ACID issues Active Shooter while the problem of "school shooting" is largely upset Then, great criticism gathered from the content of the game. ACID does not explicitly state that the stage of the game is a school, but it is obvious from the trailer movie that the theme of school shooting that shoots guns at school crowded is the theme. There was criticism that it is not only gun shooting at school but also that all the citizens encountered in the school are female, it is a discriminatory expression.

ACID planned to sell Active Shooter from $ 5 to $ 10 (about 550 to 1100 yen) on June 6, 2018, but from Steam where the game was registered at the end of May 2018 ACID Was BANed by publisher, resulting in the release of Active Shooter being canceled. According to Steam, both Revived Games and ACID were operated by a Russian developer named Ata Berdiyev. As Berdiyev has had numerous bad things such as harassing other users, infringement acts, vandalism of game reviews, and so on, Steam has been involved with Berdiyev's related All accounts are banned from entering and leaving.

As a result, the Active Shooter is to be BANed, but there is discussion as to whether the measures to shut out from the platform from the game contents are appropriate. The act of playing BAN by game distribution service like Steam judging the pros and cons of game characteristics violates freedom of expression by game producersExpression content regulationIt is because it can say. It is not hard to imagine that Steam's "Breaking rule in the past" as reason why Steam BAN BAN Active Shooter came up with aim to skillfully avoid judgment of whether or not game characteristics are right or wrong.

The issue of Active Shooter can be said to be a trigger to consider the delivery restriction of games by game distribution service providers such as Steam. And shortly after BAN the Active Shooter, Steam revealed a policy of "accepting every game unless it is illegal."

Steam will be able to deliver platform-side content restrictions to zero as much as possible, allowing "any illegal" game of any genre to be delivered - GIGAZINE


Basically, Steam announces that it will introduce a "filtering tool" to accommodate those who feel uncomfortable by watching the game depending on the content of expression, basically accepting every game. However, "What games should be filtered"? There is no difference that judgment close to expression content regulation is still required, and the possibility of arbitrary operation is not zero. It seems to be said that it is very difficult to steer the game distribution service, which requires complicated interest adjustment such as freedom of expression by game producers, freedom to play by game players, freedom to play, etc.