The owners of video game marketplace Steam said it has removed a game where players could simulate a school shooting either as police or the shooter themselves.
Valve Corporation said it has pulled Active Shooter, which was scheduled to launch on the Steam platform June 6.
Valve also said after investigating the controversy surrounding the game, it learned a person identified as Ata Berdiyev was behind the game's publisher, Revived Games, and developer Acid.
"Ata is a troll, with a history of customer abuse, publishing copyrighted material, and user review manipulation," said Valve in a statement.
Active Shooter was described as a "dynamic SWAT simulator" where players can choose to work as the member of a SWAT team attempting to disarm the shooter, or the shooter themselves.
A box to the left of the screen kept track of how many police officers and civilians were killed. A video featuring the game briefly shows what appears to be the shooter firing at civilians as they try to run away.
The video game angered lawmakers and parents of school shooting victims who felt the game was inappropriate.
"I have seen and heard many horrific things over the past few months since my daughter was the victim of a school shooting and is now dead in real life. This game may be one of the worst," said Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was among the students killed during February's shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, in a statement on Twitter.
The game also spawned a petition on Change.org receiving more than 190,000 signatures urging Valve to remove it from Steam.
Steam offers a developer program allowing smaller game designers to publish their video games — commonly played on PCs or Macs — on the platform. The marketplace includes several guidelines for inappropriate content including "content that is patently offensive or intended to shock or disgust viewers."
Valve said it plans to have "a broader conversation about Steam’s content policies" soon.
Follow Brett Molina on Twitter: @brettmolina23.
