SF tech bro pulls plug on controversial video game that let players kill ‘homeless people’ - New York Post
“I built and posted a zombie game set on San Francisco streets. “Your game was fantastic satire,” he added. California Post App: Download here!
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A San Francisco tech developer who created a video game that turned the city’s notorious Tenderloin neighborhood into a zombie-killing zone has pulled the plug after furious critics claimed the game allowed players to target homeless drug users.
Creator Pierre-Louis Biojout, who had bragged about the game, changed reversed course on Friday in announcing he took the game down.
“I built and posted a zombie game set on San Francisco streets. The setting and the way I promoted it showed poor judgment,” he wrote on X. “Targeting people struggling with addiction or homelessness was never my intention.”
In addition to shuttering the game, he said he refunded all advertisers and made a personal donation to a drug treatment and recovery service matching the game’s revenue.
Boijout had unveiled the free, multiplayer browser game Tuesday, describing it as a “Call of Duty style zombie shooter on the real SF streets.”
The developer claimed he built the game in just one weekend using AI coding tools, despite never having made a video game before — and had already raked in $300 in advertising revenue.
But the game sparked an immediate firestorm, with angry critics accusing Biojout of turning the city’s homelessness crisis into entertainment.
“You think you’re being edgy but you’re just a huge piece of s–t,” one person wrote on social media.
“Bring back shame. This is atrocious PR,” another fumed.
Even elected officials weighed in, including city Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who represents the Tenderloin.
“Turning violence against real people, including unhoused people, into entertainment is dehumanizing and should never be normalized,” Mahmood told the San Francisco Chronicle.
It appears the pressure got to Boijout, who is the founder of NanoCorp, which markets a platform that uses AI agents to build and run online businesses.
He told the Chronicle that he walks through the Tenderloin twice a day on his way to his office and thought the area had a “distinctive atmosphere” that would work well for a zombie-shooter video game.
Still, not all on social media were happy about the game’s removal.
“The people b—tching at you have luxury beliefs and should shut the f—k up and put their energy into actually doing something versus whining at someone doing something,” commented Peter Kazanjy, the founder of a San Francisco sales software company.
“Your game was fantastic satire,” he added.
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