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New Zealand bans ‘abhorrent’ video game seemingly based on Christchurch mass shooting

An “abhorrent” game where gamers play as a “white supremacist terrorist killer” who targets people for “simply existing” has been banned.

Christchurch gunman charged with murder

New Zealand has banned an “abhorrent” video game that the country’s chief censor said glorifies the mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch that killed 51 worshippers last March, according to a report.

Chief Censor David Shanks said in a statement that the creators of the game set out to “produce and sell a game designed to place the player in the role of a white supremacist terrorist killer”.

He classified the game as objectionable, adding that in the game “anyone who isn’t a white heterosexual male is a target for simply existing,” Reuters reported.

Shanks said the producers developed a similar game before, but he didn’t want to give them publicity by classifying it. He felt, however, he couldn’t ignore this new game.

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern comforts a mosque-goer two days after the Christchurch massacre.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern comforts a mosque-goer two days after the Christchurch massacre.

“Having assessed it now it is clear that this game promotes and celebrates white extremist mass murder,” he said, according to Stuff.

“The games producers will try to dress their work up as satire but this game is no joke.”

New Zealand has also banned the Facebook video of the killer livestreaming the murders, a manifesto linked to the killer and a video of a Yom Kippur shooting in Germany in which two people died, Reuters reported.

This article originally appeared on Fox News and was reproduced with permission.

Originally published as New Zealand bans ‘abhorrent’ video game seemingly based on Christchurch mass shooting

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Original URL: https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/technology/gaming/new-zealand-bans-abhorrent-video-game-seemingly-based-on-christchurch-mass-shooting/news-story/d3589a1fd774f05753f34feca923e0d7