The creator of a controversial zombie shooting game set in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood has taken the game down following city leaders’ requests. The game, called “Tenderloin Night Shift,” invited players to indiscriminately shoot zombies in a neighborhood that resembles the a ctual area. The game includes signature images of the city, including Waymos and e-scooters. In the game, players were invited to “meet the locals” as the screen shows a person folded over, much like someone struggling with a fentanyl addiction. Mayor Daniel Lurie called it horrific. “There’s no accounting for taste or people’s terrible ideas. This is a bad one and we reject it. It doesn’t speak for San Francisco values,” Lurie said. Lurie has been touting the city’s noticeable recovery from pandemic issues, including open-air drug markets and a boom in homeless encampments, over the last two years. NBC Bay Area reached out to the creator of the video game for comment in an interview either on camera or by phone, but he declined. In his initial response, the creator said he based the video game on what he sees in the Tenderloin on his commute to and from work every day. Pierre-Louis Biojout, the founder of a startup called NanoCorp, says he rejects the suggestion that the game promotes violence against residents. He wrote in part, “It was not intended to depict shooting real people or to target a particular demographic or group.” Over the last few days, people have taken to social media to blast the game and his attempts to advertise it. Advocates for the unhoused and for people experiencing drug addiction have said he’s monetizing people’s suffering. Supervisor Bilal Mahmoud, who represents the Tenderloin, says Biojout’s video game comes from a pretentious and privileged point of view. “I would say that he represents a minority voice. On the very same day this started to blow up, I was working with other people in the entrepreneurial community to announce the investment in the Arts District to support arts and independent theater and revitalizing the Tenderloin corridor on Market,” he said. Biojout recently said he’s taken the game offline and its promotional materials. He says he’s also refunded al money to advertisers and made a personal donation to a local foundation that services the unhoused and people in addiction recovery. ...read more read less