Facebook Removes VR FPS Following Criticisms Over Florida Shooting

At this point, Facebook has become quite familiar with criticisms following unfortunate gaffes that could have been avoided, in hindsight. The most recent case has to do with a virtual reality first-person shooter game that was demoed at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). This decision was widely condemned for showing incredible insensitivity in the wake of the most recent school shooting.

The VR FPS in question is called Bullet Train and was developed by Epic Games for the Oculus Rift back in 2015, Kotaku reports. It was meant to show off the power of the headset and the potential of the VR industry.

Considering that it was only over a week that the shooting in Parkland, Florida occurred, however, it was obvious beyond any point of a doubt that this was a sensitive time for the public. As such, showing off a violent video game about guns and in such a pro-NRA environment as the CPAC should have come off as a bad idea.

Unfortunately, it would seem that Facebook was oblivious to this fact if its decision to go ahead with the event was anything to judge by. After it was inevitably criticized by the public, which came as no surprise to anyone, the social network did decide to pull the demo from the event and issue an apology.

In an email sent to USA Today, Facebook VR head Hugo Barra writes that the VR game was simply part of its usual lineup when showing demos of VR games. The executive did express regret that the company didn’t decide to do so from the outset.

"There is a standard set of experiences included in the Oculus demos we feature at public events. A few of the action games can include violence," the email reads. "In light of the recent events in Florida and out of respect for the victims and their families, we have removed them from this demo. We regret that we failed to do so in the first place."