TransLink demands SkyTrain massacre game be taken offline

CTV Vancouver: Disturbing video game In a disturbing video game now available online, players can gun down SkyTrain passengers at Main Street Science World Station.

Metro Vancouver’s transit authority is demanding an online video game that depicts a SkyTrain shooting rampage be taken off the Internet immediately.

TransLink issued a statement Friday calling on the game’s creator, Colin Palmer, to shut down the Main Street Massacre game, citing safety concerns for transit employees and the public.

“While we cannot control the subject matter that individuals choose to use in the making of video games, we do have legal rights with respect to our intellectual property,” CEO Ian Jarvis said.

“Any time the safety or sense of safety of our employees and customers is undermined – that gives me cause for concern. That’s why we are vigorously pursuing our legal options.”

The video game made headlines earlier this week due to its grisly content. The main character, Mack, is a construction worker who has a bad day, gets stuck on a SkyTrain car having technical problems and pulls out an automatic weapon.

For three levels, players kill crowds of people standing a SkyTrain station. For the fourth and final level, they blow up turnstiles and ticket machines.

The creator defended his work to CTV News on Wednesday, saying it was borne of his own frustration with recent TransLink service disruptions and with the poor conditions endured by construction workers.

Palmer also took issue with the suggestion that someone might play it and decide to act out the plot in real life.

“It’s a completely invalid argument to say that one video game, done in sort of cartoony violence, is going to be the sole cause of something like that,” Palmer said.

The website hosting the game was registered on July 30, two weeks after the first of two major SkyTrain outages that left customers trapped for hours on the Expo and Millennium lines.

TransLink’s CEO said the game was designed to generate publicity, and was successful in that respect.

“Unfortunately, it was at the expense of real human beings – our customers, and the 6,700 employees who work for TransLink and its subsidiaries,” Jarvis said.