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p>Article content from Hartford, Conn. - The creator of a school shooting video game that has been criticized by parents of slain children has been unable to sell its products online after being relegated by PayPal?.

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p>Article content Acid Software said Tuesday that purchases of "Active Shooter" were "temporarily removed" as its representatives tried to resolve the issue with PayPal?. Acid's postings on Twitter and an online bulletin board included the hashtags "QuitCensoringUs?," "FreedomOfExpression?" and "WeWillBeBack?."

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p>PayPal? blocks school video game sales

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p>PayPal? confirmed it shut down the account.

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p>Article content "PayPal? has a longstanding, well-defined and consistently enforced Acceptable Use Policy, and regardless of the person or entity in question we strive to ensure that our services aren't used to accept payments for activities that promote violence," the company, based in San Jose, California, released a statement on Wednesday.

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p>"Active Shooter" is branded as an "SWAT simulator" that allows players to choose between being an active shooter terrorizing a school or the SWAT team that responds to the shooting. The screen displays the number of deaths of police and civilians and also the options for weapons, grenades and knives. Acid sold an early version of the game online at $20. The company plans to unveil a new version in the next month.

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p>Article content Acid recently set up two websites for "Active Shooter" after the game was removed from the webpages of the video game marketplace Steam and crowdfunding site Indiegogo. These removals were inspired by online petitions and complaints from anti-gun violence advocates including parents of children who lost children in school shootings in Parkland (Florida) in which 17 students and staff were killed in February.

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p>After receiving similar complaints, the company hosting the new websites decided to shut them down. But Acid has been able to get the sites back up and running by switching to Russian servers, said an Acid representative, Ata Berdyev, of Seattle.

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p>Anton Makarevskiy (21-year-old Russian developer) created "Active Shooter". Acid Software is marketing the game. Berdyev is helping Makarevskiy promote the game.

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p>The statement from Wednesday by Berdyev indicated that the future of the game could now be in doubt. https://nicisoft.com/ </p>

p>Berdyev wrote in a note to The Associated Press, "Seems like everybody in the US trying to censor , without defining exactly what we are violating."

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