Video Game with Disturbing Similarities to Trump Assassination Attempt Still Available
By Movieguide® Contributor
Assassination video game “Mr. President!” remains playable on Steam, one of the largest gaming platforms, despite its disturbing similarities to the attempted assassination attempt against Donald Trump that took place on July 13.
“Can you take a bullet for the soon to be President of the United States of America?!” a description of the game reads. “You play as Dick ‘Rock-Hard’ Johnson a bulletproof man, the best bodyguard money can buy. He is sworn to protect the most hated presidential candidate of all time Ronald Rump. Liberal media has rigged the election and tarnished his glowing public image, now they are trying to end his life.”
The gameplay consists of players overcoming obstacles to protect “Ronald Rump” from an impending bullet. The game was extremely popular when it was first released as many large YouTubers featured the game on their channel. Some individual videos have gone on to receive more than 50 million views.
While the parody game makes a mockery of Trump, the First Amendment protects the right to criticize our leaders. Nonetheless, in light of the recent assassination attempt that occurred on July 13 — and the game’s similarity to the event — it is appalling that the video game remains available to purchase.
Despite the game continuing to be protected by the First Amendment, its existence is more disrespectful than ever due to its similarity to real events. The developer and Steam should both be ashamed for allowing people to continue to play “Mr. President!”
The game’s availability highlights a bigger problem with relying on major platforms to moderate the content available to users. Because these companies operate with money as their primary motivator, they are happy to sell kids abhorrent games for the sake of profit. Parents need to be cognizant of the media their children are consuming and must work to protect their kids from harmful games like “Mr. President!”
Movieguide® previously reported on video games:
A recent study from Pew revealed new insights into teen video game usage and how the population views the positives and negatives of the past time.
As many parents might guess, nearly every teen (85%), regardless of gender, plays video games on a regular basis. This is especially true of teenage boys, with 97% of them saying they play video games regularly. Despite the prevalence, however, only 40% of teens identify as “gamers.”
This self-identification is largely based on the time spent on gaming and a person’s view of the past time as a whole. Roughly seven in 10 teens (71%) who identify as gamers play daily, compared to only 30% who don’t see themselves as gamers. Gamers are also much more likely to view video games as a social activity than non-gamers.
While nearly every teen who plays video games does so with friends gamers are more likely to make friends through video games as well (68%) compared to non-gamers (29%). Gamers are also more involved in gaming communities through online platforms such as Discord (44% vs 20% for non-gamers) and Twitch (30% vs 9% for non-gamers).
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