Violent video games are no new addition to the world of electronic entertainment; it seems hardly a jump, skip, or hop, then, to find iPhone apps with those same violent tendencies. But not all material is acceptable for target practice. RetardedArts, developer of the iPhone app "Zombie School," was a bit slow on this realization. (We should have been tipped off by the name of said company, but alas, we were optimistic.) This game is what it sounds. Picture Night of the Living Dead and Robin Hood rolled into one, except the zombies and their potential killers are school children. Yep, that's right, this app is about school violence, specifically human students killing zombie students with bows and arrows. Hello, lawsuit! But RetardedArts still doesn't get it: "Zombie School is not promoting school shooting; it's rather promoting elimination of zombies to protect the humans," they explained in a statement after the app was yanked. Right, except the humans are age 12 and this repugnant game eerily reminds us (and Apple, apparently) of Columbine and Virginia Tech. Good riddance.
"School-Shooting iPhone Game Removed from App Store," by Brian X. Chen, GadgetLab blog, Wired Magazine, July 20, 2009