Steam, web gaming marketplace, opts to ‘allow everything’

Some of the titles available from the online video game marketplace Steam have names — like “Suicide Simulator” — that are fairly self-explanatory. Others have more innocuous titles that conceal the darker thrust of their game play: In the forthcoming “Kindergarten,” for instance, cartoon children are shot in the head by the school principal or hacked apart by the janitor.

It was a role-playing game called “Active Shooter,” however, that recently inspired broad protest, including condemnation from the parents of victims of the mass shooting in Parkland, Fla.

Last week, Valve Corp.