PewDiePie said he was sickened to be mentioned by the New Zealand shooter.
PewDiePie said he was sickened to be mentioned by the New Zealand shooter.
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Video game industry struggles with attempt to pull it into New Zealand shooting

  • Posted byby Dean Takahashi
  • Updated
  • 5 min

On the eve of the biggest conference for game developers, the makers of video games are struggling with a shooter’s attempt to bring them into the forefront of the shootings in New Zealand. I am feeling heartsick about this event, with so much loss of life. And I worry that the aftermath will once again drag video games into a polarizing global discussion.

It does not help that an alleged shooter shouted, “Remember lads, subscribe to PewDiePie” (referencing the popular video game influencer on YouTube) during a livestream of the shooting on Facebook. He shot real victims in the style of a video game, and his live video spread through the viral networks, even as platform owners like Facebook tried to stamp it out.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.