Indie developer Pierre-Louis Biojout has removed Tenderloin Night Shift, a zombie shooter set in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, after officials and residents criticized the game for portraying homeless people and opioid users as enemies.
Biojout shut down the game on October 16 and removed its promotional material from the internet. He also said he refunded advertisers and donated the game’s reported $300 in revenue to Delancey Street, a nonprofit that provides treatment and recovery services.
“The setting and the way I promoted it showed poor judgment,” Biojout said in a statement shared on X. “Targeting people struggling with addiction or homelessness was never my intention.”
Game depicted Tenderloin residents as monsters
Tenderloin Night Shift was created over a weekend using OpenAI’s Codex and monetized through digital advertisements sold by Biojout’s startup, NanoCorp. The developer initially promoted the game with the line, “San Francisco couldn’t fix the Tenderloin. So I monetized it.”
The game featured recognizable elements from the neighborhood, including Waymo vehicles, scooters and a “Tendernob” apartment advertisement. Its enemies included fictional zombies based on different types of people in the area, such as security guards and construction workers.
However, one enemy type called “the Folded” was a clear reference to the “fentanyl fold,” a term used to describe opioid users who are bent forward at the waist.
San Francisco officials condemned the game after it attracted attention. District Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, who represents the Tenderloin, described the violent gameplay as “dehumanizing and should never be normalized.” A spokesperson for the city attorney’s office called the project “abhorrent.”
Biojout previously told the San Francisco Chronicle that the game was inspired by an Alcatraz-themed Call of Duty map and was not intended to specifically target homeless people. He said he walks through the Tenderloin twice a day on his way to work.
