Tech founder vibe codes game about shooting zombies in San Francisco's poorest neighborhood

Residents and city leaders condemned the free web game, which was removed.

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Pierre-Louis Biojout, founder of Y Combinator-backed AI startup NanoCorp, welcomed San Francisco residents and city leaders this week after releasing an emotional coding project over the weekend: a web-based shootout in SF's Tenderloin neighborhood, notorious for homelessness and rampant drug use.

"San Francisco failed to fix the Tenderloin," Biojout said in a now-deleted X post on Oct. 13. He noted that he has already earned $300 from in-game ads.

Called Tenderloin Night Shift, the game forced players to shoot "zombies," which included a "wrapped" fentanyl addict and a black security guard, according to the SF Chronicle and KRON4 News.

Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the SF Coalition on Homelessness, told the Chronicle that Biojout "is making money by dehumanizing and faking murder for the fun of the mostly black and brown residents of the poorest neighborhood in San Francisco."

In correspondence with the newspaper, Biojout said that he did not intend to "incite or depict the shooting of real people" and that the game also includes tech workers as characters.

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Tenderloin Night Shift appears to have been removed from the NanoCorp website. Although Biojout deleted his X post, the ensuing discussion remains.

Another tech co-founder said, “You made a game about shooting people with active addictions. "These are humans, not zombies. Show me the bright side of this – I'm probably blind."

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Biojout responded, "Why are you talking about addiction? It's a zombie shooter."

However, some commenters confirmed the message Biojout said he was not trying to convey.

"They're not human right now," said one user, while another said they'll be "practicing on Game of Brothers" in preparation for their visit to San Francisco.

Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley in the 80s and 90s playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later fascinated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all shooters now called "boomer shooters", and the PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011 and today focuses on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his more than 1,200 hours of work on Rocket League.

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