A blunt request from San Francisco city leaders for the creator of a zombie shooter video game.

A blunt request from San Francisco city leaders for the creator of a zombie shooter video game. It's set in the city's Tenderloin neighborhood. Critics say this game exploits one of San Francisco's most disadvantaged neighborhoods and its vulnerable residents. Here's NBC's Sergio Quintana. In the newly released online video game called Tenderloin: Night Shift, players are invited to indiscriminately shoot zombies in a neighborhood that bears an all too real resemblance to the actual area. The game includes signature images of the city including Waymos and e-scooters. In the video, players are invited to meet the locals as the screen shows a person folded over much like someone struggling with a fentanyl addiction. Mayor Daniel Lurie calls it horrific. There's no accounting for taste or people's terrible ideas. This is a bad one and we reject it. It doesn't speak for San Francisco values. We spoke with Mayor Lurie at the opening of a physical arcade in the city's Excelsior neighborhood. He's been touting the city's noticeable recovery from pandemic issues including open-air markets and a boom in homeless encampments over the last two years. I reached out to the creator of the video game for comment in an interview either on camera or by phone. He declined. But in his initial response to my inquiry, he says that he based the video game on what he sees in the Tenderloin on his commute to and from work every day. Pierre-Louis Biojout is the founder of a startup called Nanocorp. He says he rejects the suggestion that the game promotes violence against residents. He writes in part, "It was not intended to depict shooting real people or to target a particular demographic or group." Over the last few days, people have taken to social media to blast the game and his attempts to advertise it. Advocates for the unhoused and for people experiencing drug addiction have said he's monetizing people's suffering. Supervisor Bilal Mahmoud represents the Tenderloin. He says Biojout's video game comes from a pretentious and privileged point of view. And what I would say is, I think he really represents a minority voice. On the very same day this started to blow up, I was working with other people in the entrepreneurial community to announce investment in a Theater Arts District to support arts and independent theaters and revitalizing the Tenderloin corridor on Market. In a follow-up to my earlier inquiries, Biojout now says he's taken the game offline and its promotional materials. And he says he's also refunded all money to advertisers and made a personal donation to a local foundation that services the unhoused and people in addiction recovery. In San Francisco, Sergio Quintana, NBC Bay Area News.