Charlie Kirk shooting suspect’s gaming history being probed by US Secret Service

Charlie Kirk shooting suspect Tyler Robinson used US President Donald Trump’s name as a pseudonym on Valve Corp’s Steam video game platform, a fact that has become part of a profile US law enforcement is building on the alleged assailant.

The US Secret Service has joined the investigation into the shooting, even though Mr Kirk was not under the agency’s protection, according to the people with knowledge of the matter.

Agents are working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation to study Robinson’s behaviour and online activity, including his use of Mr Trump’s name on Steam, as part of a profile they are building, according to one of the people who asked not to be identified discussing the investigation.

The aim is to understand how suspects form grievances, how they select targets and whether their actions signal broader risks to current or former officeholders.

The 11-year-old Steam account, reviewed by Bloomberg, primarily uses Robinson’s longstanding online username. It lists an account that appears to belong to his partner as a friend. Some comments on the account were disabled shortly after Bloomberg reached out to Valve for comment. 

Since the

Sept 10 shooting

, law enforcement has combed through Robinson’s social media presence looking for clues about his motives.

On bullet casings, the alleged shooter, aged 22, used symbols and messages from online subcultures, including the video game Helldivers 2, which poses questions about fascism and took inspiration from the film Starship Troopers, and the furry fandom, a fantasy community built around animals that behave like people. Robinson played 399 hours of Helldivers 2, according to his Steam profile.

Used by 30 million people at any given moment, Steam is the most popular platform for purchasing and playing personal computer games. Robinson played 2,148 hours of online pirate game Sea of Thieves, according to his profile on the platform.

“If you play alone you will die alone,” he wrote in a review of the game on Steam. 

The games Robinson spent the most time playing were the puzzle game Pictopix, the first-person shooter title Deep Rock Galactic and Viscera Cleanup Detail, a game in which the player cleans up after an alien invasion. Robinson also played 126 hours of PowerWash Simulator.

In total, almost 5,000 hours of game play are registered on Robinson’s 11-year-old account. However, Steam users often leave games open for long periods of time without playing them.

Experts warn not to make too much of the suspected shooter’s interest in video games. “We have been studying the links between violent video-game play and violence for decades and there is no evidence linking the two,” said Dr Rachel Kowert, a research psychologist who has looked into the relationship between game culture and extremism.

Focusing on that link, she said: “It is frustrating because it detracts from conversations about other factors that we know do directly contribute to somebody committing a violent act, like previous exposure to violence, access to weapons and peer delinquency.”

Robinson’s account also jokingly cited George Orwell’s novel 1984, attributing to it the fake quote: “There will be NO bangering this users mother.”

Steam users have shared their feelings on the suspect’s alleged activities. Some called for justice for Mr Kirk, some attacked Robinson and his partner, who is a transexual, and others praised him. 

Steam is in the spotlight after the chairman of the US House Oversight Committee, Republican James Comer, called Valve’s president, Mr Gabe Newell, to a hearing scheduled for October.

In November 2024, Bloomberg reported that extremist images and phrases proliferated on Steam. The Anti-Defamation League’s Centre on Extremism identified 1.83 million instances of extremist or hateful content on the video game platform, including Nazi imagery, support for terrorist organisations like ISIS and tributes to individual terrorists.

The chief executives of Reddit, Amazon.com’s Twitch and the chat app Discord were also called to the hearing. BLOOMBERG