Hatred, a controversial and violent game that only yesterday was pulled off Steam’s Greenlight service, is back. That was fast.
Valve said yesterday of their decision to remove the game:
“Based on what we’ve seen on Greenlight we would not publish Hatred on Steam. As such we’ll be taking it down.”
We’ve contacted Valve for comment on why it was so quickly restored to the service, and will update if we hear back.
Comments
96 responses to “Hatred, Yanked From Steam Just Yesterday, Is Already Back”
I spent the last 3 hours arguing on steam forums on why the game should/should not be on steam. Personally I have no issues with the game existing, I’d prefer it not to be on a mainstream platform like steam though…
That said, since everyone thinks that games are just games, and therefore any topic is acceptable.
I’m waiting for someone to develop an in-depth simulator/RPG on the grooming and subsequent rape of underaged girls. or maybe we should make a game where you play a Nazi prison guard and you get to personally participate in the holocaust…you know what, given the last week in the news, I say we make games where you get to plan and execute a lone wolf style attack on a public place like a cafe
I mean personally, I would never even touch such games. (The fact that I consider this a theme made me feel sick…) But I want to see how far (more accurately, how low) humanity can step…
[NOTE: I do not condone any of the topics discussed to be made into games…]
I wish more people like you would participate in the whirlpool thread about this. I have used similar examples to you as to where do we draw the line but it did not help at all.
I think you make some very valid points. It’s true that they are only games, but I think you’re right in saying that being a game does not mean any subject is acceptable.
I would probably suggest that the game classification system is already an appropriate way to deal with this issue. The topics you suggest would probably be refused classification. Ironically, the last one (cafe attack) is probably likely to be OK, given that the CoD MW2 Moscow airport terrorist mission was OK (where you can shoot civilians in an airport terminal).
I do have to note, I respect Valve’s decision to move it to greenlight. I am not a big fan of corporate or government censorship unless there is clear and undeniable link to dangerous activities (the clearly illegal activities I listed would probably be on the censored list). I am also not calling for the game to be banned.
I just wish these games would not be placed in mainstream platforms like steam. I think the game can exist in a fringe setting, (sold by the developer themselves) where dedicated fans can seek it out, but it provides a barrier from the average gamer (minors included) and wandering eyes. We do the same with very adult or controversial films (well, the cinema industry self-regulates pretty well in this sense)
Classification is also a great tool. Maybe its time we have a proper classification guideline. (the current guidelines are a joke since no one follows them anyways and we end up with people calling for games to be banned just to limit the access to kids.
I felt ill just watching the trailer.
I loved Doom and earlier versions of GTA, where the violence was suggested (perhaps just as bad), though this is pure evil. I thought evil was just a concept created by religions to scare donations out of suckers. This title proves it exists in ignorance and mental disorder.
Congratulations on using such a great analogy regarding the grooming etc. Where does this stop? I really feel for the victims of violent crime, as this would be further adding to their ongoing pain and loss.
Good morning, Godwin.
It’s a legitimate point. If games like Hatred are fine, what about a Holocaust Simulator? Where do you draw the line?
Google says there there’s already such thing (or things?) as Holocaust Simulator. The world hasn’t ended, I guess it mustn’t be so bad.
I voted it in.
I don’t. I think games, like every other medium or anything in life for that matter, affects us in one way or another.
In saying that, I also don’t think that games like these will all of a sudden ‘pervert our youth’ or ‘increase crime rate’.
or you could just read about it in any number of books at your local bookstore.
1st game idea – I think japan has probably already made a game like that or similar
2nd game idea – Sounds like CoDs contingency plan if they ever become “not mainstream”
3rd game idea – Id say you can technically do this in Payday 2 but its a jewellery store more so than a cafe..otherwise again CoD contingency plan
True, but if someone told me there was a game where you –
drop white-phosphorous mortars on innocent civilians– I would almost certainly not have played it. But I did, and spec ops: the line ended up being one of the only games that I’ve played in a long time that had something interesting to say about the inclusion of objectionable content in games, and the simplicity with which we, as gamers, will ignore the moral implications of such actions as long as we have a set goal.
As to your other suggestions, maybe there is a game in those subject matters that would be interesting to play? It really depends on how you deal with the subject matter in situ in my opinion – just saying a game is bad because it touches on a particular subject robs the developer of the oppprtunity to say something meaningful about that subject.
Admittedly I can’t honestly say that Hatred falls into that category though. But I find it incredibly interesting that, had the exact same game had the character saying “i’m fucking angry at terrorists/the government/whatever” (a REASON for him to be annoyed) then people probably wouldn’t be complaining as much, no matter how thinly that moral justification is laid on top. Remove the moral justification entirely though, and suddenly everyone loses their minds about how bad the game is, seemingly oblivious to thge fact that the functional behvaiours of the protagonist in game seem to vary very little from the protagonists we see in many, many other games.
I have to ask, if games are not just games, but art as one says, where do we draw the line? In reality, we draw the line at when real people get hurt, or the sexualisation of minors. Except, that’s not even true, is it? There’s child models, sexualised child models. I’m going to say that there’s probably been some publications in those naked art magazines or such where there were people who were prepubescent or adults or looked as such, but I’m sure as hell not googling to find out if I’m right.
So where do we draw the line for games? Is it Hatred, because it’s simply pure, well, hatred? Because it’s so offensive and hits nerves on purpose? Isn’t that what art is about though, an expression of emotion and often a call for a reaction in the audience? Can we say because something is offensive, it’s no longer art?
I’m not arguing that it’s art, or that it’s fine art, but that if we try to classify games as a proper artistic medium, and not just games, then we’ll have to accept that saying whether a game should be made available to the mainstream will get harder. Start saying some art should be viewed and others shouldn’t is a difficult subject.
I’m not for or against Hatred myself, I’m more just here for the opinions of others and hopefully some wisdom gained by discussing them
Agree, made the point on the last post this is like glorifying a mental illness. If commercial art has boundaries (no sexualiaton of children etc) and games are art then there most certainly is a line we should not be crossing.
Well they sort of did the underaged RPG thing already, although slightly differently to your hypothetical, seeing as how it’s a real life game and from a different first person perspective:
(note: it’s the sweetie project thing)
As it should be.
@lukeplunkett This was supposedly sent from GabeN to the devs http://i.imgur.com/3LTQEUH.jpg
Until these words are transcribed on stone on the top of a mountain and brought down by Gaben himself, I shall not believe this. For as the good word says.
“Listen not to the things of internet forums.” Valve 2:14
Actually it was posted by the game devs on their facebook page. I’ve emailed Gabe before and received a response.
Hello internal voices of rage, let me shout out some stress relief.
TERUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMIIIIIIIIIII
IZAYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
There stress relief out, i mean just today a pro gun senator just suggested that ozzies be given more guns. Plus this game was thought by someone who might have been on 4chan, due to the nature of the support behind this game, which is mostly disgusting. I mean this game is disturbing up to 11& can someone plz get this game stripped from steam servers plz
Man, I really hate those “we need to have guns to protect ourselves” arguments those gun nuts use. I don’t think I’ve heard of any crime, gun-related or otherwise, in America being stopped or prevented by an average citizen cos they had a gun…
You know that’s such a great point lol. I think I’m gonna use that in future! 😀
I’m not pro-gun by any means, however, this one gets thrown around some.
http://www.wsfa.com/story/24474261/names-released-after-customer-kills-gun-wielding-man-in-dallas-co-store
There are a handful of examples like the above, get into enough debates with the pro-gun crowd and you’ll know them all by heart.
Yep, the NRA has cherry picked every self defence shooting, trouble is there are not very many, and I doubt they would be very reassuring to a classroom of kids confronted by an auto assault wielding wacko… “Quick, Timmy, grab teacher’s Luger!”…
watch this – Jim Jeffries absolutely shredding the US gun control arguments, hilariously too
Someone suggested that the Dark Knight Rises shooting would have been prevented if everyone had guns in the cinema. Shooting. in. the. dark.
It’s a bad argument.
“This game came from someone who might have been on 4chan”? Really? That’s supposed to be a valid argument against anything?
This is actually horrible. Games are not just games. They do not exist in a vacuum. They are a form of media, and will have done kind of influence on people. But unlike a movie, in this game YOU are the murderer. YOU are the one killing and being horrendously violent toward innocent “people”. It says a lot about these people who will play this game
You mean unlike nearly every other game where you are killing and being horrendously violent towards innocent “people”?
Well, the entire premise of this game is you are playing a violent, angry, hateful murderer, who wants to slaughter innocent people. This is the main character, and the developers are putting you in the body of this character, with all his anger, hate and emotions. You as the player are meant to embody him, along with all those traits. So ostensibly in this fictional world, you have his anger, you have his hate, and his desire to kill and only kill. (I think I just said the same thing like 100 times there lol)
Compare that to say GTA, you are not told to be a deranged killer, and while you can go around killing people willy-nilly, its not really the main point the game is trying to drum into you. And even if you wanna pull the whole “Trevor” argument, there is so much other story to muddy it, you can kind of detach yourself because his life experience is likely different from your very own. With Hatred, you are presented with raw emotion, which is a little more difficult to detach yourself from, cos I’m sure to some extent or other we’ve felt hate, and anger.
Well firstly, it doesn’t even have to be about GTA. Even something like Super Mario Bros, that first little goomba is just wandering his way across the screen when SPLAT. He gets curb-stomped by you. A vastly huge proportion of games see you assaulting and killing innocent beings that were doing nothing other than chilling out in their given area before you came along to do them harm, so how is this one any different?
All it does is dress up the same thing we’ve been doing for decades in a slightly different light, and all of a sudden it makes everyone extremely uncomfortable. And to me, that’s what makes it an interesting game.
Agreed.
I mean, games don’t even have to be based around their subject matter. I remember the Walking Dead in particular was great at this – all the waited decisions you made, you’d think about for days. Was it right killing that person? Should I have done that? Is that what I would do?
Games can be as much thought experiments as they can be entertainment.
I’ve never played this game, and I have no intention to – but I’ve heard that you can make it through the whole game without killing a single person. You walk to the end, and that’s that. So you choose how many people you want to kill and whatnot. I think it’s very interesting.
I mean, even on mobile devices there’s a game where you use different devices to torture your boss – but that’s fine, because even though the guy’s innocent, because everyone hates their boss that’s acceptable and this type of game isn’t?
Your Super Mario Bros. example is great as well.
That’s my point tho. The reason people have such a visceral reaction is the emotion it’s pushing on you, in such a realistic setting. You couldn’t see a cartoonish fat italian guy jumping on a anthropomorphised evil mushroom in real life, but what happens in Hatred isn’t outside the realm of possibility. And the fact that the perpetrator is the player, is what upsets alot of people. Hey, some people just dont wan’t to even cathartically feel that kind of anger and hatred. Granted, some people, such as yourself can detach yourselves from such things, and won’t be made uncomfortable, but there are alot of people can’t do that. Not saying this isn’t an “interesting game”, don’t get me wrong…
(edit: also not saying a person MUST feel a particular way about the game. It’s just interesting to me to try and analyse the different views coming from people) 🙂
Yeah, the problem is that so many of those people who can’t handle it are jumping up and down saying that a game like this shouldn’t exist. I mean I don’t particularly like RPGs and get far too much pleasure out of quoting Hiroshi Yamauchi to people who do, but I don’t run around crying for their removal. They can play the games they like, and the people who want to make games like that can go and make them. I’ll go and play the games I like instead.
I mean something like Breaking Bad wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea with all the various bits of darkness it liked to portray. Hell it made me plenty uncomfortable a good amount of the time, and it’s probably a good thing that it did. If something like that should be happily allowed to exist, I don’t see why something like this shouldn’t be also.
Is this the same Goomba that kills you if it bumps into you?
These daft comparisons keep popping up to validate interest in a game. Problem is that there are no commercially available games that fit the analogy with any level of certainty, so people appropriate whichever game, or in this case, element of game, to justify whatever they need to about this game.
By design, Goombas are not harmless pedestrians that you can walk past with a smile and a nod. Stop bringing these obtuse arguments into play.
Oh but they are harmless. Just because someone tells you they’re bad (through the game design), why do you kill them without question? Perhaps they were just wondering around, minding their own business, not actually wanting some fat Italian plumber to jump on their heads and kill them. You don’t have to kill them – you can choose to avoid them completely.
Perhaps they had children, man… children. WON’T SOMEONE THINK OF THE GOOMBA CHILDREN!?
Let me introduce you to a guy named Trevor…
She already brought up the Trevor arguement… as she said, characters in GTA are given their own back story, personality, reasoning for why they do things in the story-line. This game however, you’re a nobody. He doesn’t even say his name which brings players closer to immersion and putting themselves onto that shoes…
I’m sorry, I don’t believe or concede to it at all. I think it’s been put in a naive, simplistic way that has limited basis in reality.
In GTA there was never any advertisement which highlights that you should go and kill everyone you see. It is an option in the game should you choose (thats why GTA advertises player freedom). You make the decision to go killing. In other games (COD, battlefield), there is a precedent in the setting: war. Even in these settings, games go out of its way to highlight the “enemy” as willing combatants.
In Hatred (from the trailers and the description on the developer website, it seems you CANNOT do anything but kill every man, woman and child you see. There isn’t an alternative in progression of the game
Another argument with GTA (and lets face it, GTA gets banned calls with every release) is that it is a clear parody of society. It is arguably a black comedy of life itself (or American life). Trevor is clearly portrayed as deranged. In fact even the other characters call Trevor deranged. You were not supposed to like Trevor as a person (you can like him as a well written character). I don’t see any sort of reason behind the design choice in hatred (the developers literally said they want to make a game where nothing matters. It is a conscious decision to override social morals).
Well, COD and Battlefield raise the question, is even killing in a war acceptable? Why are we making games that fantasise about killing in a war? Is it because they’re not “innocent”? We don’t know the backstories to the enemy in the game…if the “enemy” were conscripted soldiers who had never killed before, would that be OK?
I heard that you can walk through the game of Hatred without killing anyone, you get to the credits, and the game ends. You don’t have to kill anyone.
And how is overriding social morals wrong? It’s an interesting idea! What if we make a game and see how people feel when they are asked to kill?
You have the option to kill “innocent” people in games like the Walking Dead, and I regret to say that in one instance, I did…and I regretted it immediately after. The game made me feel guilt. Who’s to say Hatred wouldn’t do the same to some people?
If you can walk through Hatred without killing, maybe then its an issue of a poorly made trailer…or maybe they need several trailers (right now every trailer for Hatred is the same darn thing…)
The argument on killing in war is a big one in gaming today. Are we glorifying war too much… Single player campaigns usually balance it pretty well (most do have scenes to show the effects of war on various characters…). multiplayer is another issue (
You make a good point with Walking dead. But I would argue in walking dead, you connect with the other characters…do you for instance regret killing a zombie in the walking dead? or do you shoot without regard. If I gave you unlimited ammo in the walking dead, would you kill all the zombies? or would you only kill the ones you had to? In hatred (once again, maybe the developers just need to communicate the game idea better) the character does not care about those he kills, we WANTS to kill them and the game is designed so you empathise with that killing. Below is a direct quote from destructivecreations’ description of hatred. the words “pure, gaming pleasure” is worrying for me in this context
Violence is something that needs to be justified for it to be considered socially acceptable. That’s why most games have you fighting against demons, zombies, aliens, or enemy armies. And the people you fight against are very rarely unarmed or defenceless; even a simple Goomba can kill in one hit.
Does it kill? We see the goomba get squashed flat, yet all we see happen to Mario is that he falls down off the screen. We never see him actually die, they just seem to bump him off the ledge after he runs into them.
Mario is the only one that perpetrates any violence against anyone.
You literally “lose a life” when Mario falls of screen, so yes, it does kill. And i’m pretty sure that the Hammer Bros slinging hammers, the Bullet Bills shooting at you and Bowser trying to burn you with his fire breath count as violence.
Mario runs into them and gets knocked off. He’s a dick who wasn’t watching where he was going before falling to his death, he only killed himself 😛
– Jack Thompson, 2003
The controversy caused by supposed outraged moralists has given this game a lot of its publicity. Nice work everyone.
Now the game is guaranteed to get through Greenlight due to the publicity.
They already posted some stats on the voting….its about 90% for, 10 % against….
Even if it goes through Greenlight will Valve still sell it on Steam? I’m just thinking back to the original quote.
I think they can refuse to accept the submission to greenlight. But if they accept it they may have a binding agreement to sell it if it gets greenlit. (granted greenlighting a game is not based on number of votes at all, but “the overall interest” of the game…wateva that means)
And the world will surely end!
Like it did with Mortal Kombat…
And Thrill Kill…
And King Pin…
And Night Trap…
And GTA 3…
And GTA VC…
And GTA SA…
And Manhunt…
And Manhunt 2…
And Rapelay (the theoretical game noones ever actually played outside Japan)…
And Rule of Rose…
And Necrovision…
And Saints Row IV…
And MK9…
………..wait, it didn’t end? People just…. don’t play these any more really?
Eh add Hatred to the list I guess, for games that ended the world surely, forever, on the spot and destroyed our morality for sure!!!! O_o
I do somewhat regret, all those years ago, my decision to NOT purchase a lone copy of Manhunt for PS2 I found for 9.95 in Target, despite the ban being in place.
The only game on the list that matches Hatred is really Rapelay, which is a game purely about stalking and rape. The other games are violent but not based on nothing but violence…Rapelay is restricted in Japan as well…
Nothing will destroy your morality on the spot…though one day you’ll look back and wonder where it went…
I think I left mine on a hooker’s ass while snorting coke off it.
Give me your address, I’ll send it back to you…
Mortal Kombat was the cause for the creation of a classification system for games.
Night Trap was the subject of a senate review and Sega withdrew the game from publishing.
Manhunt was banned in Australia.
Thrill Kill was cancelled.
King Pin was refused shelf space by major retailers.
Rapelay was banned in Australia.
Rule of Rose had the Australian and New Zealand release cancelled by the distributor.
Necrovision was censored in Australia.
Saints Row IV was censored in Australia.
GTA was censored in Australia.
MK 9 was banned in Australia. Finally released after the long awaited introduction of the R-18 classification for games.
These games may not have ended the world. They did, however, attract a lot of negative attention from the media, protest groups, governments and even retailers. Only recently, GTA 5 was removed from the shelves of Target and K-mart.
This game will attract attention. The media love an easy target and a sensationalist headline. Governments love a distraction (especially our own). And groups like the NRA love to point the finger at games like this and pass the blame onto them for mass shootings. People who want this game released should be prepared for the inevitable shitstorm that will follow it.
Of course. To deny the controversy it’s courting would be as foolish as believing videogames create killers.
Incidentally, Saints Row IV was RC, then was modified, it would’ve been banned had they not.
Necrovision was RC, then censored.
GTA was released, then banned, then edited a few years later when the Xbox version came out and rereleased. What a mess.
MK9 was banned due to ultra-violence. Indeed, we only got it because of the R rating.
Manhunt was banned after it was released, I know because I own both the Ps2 and Xbox versions I bought at EB in Brisbane city under the myer center.
Rapelay wasn’t even released outside Japan, any copies that got out, were imported. But yes it was banned.
But lets add SYNDICATE to that list. I downloaded it, played it. It was pretty crap. You couldn’t do anything in Syndicate you couldn’t do in other legally available games. *shrug* I’d argue to some degree, Syndicate itself allows you to do some of the stuff you seem to do in HATRED, i.e. gunning down civilians. Obviously that’s not the core element of the game, but you can do it.
But Hatred is a game directly aimed at the ‘controversy’ market, it’ll wear that with pride. Hell, I’ll try it out. It’s just a game. If we’re going to accept that all games can be art potentially, that games don’t provoke people into violent acts etc, we have to stop reacting like this when one grinds against our sensibilities.
The sad thing is, if this game pitted you against aliens, zombies, skynet or an invading army, then I would have happily supported it. But killing unarmed innocents who seem to be mostly defenceless? Where’s the fun in that? Where’s the challenge?
Burnout 2 saw you tasked with intentionally ramming your car at high speed into the vehicles of innocent, defenceless commuters out on their daily drive purely to try and cause as much destruction as possible. Countless lives would have been lost in the process.
Oooooooooooooooooooh excellent counterpoint…
Burnout 2 didn’t feature graphic violence such as blood, or dismembered body parts. People’s heads didn’t get blown off.
So? Would this game be less “immoral” if there were no blood when killing innocent civilians? Would it be more objectionable if they were aliens but you were practically swimming in blood and guts every time you did something?
Killing is killing, whether it’s through a bullet to the head, a knife through the chest, ploughing down with a car or kicking over a ledge.
@mrtaco
“Killing is killing, whether it’s through a bullet to the head, a knife through the chest, ploughing down with a car or kicking over a ledge.”
That’s right. Killing is killing. It is a horrible thing, so IT HAS TO BE JUSTIFIED. Just look at Hollywood movies. Aliens invade? An army tries to invade your country? Someone kidnaps your daughter? There is almost always some sort of justification for the hero of a movie to perpetrate violence. And look at our own soldiers; throughout wars, they’ve killed other human beings. They’ve done horrible things, but we can forgive them for it because they did it to protect the rest of us.
Hatred has no justification; or at least, none that the developers have so far made clear. It’s controversial for the sake of gaining attention. It’s the video game equivalent of torture porn.
Oh geez. Killing is rarely justified, least of all in games, and most of the time it isn’t even that horrible. It’s just a thing to make this thing go away so you can advance to the next part. A simple mechanic to overcome an obstacle that stands between you and a goal.
But ok, lets say that all this violence and killing is horrific unless it’s justified. So where was the justification in the Burnout example I gave? And if there was none (spoiler: there wasn’t) where was the outcry over it being so morally reprehensible?
In Mortal Kombat, when the blood was palette-swapped to become “sweat”, did that suddenly make all those punches non-violent? Because that’s what’s going on here, a simple change in coat of paint. Those alien/skynet/demon skins have been replaced with those of regular people, and suddenly people are crying foul.
@mrtaco
I have no idea why you keep bringing up Burnout 2. It features no actual human-on-human violence. No blood. No bodies. Cartoonish visuals as opposed to realism. It’s a terrible comparison. It’s never implied that people are injured, or even in those cars; for all we know, they could be autonomous. The idea that people are injured is merely an assumption you’ve made yourself.
And if you can’t see the justification put forth in movies, then you clearly haven’t been paying attention to them. Take revenge movies, for example. Taken and John Wick were both very violent, but their violence was justified by the fact the hero had a very serious injustice perpetrated against them, and that the people behind it were criminals.
And yeas, even Mortal Kombat justifies its violence by saying it’s part of a tournament which is Earth realms chance to prevent it from being invaded.
If people honestly want to play a game where the sole purpose is to gun down innocent, unarmed civilians, who pose no threat to them, and have no chance of fighting back, then I think that says alot about the people who want to do so. They’re most likely trying to achieve a feeling of power; of control that they simply can’t attain in real life.
I feel sorry for these people.
I have no idea why you keep bringing up innocent civilians. It’s never implied these people have never done any wrong in their lives; for all we know, they could be alien-incubating child-abusing demon robots in disguise. The idea that people we should care about are injured is merely an assumption you’ve made yourself.
@mrtaco
If they are “alien-incubating child-abusing demon robots” then the violence would be justified. But the developer hasn’t said that, or even implied it. It’s just trying to be controversial for the sake of getting attention, like Miley Cyrus.
Whoa, hold up. Are you saying it’s ok to kill someone just because they’re a child abuser? Or a demon? Or a robot? Or incubating an alien lifeform? What, just because you don’t like them?
This is starting to sound more and more like you have trouble distinguishing between fiction and reality.
@mrtaco
All throughout this conversation, i’ve tried to explain to you that killing, as present as it is in all forms of media (gaming, movies, tv) is, usually, attempted to be justified in some context. It isn’t just senseless slaughter. Max Payne’s violent rampage in the first game begins after finding the slain bodies of his wife and child, while Kratos goes on a killing spree after being betrayed by the gods. Walter White’s foray into drug manufacturing, and the ensuing violence that follow it, are all to support his family after he’s gone. Game of Thrones features countless deaths; be they for revenge, or power, there is almost always some sort of reason given.
“Are you saying it’s ok to kill someone just because they’re a child abuser? Or a demon? Or a robot? Or incubating an alien lifeform?”
If any of those present a threat to yourself or others, then yes. Killing in self defence is undesirable, but justifiable.
“This is starting to sound more and more like you have trouble distinguishing between fiction and reality.”
Ah, that old strategy. Can’t win an argument? Accuse the other person of something! Doesn’t matter whether you accuse them of being racist, sexist or mentally unstable, just throw a baseless accusation and hope it sticks! Turn it back on them, and make them defend themselves!
And all throughout this conversation I’ve tried to explain that killing is present all throughout gaming history, rarely getting a second glance when it’s been just as horrible and unjustified as everyone is claiming this game to be. Regardless of how it’s specifically been presented, it’s always been there. And then because this game presents it in a different light, it’s somehow infinitely worse than anything else. For whatever reason you seem to equate killing these people in this game to be just as horrible as killing a person in real life, but then people in other games don’t matter if you don’t like them. Therefore if I don’t like what someone did in real life it’s ok to kill them too? Nah, it doesn’t work like that.
All the violence and murder doesn’t suddenly become bad because it’s directly shown, nor does it somehow become ok if it’s instead only implied. Or otherwise if you can hand-wave away the Burnout example of unjustified intentional mass-destruction of commuter vehicles by saying “they could be autonomous for all we know” and therefore it’s ok, then I can hand-wave away the mass-murder of this title by saying “they could be soulless human replications grown for a gigantic simulation facility in which this all takes place” and therefore it’s ok. Hell the “it was all a virtualisation” thing has been used in plenty of movies and such and been acceptable excuse/”justification”, yet this here is an honest to god ACTUAL virtualisation and it’s somehow unacceptable.
@mrtaco
“Regardless of how it’s specifically been presented, it’s always been there”
Never said it hasn’t been present. My argument is that developers will try to find a way to justify it so it doesn’t seem like the good guy is a mass murderer.
“For whatever reason you seem to equate killing these people in this game to be just as horrible as killing a person in real life, but then people in other games don’t matter if you don’t like them”
Never even said that.
“if you can hand-wave away the Burnout example of unjustified intentional mass-destruction of commuter vehicles”
Why do you keep bring up Burnout? We’re talking about killing here, not property damage.
“All the violence and murder doesn’t suddenly become bad because it’s directly shown, nor does it somehow become ok if it’s instead only implied”
That’s not even my argument. I never said it was good, nor bad. In fact, in my comment at December 18, 2014 11:50 pm, I clearly stated ” It is a horrible thing”. My entire argument, reiterated yet again, is this: In entertainment mediums, such as gaming, tv and film, developers will try to, in some way or other, justify the violence so it doesn’t seem as bad. That way, people will be more accepting of a what is actually a horrible thing. Why do you think the writers made the Empire blow up an entire planet at the start of Star Wars: Episode 4? So you wouldn’t feel bad for all the stormtroopers who were massacred later. And why do you think there has been such a backlash against this game, but not other violent games, such as Call of Duty?
I don’t get the fuss. If Steam prevents the game from being sold on steam, that’s not going to stop the Devs from selling it on their own site. This game is so highly publicized due to the controversy that sales shouldnt br an issue.
thats exactly the point….it shouldn’t be placed on a mainstream platform. If people want it, they can search for it. Right now, there’s not even an age gate on greenlight…
It should be restricted in sale, not banned…like most questionable/controversial things. we have safe harbor in television for a reason, main cinemas choose not to stock adult films for a reason, we don’t sell sex toys in Woolworths for the same reason. (I know I used mainly sex themed items, but Australia already has strict weapons laws, Alot of Walmarts in cities in the US also don’t stock weapons for similar reasons)
Trust me, if Steam won’t sell it…sales will be an issue. It may sell well initially, but the tale will be non-existent without steam.
It’s 2014 (nearly 2015) and we STILL have this kind of moral panic about a video game? Good Lord.
You lot want video games to be art, right? Well I hate to break it to you, but art is sometimes doing things in extremely bad taste. Stirs up controversy there too. That does NOT mean it gets to banned.
And out of all the BS comments on this page comes someone with a brain I’m glad I’m not the only person that sees it this way.
The sheer hypocrisy being thrown around in the comments on Kotaku surrounding this game bothers me so much, yet no one can see it….
“your sick if you want this game”
“you’re morally corrupt if you think this is right, and because i disagree you’re the one in the wrong”
Hey does anyone remember what Hitler did when he didn’t like something?
Fix the Germany economy, order genocide, destroy a lot of things. Do you have a point in bringing that up or is it vogue rhetoric?
@bathmatt It’s okay for the game not to be art, just as it is okay for it to be art. What you’re describing is exactly why artworks get banned, unless we’re going to pretend that no book/poem/song/film/play/painting/photograph/sculpture/installation etc. has ever been banned in any community, state, or country.
We are, however, talking about a private business making decisions on the suitability of a product for sale. The business can do whatever the hell they please, artwork or not.
I’m not saying artworks don’t get banned. I’m saying they shouldn’t be.
You’re also implying that ANYTHING can be art if someone claims it to be. If art is a ubiquitous label that is flung about without consideration, as it is in this situation, then everything could be art and potentially nothing should be banned.
Topic at hand. Regardless of artistic merit, a private business can refuse sale of whatever product they please. Whether the company should or shouldn’t is up to them. That’s what is pertinent in this matter of Valve and Hatred.
My biggest problem with this game is not the fact that it’s theme is pre-meditated murder, it’s that it had all the potential to become a very insghtful and thought provoking look inside the mind of a killer but was instead created with the attitude of “Whee! Look at us. We’re being controversial. Aren’t we cool?”. Not enough games dare to show us the other side of our moral code, yet those that do always seem to treat it with a lack of maturity and respect.
If we applied the same sense of moral outrage that has recently cropped up for games, to movies and books, the sterilization of those two industries would make each and every bleach supplier a fortune 500 company.
I feel heartened that so many Kotaku users are willing to stand up and say “nope, this game here is too far”
Doesn’t matter if someone nitpicks and saying, “Hey you can’t say what’s too far, it’s my right to have anything I want”
So many know it’s too far morally. They know it, with no doubt. And they stand up for that.
Nice work folks. 🙂
I dont know what this game is about and honestly I dont care but I find it really distressing how aggressive people reacted to a game that presents violence but how everybody plays, without any problems, COD and other games that promote war and genocide by destruction and invasion of other countries.
Also, why are people so embarrassed about the other side of humans. We are violent by nature, that is what ensured our survival. We should not enhance or praise it, but people should start realizing and accepting that as a fact. Hiding it is not helping anyone… it is just forcing other that are more violent to hide and allow the feeling to grow and then became uncontrollable instead of accepting it and trying to fix it.
Also, I believe that it is everybody right to have access to all the information out there and it is your responsibility to avoid what you consider inappropriate and to protect the people that cant protect themselves. BUT that has to be done by respecting others and not making them pay the price for something that you are incapable of doing. You can read about it and about the game, you can apply parental locks, you can personalize your library…there are a lot of ways to hide it. You should do it and not complain that its Steam fault…
Praise Gabien, I’m looking forward to trying this game.
Many npc’s armed and unarmed have felt the wrath of my keyboard controlled protagonist. Its masochistic hilarity. How fine a line between that and Hatred, I don’t know. I also wonder if it was still an 8 bit era would a discussion be happening
I remember when the Aus govt banned a film called “Irreversable” because of an 8 minute-long rape scene that occured in real time. It was labelled as exploitative, mysoginist and disgusting and evoked similar knee-jerk reactions from people looking to separate their morality from that perceived in the film. It was interesting because no one had actually seen the film. It was based off previews and descriptions – much like here. After a bunch of people who actually know a thing or two about film took upon themselves the unenviable task of convincing people that a sidewards glance in a vague direction perhaps shouldn’t actually result in such certainty.
I’m not “for” this game, i’m just saddened of the limited perspective we have for creativity. I haven’t heard “ban the games because of…” followed by a series of specific examples from the game. It’s more like “you play the murderer!” as if there’s actually something obviously significant in this basic observation. So does this mean every game where you play an antagonist should be considered similarly? “You’re rewarded for murdering people!” And who says this isn’t part of a greater subtext? Again, not saying this for Hatred but as a general rule, the reasons why people want this game gone are flimsy because they ignore the fact that games tell stories in a number of ways and limit their potential. Whilst violence, cruelty and a main playable antagonist might be fashionable things to rally against, nothing says these things can’t be used cratively for a truly rewarding and insightful experience. Conventions covering these have been used in film for decades and whilst you may believe something as stupidly vague as “i think everything we see affects us”, some people possess knowledge that sorts these images and sounds into storytelling rather than remain empty vessels for information delivery. Wouldn’t it be better to explore this further than to judge without experiencing?
Hatred may be trash and it may have no depth but it isn’t the mere existence of violence, cruelty or a playable main antagonist that make the content of this game different. It’s more than that and it’s sad to see how simplified peoples’ understanding of depiction, endorsement, violence, perspective and representation are because an ignorant and flawed viewpoint has now become the norm. We discuss issues related to games but don’t collectively have the means to do so effectively. We already have a film blocked from release because someone staunchly believes they understand something they do not. I’m worried about other games that have more to offer than Hatred but contain confronting content getting banned becauseof the simplified understanding shown by so many. Hatred probably doesn’t have an understanding of this either, i don’t know, that’s probably part of my prejudice speaking. I just don’t see what is lost by scrutinizing something with a little more care than we do now and actually explore multiple angles and perspectives, not just ones held by prominant social or cultural groups. Y,know, like all other reasonably developed creative works.
To reiterate what I said on the previous article in case it was missed:
There’s a nice little “addition” to the whole Hatred story at the moment, that this “evil game” that only “monsters” could want to play, in addition to being the worst thing ever, was created by none other than (NEO) NAZIS.
Doesn’t that sound great? This game is awful and should be banned, and if need any other reason that the trailer doesn’t offer you, look no further than the developers! Nazis! They’re the worst!
Except, no, that’s some rumour likely made by a soccer-mom or the prodigal child of Jack Thompson himself. Whatever the case, the devs have spoken out on this childish namecalling.
http://www.gameplanet.com.au/pc/news/g544575270e6a2/Neo-Nazi-claims-fucking-ridiculous-Hatred-CEO/
http://www.screwattack.com/news/hatred-dev-destructive-creations-responds-anti-islam-neo-nazi-accusations
Question though: is the whole game played out from that isometric point of view?
Because I could understand this whole “killing innocents in the game will make unbalanced “gamers” kill innocents in real life!” shtick if it was an FPS or even a TPS, but I feel like being all the way zoomed out like that is going to reduce the impact somewhat.
Last thought: Ultimately, someone in Valve had a kneejerk reaction and pulled the game. Someone who isn’t an idiot, Gabe Newell, found out about this and had it put back up.
Why did he do this? Well, I’m sure there are a tonne of social and political reasons, but the most likely one is that a) this game has a lot of interest, b) like it or not, will sell a lot of copies and c) if Valve is not selling it, they will miss out on 30% of the profit.
Money speaks louder than words. Valve is a company.
I’d love to see you defend Golden Dawn.
-H-hey, we suffered at the hands of the nazis too!
-I don’t really support them, I just Like their FB page
-Unironically drops “commie-lovers” in an open letter
Also, he hasn’t accounted for the other allegations leveled at his team.
Among others. You seriously can’t hand-wave it away by saying it’s an innocent mistake that one guy happened to like a controversial FB page just to keep his ear to the ground on the Middle East. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire and even if these guys aren’t outright neo-nazis, there’s a pattern of behaviour in this studio that suggests that they seem to harbour some very discomforting, far-right, nationalistic sentiments.
Steam is a for-profit storefront and Valve has every right to bar its sale. On the other hand, the game is free to be sold directly to consumer so everyone wins in that scenario.
My 2c: the game isn’t satirical and doesn’t even have meaning to its violence. Its violent for the sake of being violent. The recent Giant Bombcast covered it and they’re right; it’s basically this generation’s Marilyn Manson and teens will buy it because they think it’s hardcore. On the other hand, the allegations that some of the dev team are members, or at least sympathisers, of an apparently far-right, neo-nazi Polish group gives me pause as to the nature of this game. If it was more honest an outright minority/cop-killing game, the opposition would be unanimous.
The main thing that bothers me about this game is the negative media response it’s gonna have and possible implications it can have on gaming as a whole. I mean, the media response to GTA V was bad enough.
On a side note I don’t understand why movies like Rampage don’t get as much media attention as games like Hatred keeping in mind Hatred is animated violence.
Nice, so now we can set the world’s view of gaming back 10 years and support neo nazis. Well done Valve :/
There is, however, a valid argument that all the npc’s in Goat Simulator should be armed to the teeth… for goat elimination for the greater good…
Role play is a really powerful technique used in therapy – in fact we kind of just do it for ourselves as we replay in our head what we would do in certain situations and how we would react. So here we have a game that is role play – even better you can take elements of your real life and mod them into the game. And role play what you would do to them. Hmmm.