@mb said:

I don't think it's been debunked, but they certainly pushed back on it (as you'd expect, I guess). The rumours were based on more than just the Facebook page and shirt, though — there's an allegation that one team member is supportive of right-wing homophobic groups, and that another designed a couple of tattoos containing iconography that has been appropriated by far-right nationalist groups. It doesn't seem to be cut and dry either way, which just makes the whole thing even messier.

That Tumblr page isn't too convincing. It just says "These guys support this and that" and then gives links to Wikipedia pages with no actual evidence. The few actual links to Facebook images that are provided are ambiguous at best, I'm not ready to call someone a Neo-Nazi just because of a little circumstantial evidence.

Tumblr. I should have stopped right there, really.

@mb said:

You're not wrong that it's mostly circumstantial, and the cultural barrier certainly doesn't help. I still find the idea that someone would follow a far-right Islamophobic group just to get news on happenings in the Middle East deeply suspicious, but I guess it's within the realm of possibility.

@conmulligan said:

counterpoint: Americans follow and watch Al Jazeera because they believe it to be a unbiased, first hand source for news on the Middle East.

They certainly don't have the greatest reputation, either.

I wish less stupid things could elicit discourse. Why does it take this sad shitty looking game and a blah looking comedy to get you guys invested

This dumb argument, is dumb.

Maybe it's not so much the game that bugs me, but more the way they talk about it. Just feels...gross. There are interesting ways to become or play as the "bad guy" in a few games. Some do it well, others not so much. This just seems like "YEAH LETS RIP SHIT UP" in the silliest way. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe there is some depth to it, but I don't see any of that from their writings and trailers yet. It just seems dumb and (maybe I am just soft) gross.

Because this is a video game entertainment forum? If you want to discuss serious issues, go check out some other forum or a few of the threads that pop up in off topic from time to time.

@oldirtybearon said:

Does Al Jazeera really have a bad reputation in the US? Because as far I can tell that's not the case in Europe. They probably have different editorial teams though, so maybe the stuff they put out over there is more controversial. Regardless, I don't think that's a great analogy. Even if Al Jazeera doesn't have a great reputation in the States, they're still a legitimate news organisation. The PLO have no such legitimacy. A better analogy would be someone following a Minuteman group in order to keep up to date with immigration reform.

Not at all, it's regarded as one of the very best. One of the only reputable news sources actually.

@conmulligan said:

Maybe so. I don't have a dog in this particular fight since I'm interested in the art and not the artist. I was pointing out that it all depends on context. Just because somebody makes a like on Facebook or because someone reads a viewpoint counter your own does not necessarily mean they follow the beliefs and ideals of that group.

Me? I read a wide variety of subreddits and websites because I like to know how other people think. I want to understand what makes the people over at the red pill act the way they do. I don't want to fall into an echo chamber where the only people around me already think and believe the same things I do. That doesn't breed understanding, only contempt.

As far as Al Jazeera's reputation goes; it's certainly taken a lot of hits from American media over the past few years. It's treated with distrust and some amount of disdain. Whether it's warranted or not, I do not know. I treat all news sources about the same; if I can't verify it myself it's probably bullshit.

Yeah, Al Jazeera America is honestly the most objective and professional cable news station in the US. But it's funded by the Qatari royal family and has an Arabic name so the vast majority of Americans seem to think it's news by and for terrorists, which is hilarious. I wouldn't trust Al Jazeera to accurately report on the many fucked-up things that go on in Qatar itself, but it's not an agenda-driven hack operation like RT is.

Also, Al Jazeera Arabic is, to my knowledge, fairly well-respected and is the only reasonably objective source of news available in many countries in the Middle East. Like, honestly, isn't it really fucked up and racist that most people think that Al Jazeera is an untrustworthy news source because it is based in the Middle East and employs actual Arab journalists to report on Arab countries? I mean, in this part of the world, we trust the reporting on the Middle East from places like NBC, which is owned by GE the a defense contractor and then we're super skeptical of Al Jazeera's motives because we assume that the concept of objectivity is foreign to Middle Easterners.

Anyways, back on subject, when it comes to what the developers of Hatred are all about, I don't know if the wait-and-see approach is caution or willful blindness. Like, obviously some of these guys have indicated at least a vague interest in Polish far-right causes with their online activity and they're also developing a game about mass murder, the trailer for which prominently features a white man killing visible minorities, women and cops. I understand that people don't want to make a conclusion about what motivated this development team to make this game, but I feel like there's just enough info out there that now it should actually be up to them to prove that they're not completely horrible people. The people who have added up what we know about the game and its developers so far and come to the assumption that there's probably something truly rotten there are not necessarily the people we need to worry about. Focusing attention on the supposed witch hunt does a really good job of protecting Hatred and its dev team from scrutiny and there's way too much questionable shit going on to give them the benefit of the doubt.

So this is the last few paged summed up:

1. Video games now cause actual real life violence.
2. People with extremist right wing views shouldn't have their products sold.

So anyone want to see what $100 worth of salt looks like?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=357693142

I apologize for a tiny derailing response here, but this is an all too common misconception that should be rectified. Meir Zarchi was inspired to create that film after his harrowing real life experience of discovering and attempting to help a girl that had been recently raped. He was moved to create a piece that expressed, what at that time was hardly ever even probed in media, exactly how destructive and alienating rape is, as well as expressing the power that still lived on in women despite being victims of it.

Whether or not he succeeded in communicating those ideas with that film is absolutely up for debate, but what isn't is that he never in any way intended to make a rape exploitation film.

When i see this kind of tumblr pages i get the same reaction that i have when someone links me to a jpeg full of red mspaint arrows and circles from a chan board

Let's look a little to what is listed there:

-The CEO facebook like to a right wing nationalistic, anti-immigration, anti-islamic group. He retracted the like, and went on to state that a family member was killed by the Gestapo during the occupation of Poland and others actively fought the nazis. And people now call him a neo-nazi.

-The shirt, that a polish user here perfectly explained is about a resistance guerrilla group that fought against the communist regime

-Two others members are accused of being supporters of right wing organizations (terrible organizations in my mind, but still no actual neonazis, btw). This tumblr blog has no problem linking to pages or showing screenshots as "proof". Here mysteriously there is none tho. So i have to believe it because? Nice touch avoiding the word "allegedly" even if no proof is presented

-Another member works as a tattoo artist. I saw in another topic that somehow that turned into "one of them has a swastika tattoed on his body!". He doesn't even have an actual swastika in his designs, to which the tumblr kindly provides a link to. He has "One depicts a sonnenrad, a sunwheel symbol popular among Neo-Nazis. The other incorporates a słoneczko (an Early Slavic variation on the swastika appropriated by nationalists) and an “othala rune”, framed within a larger “life rune”. Wow! That means he himself is surely a neo nazi and deserve to be called that way! But let's look at the other designs and follow the same logic, shall we? What is that, an inverted cross? And there, occultist symbols and demons! He must be a satanist!!! Oh no, i see a zombie Lola Bunny design! Could he be...a necrrophiliac furry fetishist?!?

Please think critically when you read tumblr pages like that, especially if they go for shock value in the title to gather attention. "Genocide (does the author even knows the actual meaning of that word?) simulator developed by neo-nazis" is certainly more scary than "massacre simulator developed by probably right wing people of a country whose politics we know fuck-all about"

Also it's extremely sad seeing a lot of people that used the word "allegedly" to exhaustion in the recent past suddenly forgetting completely that term, as soon as it became all about being accusatory.

ps: the creepy stalky vibe that this tumblr article gives off is insane. There was another group of people who went to similar extents in their scrutinies of developers lives in the recent past, care to guess which?

That is frighteningly accurate.

@brodehouse: I'm talking about pre-Internet days, which I'm plenty old enough to remember. Not naive enough to think that the same assholery wasn't around back then, but now, of course, it's amplified a million-fold by communications technology. A game like Hatred is a rallying point for that kind of formless, anon rage. I'm not calling for its banning, I'm not outraged, nor am I trying to force my worldview upon anyone, but I am disturbed people would derive pleasure from its content.

I don't understand Steam. Right now they have cheery little elves, watching a shooting star in the night sky, a feature called Family Sharing, and they have rules about not publishing games with pornographic content. Yet somehow, they're ok with Hatred.

What if I were to make a text-based rape simulator? Would Valve publish it? What if it had no imagery at all? What reasons could they give for not publishing it that couldn't also be applied to Hatred?

Rape Simulator 2015

Press Start

You see a woman standing alone. You want to rape her.

Press 'R' to rape.

Nice work. You really raped her good. I'm sure she enjoyed it, even though she didn't say so. The End.

What if that was the entirety of a game with no accompanying images or audio? What if it got enough upvotes on Greenlight? Would Valve publish it? I'm going to take a wild guess and say no.

I don't see a difference between rape simulators and "genocide crusade" simulators and I don't see any consistency with the image that Valve is trying to uphold. Either they are trying to uphold an image, or they are like, "Whatever. We just provide a service. We don't have any standards for the content we provide. We don't tell you what to play and what to like. We don't care what the devs are trying to say with their games or what organizations they might be affiliated with or in support of. Just pay us and get lost."

@excast said:

Wow, didn't think anybody remembered that but me. Didn't that game NOT get released though?

http://www.polygon.com/2014/12/18/7417045/hatred-free-speech-and-one-developers-connections-with-polands-far

inb4 omg polygon- but probably the most legit investigation we've had thus far. all associations are still largely presumtive, but my significant takeaway was the tone of the developer's response- language barrier notwithstanding, he sounds like a petulant adolescent. which given the subject matter, is about right.

edit: sorry for the no-clicky link, on mobile.

edit 2:FIXED

Is this good enough?

The driving force behind the story of every GTA game is a man, gangster though he is, doing what he needs to do in order to thrive in the criminal world in which he lives.

The driving force behind the story of HATRED is to kill as many people as possible before you finally get taken out yourself. Though there is supposed to be a story and it will probably involve reveals into the lives of people that you are killing, in order to help justify to the player just why this guy is so disgusted with humanity to the point that he wants to kill as many as he can with firearms.

These differences could be watered down to: GTA - Man doing what he thinks is necessary in order to achieve his goal, and HATRED - Man doing what he thinks is necessary in order to achieve his goal. But then any game with a male protagonist could be said to have that exact same plot line.

If you couldn't tell, it's the firearms part of the game that irks me. Guy wants everyone to die, but decides to try to shoot/stab them all. Well that'll never work!

Journalism is about truth and not proving a point. The writer should be ashamed of themselves for diving into the matter to obviously confirm their bias and continue the practice of character smearing anyone that doesn't fall on the left side of the political spectrum. The editor should be fired for not laughing the writer out of the room. What a dangerous way to approach an issue that demands open discussion and for both sides to feel safe. If the singular source of this Polygon article truly is a far left leaning individual than Polygon was just attempting to find someone to talk to in Poland to confirm the narrative they've created.

That is a sickly judgmental article that has no right to be called journalism. Charlie Hall should go back to school.

Think critically of not just the game, think critically about the media you consume on a daily basis. Is the goal to tell you the truth or to get you on their side?

well obviously my post wasn't intended as a tacit endorsement of polygon's process- but to be honest, i didn't really find that much objectionable. they're beating their drum, and destructive creations is beating theirs.

more than anything, i appreciate their attempt to contextualize and explain the very 'Polish' aspects of this story. you might take issue with their characterizations, or choose to take Destructive at their word over Polygon's (and that's your prerogative), but this is the only forward-facing piece I've seen thus far that's actually attempted to explain these groups.

@hero_swe said:

Is this good enough?

the gods clearly have a sense of humour when the studio, which claimed to be a voice for those sick of an overly-politically-correct culture, finds itself issuing a statement that takes a paragraph to explain that their protagonist is an equal-opportunity murderer.

@mellotronrules said:

@hero_swe said:

the gods clearly have a sense of humour when the studio, which claimed to be a voice for those sick of an overly-politically-correct culture, finds itself issuing a statement that takes a paragraph to explain that their protagonist is an equal-opportunity murderer.

They are just pointing out the irony of it all, jesus christ lol. Its not exactly used as a selling point..

@mellotronrules: Oh no I wasn't saying you were. I was just pointing out, in a general sense, that if games journalism is to have any credibility than it at least should follow the key aspect of journalism. It is about providing the truth. It should never broach Destructive versus Polygon. It should be truth versus inaccuracies. If they're only using advocates of the far left to describe advocates of the far rights intention than they are failing at even acknowledging that fight. They should be talking to the groups themselves as well.

That is, in concise terms, a shit article. It wasn't journalism.

I do appreciate you linking it though.

@spraynardtatum: Fair play,though PG did give the Hatred devs room to dispute this Never Again group's claims.

My thoughts on this article are already encapsulated by @spraynardtatum's post.

I want to add that arguing that the only difference between terms like "neo-nazi" "neo-fascist" and "radical right" is only found in semantics is one of the dumbest things i ever read. That might absolutely be true in a country that wasn't under one of those regimes, but not at all in others where people suffered directly from them. There is a reason if here in Italy we have a freakin law that punish "apologia del fascismo", the actions of individuals that tends to recreate the fascist and nazi parties or publicly defend the actions of those terrible regimes, with up to 4 years in jail. And in my country, where some wounds are still open from those horrible times under the fascist dictatorship, calling someone "fascist" or "neo-fascist" carries a lot more meaning and baggage than "radical-right activist/supporter". So, no, they are not freely interchangable terms.

They let them dispute the claims made from unfinished research and extreme bias. I am glad that they at least let the devs defend themselves. That isn't common with most character smearing pieces.

I´ll say even if the developers were actually far right extremists so on so forth , so what? The game itself as stated does not discriminate against 1 particular group anyway (or it seems as far as we can see) so even if their beliefs would indicate that they should or would actually discriminate , if the game does not , then what is the argument?

Im pretty sure that in many pieces of media you consume , someone involved in it has a far right/extremist inclination , so then you will condemn the whole thing?

People who wants to deny the existence of the game because of the supposed allegations of extremism are in my eyes no better than the gamer gaters they decry so much . Also if you want to shorten your worldview be my guest , but I´ll tell you , I disagree with many things but that has never stopped me into looking in to those things , so I can actually , you know have a bigger picture of life. To break the echo chamber that many have so many times said that is bad and wrong ,etc.

well obviously it would be a personal judgement call- but i believe the argument (with the presumption they were identifiably extremists) would go something like,

"i don't want to financially support individuals who self identify as hard-right extremists."

and as far as "condemning the whole thing" -yes, some would. some would say you can't divorce the artist from the art. but again, personal judgement call.

for me, it's a case by case basis. if an outwardly hateful person were to produce a beautiful thing, it wouldn't diminish the beauty for me. but it might influence my willingness to financially support or return to their work in the future.

Okay, let me just say this:

I am Polish, and that article was literally the most biased foreign article on Poland's social structure and culture I have ever read.

The author basically has the audacity to take the opinions of a SINGLE representative (a sociologist, because they never have a political bias amirite) of a SINGLE left-leaning organization to paint a picture of the entirety of polish groups which are an inch right of his personal political beliefs.

When reading this I get the impression that the author just googled 'Polska Liga Obrony' (the 'liked' group by one of the members) and emailed the first name from the first address 'hey bro, I'll give u $20 if u tell me something about polen, Ive got this article to write on, like, yesterday and Im to stoned to do my research'.

The equivalent of this would be if a Polish writer attempted to describe the entire history, message and beliefs of the Democratic party by talking to an admin of christians4america.com.

This has to be one of the shittiest and sloppiest journalist pieces I've ever read. It honestly makes me disgusted that the author sees no problem in such a lazy and biased interpretation being passed on as 'THE state of modern Poland'.

I'm not under the impression that that's a concern or a goal for game journalists anymore - and they continue to prove that, to me at least, on a very regular basis.

@mellotronrules: yeah if people dont want to they are in their right to not support it , but now it has changed into "since the developers "are" extremist then they have no right whatsoever to make their game/orValve should not allow their game on greenlight" which then becomes discrimination , and as far as I know no corporation in the US has the right to discriminte , even if the individuals are supposedly "discriminators" themselves ..... two wrongs dont make a right (is that how it goes?).

I personaly wont buy the game , but because I dont like twin stick shooters , but wont deny its existence because either the content or the individuals making the content , also even if the Polygon article tries to incriminate them and even if it was true , even then I wont crusade against them making their game or having it published. Of course there is no explicit remark of that on Polygon´s piece but rather an implicit "dont let them make the game / publish it" sort of deal , unless Im reading/implying too much.

@ibushido said:

What makes you think anyone would want to buy such a game?

@imsh_pl: If Hatred is any indication, plenty of people would buy it just to prove a point. What that point is I couldn't tell you.

@milkman: Are plenty of people gonna buy Hatred though? That's kinda my retort. Whether the support and publicity will be backed by actual sales remains to be seen.

Furthermore, rape and murder in video games are two totally different behavior. It really is kinda bizzare when you look at it, that out of the two most vile crimes human beings can imagine one remains repugnant and the other is so omnipresent we don't even notice it.

That seems to me exactly the point that is being made by hatred's developers. 'You do this all the time, and you are a hypocrite for acting all high and mighty when we strip away the superficial story and just make you do what you have been doing for years: kill human beings for points'.

Not that I necessarily agree that the point had to be made, or if it had, if it had to be made in such a manner. But it's important to recognize that the fact that Hatred exists is an effect of what is permissable in gaming. And, so far, rape is still a no-no in pretty much all video games that aren't sold over the counter.

@imsh_pl: Whether all these people are going to actually buy Hatred, I don't know. The internet has certainly been all talk before.

And you won't find much argument from me that video games' treatment of murder and killing is often completely warped and one of the main reasons why the medium isn't taken seriously by people outside our little bubble. However, I don't think that's the point the Hatred developers are making. Like I said in this very thread when this game was first announced, I'm not against the idea of this look inside of head of a mass murder and why they do what they do but I've gotten no indication from Hatred that it's anything like that or anything other than just a ploy for attention that has worked beautifully for them so far.

I don't know why, but that's completely beside my point. There are a lot of people that find and play rape simulators on the internet. The point is, if one was put on Greenlight, I don't think Steam would publish it. I wanna know why and how it's any different from Hatred, a game that IS getting published. To weed out any quick replies of "because the rape game would break the 'no pornography' rules," I described a text-based one with no images or detailed descriptions.

it has special target, people who likes Carmageddon, Postal 1, etc... for me game for kind of sick people...

for me too much unexplained violence, everywhere blood ... what is the purpose of that?

@ibushido: Well, I'd venture the guess that Hatred isn't about rape and rape isn't accepted in the gaming industry like rampant murder. They're different crimes with very different applicable gameplay mechanics. I'd say you murder people in the majority of games because it's a simple and effective hook. It's much easier to take out the emotional impact of murder in a video game.

Well, I'm sorry, you kinda have to answer that one.

You seem to think that games just 'get made' for no good reason. Sorry to disappoint you but that's not how it works.

Developers usually make video games either because they want to make money or because they want to convey an artistic message (or a mixture of the two). For a game to even start development the developers have to present a product satisfactory enough for their employers/sponsors/publishers to invest in.

So the idea that you can just 'make a rape game' completely ignores the fact that before you make a game you have to have some party willing to invest resources.

This isn't some trivial bump that you can ignore in your pretend scenario.

Really? Enough people to warrant making a full featured game? Remember, this isn't Japan we're talking about here, neither a browser/flash game. I'd like to see the numbers you've done on this.

You're making assumptions that you just can't make. You're assuming enough people on steam would find interest in it, you're assuming someone would want to make it. That's not how game development works.

I know it's not about rape. I'm drawing a comparison. The gameplay mechanics point is lost on me. The mechanics can be altered to be any number of things that are exactly the same. You could have a scrolling prompt, much like guitar hero, and time your button inputs to murder, rape, or do anything else. The mechanics have nothing to do with my point. You are right about it being easier to take out the emotional impact of murder in games, but the developers of Hatred don't try at all. They are simply glorifying the murdering of innocent people.

Look at the Mario games. I just jumped on a Goomba. Did I murder it? Did it cry out in pain? Did it beg me to stop? Do I see its bloody, lifeless body on the ground with a terrified look branded to its cold, dead face?

Look at Uncharted. You kills tons of dudes. You use guns, explosives, or gravity, and murder countless men. How is it different? Well, these men are armed, work for a villain to carry out his dirty deeds, and try to kill you on sight. In this scenario, you are either stopping bad guys from doing harm, or defending yourself. Very different than putting a gun in an innocent woman's mouth as she screams for mercy and then blowing out the back of her head.

@imsh_pl: I don't know why you're trying to focus on this completely unrelated point. You're saying I can't use my point about the rape simulator because you don't think anyone would play it. Who cares? Whether there are enough people that would buy it and make it profitable or not, I'm trying to make a point that you're completely ignoring.

WHAT IF the rape simulator had enough people to upvote it on Greenlight to be qualified for publication. Would Valve publish it? That's my question and whether the answer is yes or no and why, is the discussion that needs to be happening. Whether or not the 7 billion people on the planet includes enough rape enthusiasts that would want a rape simulator on Steam is completely irrelevant. It's like if we were arguing if you'd ever try eating human flesh or not and you say no, and then I say, "what if you were stranded in a raft out at sea with someone and they died and you knew you were gonna die very soon if you didn't eat them?", and your answer is, "I'd never be out to sea so that couldn't happen. This isn't some trivial bump that you can ignore in your pretend scenario."

Way to never hear of using a hypothetical situation to make a point.

Mechanically, I think the trajectory of games has been almost exclusively focused on killing and murder. Especially in the last couple decades. And just because the Goomba didn't cry out in pain doesn't mean that you didn't just remove him from existence

Look at GTA. You can drive down the sidewalk and run over every person that doesn't jump out of the way. Then turn around and hit them. Then do burn outs over peoples bodies and light the whole mess on fire, shoot anyone else that is running away, after throwing c4 on the swat cars that dare approach.

I spend hours just pushing people off the top of the big mountain in GTA V...or chasing them down with a hatchet. It's not wrong of me to do that or wrong of the developers to allow it. It's a video game and just because I do that in game doesn't mean that I would even imagine doing it in the breathing world. Quite the opposite!!!!

Hatred still goes to another level. I'll give you that. I'm interested to see if there is anything deeper than the surface level scum that we're seeing right now. It seems to be an extremely vile game with vile subject matter that couldn't be coming at a worse time. There have been more mass shootings lately than should be normal. It's been crazy and no one knows what to do with the emotions that something so evil brings up. Everyone wants something to blame for the cause of it. Why wouldn't you?

People should be able to make games about it because it helps people deal with it. It's happening in the real world. I'd rather it happen in a virtual world. I would rather be able to use Hatred as an example of how heinous these acts are than Columbine.

We need to be able to tear it apart like you're doing because you're right about what you say, but it needs to exist in order to do that. We can't be saying "I find this so offensive that I never want to see it" because then we don't learn anything from it.

@ibushido: My point is that the fact that a certain game gets enough upvotes on greenlight - a popularity vote - actually tells us something about the society we live in. In Hatred's example the information conveyed is that many people don't have the problem with portratying a violent character in a video game, and, of course, anyone who plays them knows it to be true.

So the idea that a rape game gets enough votes on greenlight makes the underlaying assumption that the gaming community has many people comfortable enough with raping someone in a video game to support such a game being made. And, at this point, I would argue that's not true (at least not in the western market).

In other words, your scenario isn't 'if I made a rape game and it got greenlight, would steam deny it being made', it actually is 'if the gaming community was comfortable with raping people, would a rape game be permitted on steam'. And by that point the answer would probably be yes.

But you're kinda ommiting the fact that your scenario REQUIRES THE GAMING COMMUNITY TO BE OKAY WITH RAPING PEOPLE IN A VIDEO GAME, which is obviously not the case as of right now as often even having sex in a video game leads to outcries and outrage.

You also seem to think that enough people would be willing to pay for a game with 'no audio or images' and just plain text. Which is also obviously not the case.

I have no problems with using hypothetical scenarios to show your point. But all hypothetical scenarios have underlying assumptions. And if the scenario has enough assumptions that are completely in opposition to the current state of reality, and no attempt is being made to justify these assumptions, then perhaps the scenario is just not worth entertaining.