@oldirtybearon: My bad then :P

:D

@brandondryrock: to be fair though the greenlight description makes it sound like the player IS the antagonist in the game, so you're basically playing the bad guy, also there will be police and armed forces trying to stop you.

When I think about that Prototype immediately comes to mind, in that game you're downright slaughtering civilians left and right for health yet no one went up in arms about it, i guess it's because in there you're some sort of mutated monster and in this you're just a dude, maybe the closer to real setting puts people off...

Either way I'm with Jeff on this one, let the damn game come out on steam and let it suck on it's own right, unless it turns out to be really fun... hell I won't lie, I'll probably get it if it turns out good, i love me some dual stick shooting, I hope that doesn't make me a bad person...

@onarum: Yeah I went to the game's website yesterday to see if I could get a better sense of the game. They describe the game as a horror game where you play as the antagonist, and the stated goal is to see how many people you can kill before the police kill you.

I don't know. Maybe I am a hypocrite. I don't have problems with a game that makes you play as the antagonist. But I feel like there are more creative and better ways to justify you playing as the bad guy other than "I'm tired of political correctness in society, so I'm going to murder everyone."

As much as I am all for the game's right to exist and be sold, I am worried about the obvious intentions of the developers to appeal to the, not really non-progressive, but actively anti-progressive forces in the game industry. Hell, we've got people, as stated in this thread, speaking about modding in Sarkeesian or wanting a DLC with her, recreating the massacre in Norway by Breivik and clamoring for SJW NPC's to slaughter. It irks me to no end that a bunch of edgelords are currently sitting around smugly in their basements while waiting for their mothers to make them hot pockets, reveling in some kind of teenage frustration that is expressed in a need for chaotic Internet anarchy, and channeling it through this game. The devs, with their expressed purpose of the game to be a counter to the "politically correct" parts of the gaming industry, that is, primarily feminism and promoters of minority group and LGBT representation, has found their audience I guess. Had the game existed as it is, without the accompanied expressed purpose for its existence, I probably wouldn't even have shrugged at it. Then it would have just looked like a shitty twin-stick shooter with canned execution animations, created with the express purpose to stirr up controversy in order to sell some copies. Now it's the bandwagon for an entirely different crowd.

@asrahn: if that kind of people is what worries you than you should look at it this way: every moment they spend playing Hatred and unloading their frustration there is a moment they don't use to harrass people on-line, where there are real people with real feelings instead of pixels

@oldirtybearon: @aetheldod: Indeed.

I'd rather make probing statements that engender dissonance and critical reflection on the reader's own terms than make judgemental statements that tell people what right is. I believe I'm more like to influence people to be more considerate by presenting dissonance than by presenting a series of orders to obey my social mores.

well- valve has certainly dug themselves in deeper, it seems. what a quamire. i fully support them exercising curatorial authority, but christ- if you're going to do so, do so in a predictable and reasoned fashion. and then stick by it!

if their original reasoning for discarding it was, "we simply don't care for the subject matter," albeit entirely subjective and perhaps tenuous- that's fine. their store, their rules, and it's ridiculous to have any other expectation.

but to renege and say "actually this is totally fine-"...how the fuck are they going to draw any lines now? it just opens the flood gates for any dumbass that wants to put his EDGY-SIMULATOR up for sale. what are they going to if someone comes along with a rape game or SJW torture simulator.

@cagliostro88: I'm more worried about them having a platform and finding legitimacy for their opinions through what some angst-ridden morons living on the polish countryside are saying/have created. If the devs fullfil their promise on "extensive mod support" for this game, it won't be long until we'll start seeing some really nasty shit popping up. While I agree partially with you that these people probably are best kept indoors in singleplayer games, I can't help but feel that some exposure to real life as opposed to the Fall Out Boy fanfiction pages would help tremendously.

There's already a thread on the Steam community page calling for Anita Saarkasian DLC. As if you needed further proof these are awful people.

The most interesting thing to me about this is that this game actually looks well made. The art direction is nice and it looks high quality.

Coming at this from a different angle, I wonder if you could mod this game into Robotron or a WW2 game by moding the enemy character models and not touching the mechanics at all. Or maybe having almost all of the enemies have the AI of terrified civilians will ruin the experience even if the faces on those AI are different. I obviously think that most of the mods that people are proposing are vile and reprehensible, but the WWE article in this weeks Worth Reading on playing as Chris Benoit made me think about how using a mod tool in a officially unsanctioned way can inspire introspection even if it seems objectionable on the surface. Of course the person writing that article went in thoughtfully and introspectively, rather than looking for an outlet for his Chris Benoit fandom. It sure looks like most of the scary mods people are proposing contain none of the forethought or introspection that that piece required.

Both major arguments about the GTA comparison to this are wrong. GTA doesn't necessarily encourage you to kill civilians. You get a couple bucks, but then you also get a wanted level. However, to say that because of that reason alone makes this game different than GTA is false. Killing civilians is killing civilians. Maybe the intention is different in GTA, but it's the same thing. I don't go on murder sprees in GTA. I barely decided to do the missions with the torture for the same reasons. I don't boot it up and then go slaughtering people and cops until I die. That's not how I play.

So, to me, I think the idea of killing civilians regardless of the game is gross. Further, I think the idea of creating a game just to make people react is stupid and immature. I don't believe it is a smart idea to create, essentially, a simulator for mass shootings. Not when we already have kids who go shoot up random people because he couldn't get a girl to date him or because he was picked on. The argument that "oh well this will let them not have to do it in real life" is completely absurd. I'm not saying the game will cause it, but to say the game would prevent someone who wanted to go on a murder spree from doing it is an ignorant statement. Psychology research has already proven that while playing violent games, the brain treats the input as a stimulation for anger. Again, not saying games cause violence, but they certainly don't prevent it.

So, both sides of the GTA argument here are wrong, and the developers get to sit here and enjoy all the free press they want. Meanwhile, people who already have violent intentions are discussing modding the game to include an Anita Sark model an other mods that can get as close to real life as possible. This is one of the weirdest, most divisive things I've ever seen, all because some developer just wants to watch the internet burn.

@thelastgunslinger: Indeed, and now with Valve having screwed up by first pulling the game and then putting it back up on Greenlight, these imbeciles are backed by a heavy victim complex that fuels their "righteous" crusade. Sigh.

You've crystallized what I'm thinking to a tee. Encouraging suburban teenage chan nihilists to be even bigger assholes is never a good thing.

@brodehouse: I guess my point is that even if steam didn't allow the game back on greenlight the developer would still be able to sell their game. Would not being on steam adversely affect the amount they end up selling? Obviously, but that is a consequence of making an actively controversial game. If you as a consumer don't like that a store won't sell what you want then your choice is to not give that store money.

To be clear I pretty much agree with what Jeff said on the podcast. I have no problem with the game existing but I also don't think valve is under any obligation to sell it. Since Valve apparently changed its mind, it is a non issue.

Also I don't know if it's just me but making your super controversial game a dual joystick shooter is kind of funny.

If the game has a bunch of cutscenes with the same 2edgy4me writing in the trailer it might be worth watching an LP or something.

Can you back this statement up with consistent research studies? And i'm not talking about those done on competitive games (you'll see the same in every competitive activity, being sports or else).

That's a whole lot of projection (and insults) there, no facts

get over yourself. Its a phase. I'm sure you have 0 things to be embarrassed about about when you were a teenager

@cagliostro88: Typically, when someone on the internet says "Can you back that up with studies?", it actually means "I don't believe you and want to show that your point is wrong not by logical but by making you produce large amounts of data". However, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you aren't doing that.

There's a 13 year old study from Iowa State University that links heightened aggression with violent games. From the 90s and pre-9/11 era, there was a lot of "research" done in this area that showed violent video games CAUSE violence. This study shows an increase in aggressive emotion, not behavior. While most other studies from that period have been disproven, the research on heightened aggression during violent game playing has long since been retested and further proven to be consistent. In fact, often violent games are used in clinical settings to determine if the person playing has a neurotransmission issue.

I have read the same research results a good 4-5 times since then, but I haven't been taking notes on the issue. I have a colleague in psych research. I'll ask him what some of the more recent studies are, but most of the research is proving the original ISU study, which is the most widely cited. Feel free to Google for yourself, if you'd like. Just know that a lot of the research claiming a causal link has been disproven.

@mbradley1992: i asked you because i've read very different results, as illustrated in this 2011 article. I'm actually curious because still i haven't found conclusive proof in one sense or another, and get very suspicious as soon as people talk about research :)

More on the point of the study you linked, does the research shows that the aggression is retained even after being done with playing, or is it just felt in the moment?

@cagliostro88: Your question hits exactly what I was about to tell you. Your posted article has two critical errors, 1) It is from TIME. Any media outlet that takes a research publication as a source needs to be vetted. Meaning, it's more reliable to go read the actual research paper that the journalist cites to avoid any "interpretation" issues. And 2) the study in that article is showing something very, very different. The ISU study shows an increase in aggressive emotion, meaning the person is aggressive during the gameplay. The study TIME references is showing that games don't CAUSE violent behavior, meaning there's no causal link, which I said above in the last sentence. My whole point about this game is not that games have a causal link on violence, as that's long been proven false. It's that games still cause aggressive emotions and cognition during the gameplay itself, which certainly doesn't prevent in-world violent behavior. So, the answer to your question is "felt in the moment".

I do want to point out, however, that the ISU study is not as well put together as I would like to see. However, there are many more studies since then that support aggressive emotional and cognitive responses to games. But I work with educational psychology, not emotion/personality. So I do not have a treasure chest built up with all these studies at my fingertips.

Not directed at you, but people who get mad about the violent video game debate tend to confuse the two. There's a huge difference between aggressive emotion and cognition (proven) and real life aggression (disproven). And my point was on the former, not the latter.

I chose the time article specifically because it's written by a associate professor and department chair of psychology in an american university, and published author. I thought he a thrustworthy person who would actually know what he talks about, instead of a "normal" journalist.

I thank you for answering my question and clarifying the issue for me :) always nice to learn more

@cagliostro88: No problem. I'd just worry about TIME wanting certain views and wanting their articles to read a certain way, if that makes sense. That said, that guy was talking about something different, so it could very well be reputable. Like I said, my work doesn't put me in direct exposure to this area. I know others who do, so I get exposure that way.

Of course I said and did some stupid stuff as a teen. But this is a different time where anonymity has added a layer of meanness and cruelty to usual teenage hijinks. Hatred da Game only fuels that attitude, and makes it even easier than it already is for people to be mean, stupid and angry and project those feelings upon those they consider worthy of scorn.

Yes they can still sell their game themselves and yes, being marginalized will adversely affect their sales.

I remember when Will & Grace featuring men kissing on camera was this big moral issue. It was very controversial in its time, and there were many people who thought it shouldn't be on national television. Would the fact that men could kiss on Bravo or Showtime justify NBC shying away from depicting men kissing on their network? Should it be accepted as a consequence of being actively controversial? Does that in some way privilege traditional or normative art over controversial or subversive art? Is consumers who want men to kiss on camera having the choice to watch Bravo an acceptable solution? At what point would it be acceptable for men on NBC to kiss on camera? Would it ever?

Not related to you, I'll say elsewhere in this thread, that I find people who would present themselves as the arbiters of empathy and the real moral authorities of the 21st century also have this habit of using extremely specific demographic details when inventing abstract Goldsteins to dislike and harbor resentment for. I would suggest this type of behavior only engenders consensus among those who already resent specific demographic groups, and politically motivates others via resentment rather than through empathy for anyone else.

@stryker1121 said:

@brodehouse: Being gay and killing civilians in a "genocide crusade" aren't even close to being the same thing. And yes, people fighting against bigotry will make bigots angry, but that's not a reason to stop.

Yeah that doesn't make any difference at all. You're still slaughtering innocent people.

@sergio: yeah, Tarantino's version of grindhouse is a lot less subtle but if you put those old grindhouse movies into a modern context, I still don't think they're really comparable to this game. This seems like Texas Chainsaw Massacre but if Leatherface was the good guy and if you took away any kind of subtlety. Grindhouse movies never really reveled in the killing of innocents. In fact, most of them were revenge movies that did exactly the opposite.

Keep in mind that in neither case are we discussing the merits, legality or ethics of being gay or killing civilians in a "genocide crusade", we're discussing whether or not art that depicts or presents these ideasshould or should not be marginalized. Please do not move the goalposts.

Let them release their dumb fucking game, decry it, and move on.

Christ, there wasn't anywhere near the outcry over that japanese rape simulator

@brodehouse said:

Sorry for butting in, but I'm curious — at what point do you think Hatred should be marginalised? The developers drew the line at killing children and animals (which seems like a bizarre exclusion; maybe one of the designers really loves his dog or something); if they hadn't, would it then be appropriate for Valve to reject it? What if they allowed you to sexual assault and terrorise characters that resemble well-known games critics, as some people on Greenlight are gleefully requesting?

wouldn't subversive art be in a sense be 'unprivileged' by definition? is the art truly subversive if it doesn't clash against a normative force?

personally, i don't believe works such as these should necessarily be marginalized. this is an expression of feeling like anything else. but let's be real- if you decide to make a game that implicitly deals with committing atrocities, don't expect society to be open-minded about it. that's not how it works, for better or worse.

@stryker1121: idk man. This doesnt seem any dif than when i was 15 and thought i was edgy for listening to Marilyn manson

I guess that developer who threatened Newell on Twitter is kicking himself now. All he had to do is release a game about it instead, really if he changed the names enough could they really take it down without looking like total hypocrites.

@brodehouse: I don't think it being justified or not is relevant. If a store doesnt want to sell something that is their decision. Even if their reason for not selling it is fucked up in every way imaginable. If you find their reason for not selling it detestable, then stop using the store. You're not entitled to getting your product in a specific store and likewise are not entitled to having your product be a commercial success.

More specifically to your example, it is acceptable for men on NBC to kiss on camera when NBC decides it is. That is different than NBC deciding that it is unacceptable for men to kiss on camera on any channel. Most shows on HBO would not be shown on network or basic cable tv. That is why HBO makes money even though it is much smaller than NBC for example. NBC would never show Game of Thrones in the same way HBO does, does that justify NBC not broadcasting Game Of Thrones? It doesn't matter because Game of Thrones doesn't have the inalienable right to be on any television channel. Except maybe public access.

*touches own nose*

personally, i don't believe works such as these should necessarily be marginalized. this is an expression of feeling like anything else. but let's be real- if you decide to make a game that implicitly deals with committing atrocities, don't expect society to be open-minded about it. that's not how it works, for better or worse.

Agreed. I wouldn't expect society to fall over itself in love with Hatred. I also wouldn't expect to have to cough and murmur to get Gabe Newell to reach under the counter to sell me a copy. The fact that I can go to HMV and pick up a Cannibal Corpse or a Skrewdriver album and that's completely okay speaks more to a generational thing. The Boomers understand that rock music is art and doesn't have to be friendly or positive or even reasonable, but they don't quite get that for video games.

At what point do you think Hatred should be marginalized? Where is the line for you? Is your line relevant for others? Is it relevant for me? Is my line relevant for others? Is it it relevant for you? Like I said, I prefer to probe rather than to judge because my judgements shouldn't be very important to anyone other than me.

Do you believe that Hatred requires special leverage applied to it to make sure that most people are never aware of it? If the game is available on Steam and some like it and some don't and most continue to not be aware of it, is this a fail state compared to it not being available on Steam and resulting in the same scenario? Do you feel that all that is stopping this game from directly causing real world mayhem is consumer accessibility? If not, why boycott -- if so, how?

More or less, my problem is not with Steam not carrying a game, they don't carry a lot of games... my problem is with the supposed justifications. It is the same rhetoric as the moralizing demagogues I grew up with, who want to prevent people from considering information, opinions or art because they believe it might result in those people not believing or doing the things they want those people to believe or do. I will make a judgement and say that I think that behavior sucks. I think that behavior belongs to social engineers who have more desire to control others than they have moral integrity. I used to think it was a behavior that belonged solely to conservatives but time has made fools of us all. But that's not relevant for anyone else, and why I don't like to judge.

I think I said this elsewhere, but people who are only willing to defend freedom of speech up to the current (and constantly shifting) legal limit are only revealing their preference for the status quo.

The developers drew the line at killing children and animals (which seems like a bizarre exclusion; maybe one of the designers really loves his dog or something);

That is bizarre.

Fuck me if you're not totally right; i've come to understand the same thing, about myself too, only in the recent years. I guess this realization it's part of growing up?

I don't think the game looks very good, honestly. I mean, I don't really have an issue with the idea of a game where you just run around and murder indiscriminately; people have been making stuff like that in the form of bad online Flash games for years and it was never a huge controversy. This isn't either, honestly, it's just that people seem to want it to be in certain corners of the Internet. It does look like the sort of game they'd have on an episode of CSI or something to show that some gamer kid was into violent video games and is clearly messed up, and honestly that's kinda hilarious if that was what they were going for; I don't think it is, but I'm gonna laugh about it regardless.

If this thing had some kinda story that seemed interesting- or even if it had no story at all, it'd probably be better than whatever they seem to have going on in that trailer. It sounds almost like some bullshit I would have written back in high-school when I had a drunk abusive stepdad and hated the rest of the world for not solving my problems for me. It's one of those things I cringe about because man, I remember being young and angry and upset and drawing bloody murder stuff in the pages of my notebooks. Even back then I probably wouldn't have made anything this heavy-handed, but still.

I mean, sure, maybe the vast majority of people who would want it are edgy teenagers or dumb kids who wanna play something grim and shocking, but is that really so wrong? I mean, they're video games. What's the problem with having some stuff like this for that crowd? There are plenty of other games that keep most of the rest of the population happy and distracted, so what's so upsetting about this? I mean, it's not particularly shocking. They don't even have you killing kids! One of the most popular mods for Skyrim lets you decapitate kids, and even without it you could still kill dogs in that.

This whole thing feels to me like people are looking at this and wondering why games haven't grown up out of this phase or whatever. Issue being, of course, that... well, kids are still being born, and growing up. Some of the toddlers of yesteryear are gonna be confused teens before long, and who are we to deny them whatever guilty pleasures people wanna cook up in a virtual format? People are probably going to make some pretty messed up stuff, sure, but probably not that much more messed up than they already do. Hatred's not that unusual, or that vile, or that bad, unless you just haven't been paying attention to the things people have already made.

@asrahn: The way you start going into weird detail about exactly the kinds of people you think are slobbering over a chance to virtually shoot people they disagree with is disturbing to me on a fundamental level. You don't actually know these things, you're just making them up because they're things you dislike and want to build a mental image of someone to despise. It's weird. Please stop.

Perhaps I've misinterpreted your meaning, but this seems like an odd thing to say. If you don't think others should value your judgements, why share them at all? And how can you understand or challenge other people's judgements without valuing them to begin with? Besides, when it comes to commercial products like Hatred, I think it's obvious that moral judgements matter a great deal, at least in the aggregate. Capitalism is just as effective at suppressing "subversive art" as so-called moralising, so the public's collective sense of taste will always play a role in what does and doesn't reach a particular audience.

I mentioned this earlier, but I don't particular care one way or the other if Hatred makes it onto Steam. My only issue is with people treating the game as a cause célèbre and Steam as the last bulwark against the encroaching feminazi horde. It's like working yourself into a frothing rage because your local Multiplex refuses to show the latest in Uwe Boll's series of deliberately controversial skid marks.

I know there's some ambiguity over this, but the only thing that really concerns me is the developer's apparent ties to white nationalism. If that ideology is reflected in the game, then I think Steam does have an obligation to scrutinize it, but we can't really have that conversation until the game is in a playable state.

@milkman: I think our difference of opinion is because you are seeing the old grindhouse type of movies in a modern context. If I did that as a consumer now, I would agree that those old films were ridiculous, and people might enjoy them now for reasons that the original filmmakers might not have been going for. But I'm looking at them from the context of when they were made and how exploitative they were. In this context, I think they are comparable.

I'm against the ridiculous and often hateful way many have shown support for it, and the way many have acted like a game is entitled to be on Steam or any other store is concerning.

If Steam wanted to sell it on their store, that's fine. The game can stand on its own merits if Steam wants to do that. But they are under no obligation to publish any game. Not just -host- a game for sale, but actually publish one. That's what Greenlight is; a publishing platform for a store.

As an artist, I think this game has a right to be made and exist, but I will be openly critical of it and the hatefulness around it if I want to do so. You can say it looks like the bee's knees, and I can say it looks like nonsense made by some questionable devs. That's okay; that's our opinions on a dumb videogame. I still doubt that Steam will carry it, because they have a policy against carrying AO games. But if they decided to allow such games, more power to them.

I'm not petitioning for Hatred to be removed from Steam like dicks did with Depression Quest. I'm defending Steam's right to decide to have their own standards for what they want to publish. That's it. I may be critical of the game, devs, and ridiculous people lifting it up as some symbol of their hatred, but if Steam decided they wanted to publish it, that's up to them. I'd just not buy it.

@sergio: I still think the goals of those original grindhouse directors and the goals of the creators of Hatred are different. It's true that the entire premise behind movies like I Spit On Your Grave were to be exploitative and shock people but to me, this game seems to have a more sinister purpose behind it. It seems to aimed at a very specific kind of person at a very specific time in this industry. I think the reaction to his game would probably been very different if it was even released a year or two ago. It sucks that everything that happens now in the games industry has to be examined through this lens now but it seems to be the way things are right now.

This whole thing seems like people reacting to a reaction of a reaction and the game itself is kind of just a side bar. The whole conversation is just annoying at this point because without all this ballyhoo on Twitter and what not, a probable shitty game in a sea of shitty games would have most likely just been forgotten about and we all would have moved on with our lives. I can't help but feel every time I make another post about it, I'm just giving the developers what they wanted from the beginning.

The whole shenanigans with Steam seem to me to have been a genuine mistake. My guess is someone on the top of the food chain wanted to avoid offending anyone and receiving backlash for it, then the top of the top of the food chain meaning Gabe himself came to the conclusion that removing a game for the reason of it being offensive is a really bad business model. Maybe he even has some incredibly strong free speech values. I'm leaning towards more of the former though.

My guess is: this game is not actually gonna be that successful. It's gonna be the type of game that is widely known and talked about in gaming circles but not really that popular among actual customers (like, say, gone home). Because, let's face it: from a gameplay perspective this game looks mediocre at best. Wow, a dual joystick shooter with guns. You mean the kind of game that was being thrown in for free with your PS+ subscription in 2008? Yeah, that's totally relevant.

And the whole teen angst part is not nearly good enough to merit a purchase. If you are really into extreme unapologetic gore in a video game you've probably already modded GTA IV to run over naked women and have sex with dead babies a few years ago when that came out. If you really want to murder and rape Anita in a video game you've probably already modded RapeLay and added the textures of her face to the victims.

You might argue that bad publicity is still publicity, but the fact remains that this game is, as far as I'm concerned, still talked about solely in gaming enthusiast circles. On top of that it has a universally negative response. I doubt that's gonna translate well into sales.

Everyone is getting all bent out of shape. We're bending ourselves out of shape. Relax.

@milkman: I'm not conflating idiots asking to be able to kill certain people in the game with the developer's intentions behind the game. Unless someone can point to something that explicitly says that their intention is something else, what we have to go with is the PR and marketing they've done for the game. I'm sure some will argue that some of their employee's supposed beliefs is an indication of their intention, but I'm not going to buy that at face value.

@sergio: I was more talking about stuff like this. This was the statement they released on their site when they first revealed the game:

The question you may ask is: why do they do this? These days, when a lot of games are heading to be polite, colorful, politically correct and trying to be some kind of higher art, rather than just an entertainment – we wanted to create something against trends. Something different, something that could give the player a pure, gaming pleasure. Herecomes our game, which takes no prisoners and makes no excuses. We say ‘yes, it is a game about killing people’ and the only reason of the antagonist doing that sick stuff is his deep-rooted hatred.

I'm not sure about all the neo-nazi stuff just because I haven't really done any research into it. But that statement rubs me the wrong way, for sure. The whole thing makes my skin crawl. But I guess I'm the kind "politically correct" or "polite" (I guess that's bad) person they're trying to piss off. So, whatever, if people want this, let them have it. I feel like I've thought about this game enough for a couple of lifetimes.

Wasn't the whole Neo-Nazi rumor debunked months ago? In fact, I may have discussed it in this very thread. The Facebook like was a mistake which was retracted, and the shirt was a Polish resistance group from WWII - a group that was actively fighting the Nazis.

Well I guess the game got the attention it wanted.