Hatred on greenlight!... and then pulled by Valve

Super surprised and shocked here. I didn't expect people to buy into Hatred. The monologues that main character gives... it's cheesier than the 'gore' from Dead Alive: Braindead, and yet it got voted in with 93% of votes for and 7% against! As if that wasn't shocking enough, Valve also bought into the fakeness of the game, and removed it for being overly controversial and violent.

Sure... that totally believable character and that wonky cinematic 3rd person camera is sooo controversial... not even remotely as graphic as the plethora of games where you commit genocide in first person view with a more realistic character. I'm convinced that maker of that game just successfully trolled Valve, big time.

Discuss.

--edit

Gabe Newell did not find the criteria internally stated for the removal of Hatred justified, and thus restored its position on greenlight. You may now also reference this event in discussing the reception of Hatred, and how Gabe Newell is seeing through the cheese.

 

Their platform, their choice.

Make a controversial game, get controversial response.

 

Are you familiar with TotalBiscuit? He made a video response to this today, listing the following games that are available on steam right now that allow, require or reward you for killing innocent people in violent ways.

Postal 1&2
ManHunt
GTA 1-5
Far Cry 2-4
Hitman (all of them, lol)
Assassin's Creed

Yea, their platform, their choice... but what was the criteria for removing the game? 93% of the votes were for it. It's senseless for them to stock these games and call this one out for violating any criteria they could pose as their answer for taking it down... It's a sad day for gaming.

 

I think the creation of Hatred itself was a sad day for gaming.
Stupid shock-art like that doesn't normally get so much publicity. It was made to be as #$%^ed up as possible just for the sake of being $#%^ed up.

 

Right? Whats more stupid is the mob that'll rise up against Valve for doing that and feel sorry for the whackos making the game. Totally going to be in their favor.

 

It's not an entirely new concept in games either. Like was mentioned in that TotalBiscuit video, there are AT LEAST several other games that are just as bad, and have been available on Steam for a long time.
I personally wouldn't put Assassin's Creed or probably even Hitman in that list, but Postal is pretty messed up, and I've heard some things about Manhunt.
As far as I know though, they just never got this level of attention. I at least had never heard much about them before.
The whole thing should've just been swept under the rug as the work of some harmless fringe lunatics.
Throwing it out onto the forefront for the whole world to see on a regular basis was the last thing that should've happened. It's too much of a ridiculous piece of crap to deserve so much media attention boosting it.

 

Exactly. That's why I was surprised by the greenlight stats, and then more shocked by Valve's decision lol. It's such a blatant attention grab I feel like child beauty pageants have more of a right to exist...

Precisely. It's bad enough it was in greenlight, but Valve's decisions are now going to give it immense popularity and exposure, even though it's pretty much garbage. It already had 93% yes votes, and now people are going to feel bad for the creators lol.

Same, I never heard of it until I first saw it appear on the Unity forums with people asking if it was too violent or whatever. Violence in games isn't a controversial issue, because games are art (so expressions are free and unlimited) and games do not affect the real world in any way.

Before this topic gets too big and the point gets lost - I don't support the game, I just think it has the same right to exist as the other games listed for their allowed and rewarded violence against random people. Let's just all agree to dislike it because it's poorly made and composed, not because it's controversial.

 

The problem now is Valve has set a precedent for curation based on politics. Valve is perfectly fine with someone selling a completely broken piece of S*** on the store (because they don't give a S*** about quality control), but if you dare do something they don't like, it'll be dropped faster than you can blink.

 

No one could really say with certainty that the game got greenlit because of all the publicity surrounding it.
As stupid as the game itself is, it does look well made, at least graphically.
Complete garbage games get greenlit all - the - time. Far worse ones than Hatred. No one knows how well Hatred actually plays, but assuming it isn't a total train wreck I could easily place games like Bad Rats and Ride to Hell (a game which was actually able to bypass greenlighting all together) as greater affronts to the Steam market.

It's gotten so bad, it's not even merely an issue anymore of crappy games getting greenlit.
There's been a recent surge of douchy hipsters releasing DELIBERATELY crappy games just to be ironic, and actually being successful.
Yet somehow it was more important for Valve to crackdown on this. Because of politics.

 

I can see from the trailer that the camera following the player does so like the cinematic view from GTA when driving. It's like one of those camera turtles from the super mario universe got a bit drunk before showing up to work lol

Maybe unity paid for it to be taken down, since it was made with unreal

But this is a serious issue. It's not even that it's something that they don't like... they were definitely pressured to have it taken down. Look at the things you can do to people in GTA V, but it's not going anywhere. Look at the high profile kills you can do to innocent people in assassin's creed. Heck, in farcry 4 you can throw a piece of raw meat at an innocent old lady and then watch a tiger or something come by and tear her apart. Valve's reason to take this down, if one ever surfaces, is going to be very disappointing :/

 

Let's not? Disliking something because it is controversial versus because it is grossly inappropriate are different things.

Hopefully the fact that the entire game is centered on mass murdering of innocent people is a breaking point even for people with low morals.

 

Do you find this more inappropriate than the level in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 where you play as a Russian terrorist in a small gang and walk through an airport with your objective being to cause terror and kill as many people as possible with your LMG? You weren't even allowed to run, you were forced to walk alongside your comrades as they mowed down practically everyone in sight. How is that more objectionable than playing as a *spontaneous mass murderer?

If morals were a physical substance rather than a mental construct, this game wouldn't even exist. But they aren't, so it does Morals are relative. It's even up to us as individuals to adopt a conscience while growing up. If you consider this game a breaking point for people on the lower spectrum of morality, you must not have ever heard of postal. In that game, you can throw gasoline on people, burn them alive, and then pee on their corpses. That's a bit more psychotic than Hatred can ever hope to be.

*spontaneous mass murderer - you're playing as some no-name loser with bad hair and social issues leading to a sudden desire and actuation of that desire to go on a rampage. In that call of duty level, you're part of a more believable group with a more believable and real motive and you know it was premeditated because of the preparations involved to smuggle machine guns into an airport on what was very clearly a busy day with a lot of civilians.

 

Looks like some people will have to adjust to a world where the lowest common denominator doesn't win.

 

You can skip the level in COD:MW2, rest of the game you're a good guy. Plus it's mostly a MP game.
You can complete Postal1/2 without killing innocents, it's focus is stupid humor.
The rest of the games mentioned, killing innocents is optional for realism.
Hatred's whole focus is killing innocents, that's crossing the line.

 

I wish it didn't, but this is unrelated. This is more like a product getting attention it doesn't deserve because the media shined a bright light on it in an attempt to censor it. It's also raising questions that don't need to be answered about games being art and on what criteria will major distributors censor art. According to @MurDocINC, that criteria is a very subjective duration and intent.

What separates Hatred from Postal? Killing civilians isn't the main focus.
What separates the COD level from Hatred? It's only that one level in which your goal is to kill civilians.

When you have subjective standards like these as your answer, it only raises more questions. If Infinity Ward published that level as standalone dlc where the entire game is that one level, would it be removed from Steam? If Postal had a level where you couldn't progress without killing a few innocent people, would it be removed from Steam? If Hatred added more content that wasn't related to killing at all, would it be allowed on Steam? The lines are unclear, and at the end of all of this, Hatred will sell better than ever because of all of the media attention. It's a crap game, it should die because it's crap, not because the content is disliked by some people.

Hatred has the same gameplay to any game in which you play as the antagonist / villain. Would stubbs the zombie make it on steam? Your prey in that game is primarily innocent people... who you kill by eating them. That's like Hatred if it featured cannibalism!

 

You keep repeating this. Have you played the game in order to make that judgement? If not, why keep repeating it? Your opinion about what's right and wrong doesn't make a game crap. Lousy game-play, bad story, bugs, etc. make a game crap.

You dislike the game's content and you want it to die.

 

Isn't that exactly what you're doing, right now?

I had no idea that this thing even existed except for the fact that you made a thread here to tell us all how bad it is and that it shouldn't be getting any attention, and that people giving it attention shouldn't.

 

Where in CoD is your goal to kill civilians? I remember that mission that made the news where you're undercover with an organization who's killing civilians, but your stated goal there is to "maintain cover". It's deliberately a tough decision, it's deliberately confronting, it's set up such that you feel bad about the idea of killing civilians, and whether or not you decide to kill civilians makes zero difference to the outcome.

You're a good guy in No Russian, too. The undercover operative who was passing intel about the upcoming terrorist attack? It's that guy. I can understand the media beating it up with misinformation, I thought that fellow developers would at least check it out for themselves...

 

Violence is violence. There are no tiers of acceptability to it. The instant you justify and condone one form violence is the moment you lose any moral high ground to say another form of violence is bad.

If this was skinned with zombies, would anyone care? F*** NO! There are games like that which are more violent that come out every other week, and no one gives a S***. You're trying to eat an entire cake, but complaining that the cherry is what's going to make you fat.

 

Hmm, so someone who defends themselves (lets say it's even non-lethal and even non-injurious for the sake of argument) from direct and severe harm is the same as someone who commits genocide? The real world isn't black and white like that.

 

With all that publicity, this game will be massive hit!

 

It should never be seen as something good. I can find you Iraq war vets with pretty F***ed up stories that were all justified under the idea that it was necessary to stay alive. Chances are I could find more stories than your stomach could take. As much as I paint it black and white, I do so because I understand how easy it is to turn a just cause into a crusade.

 

I'm saying that mechanically, from the gameplay shown thus far in trailers and trailer breakdowns, the gameplay doesn't stand a chance because of the wonky camera that goes back and forth between GTA V cinematic and close up cutscenes for high profile executions. There isn't much to be said about the character's control scheme, it's been done since robotron64. As for the story... let's just hope the trailer isn't any indication lol. Being a sandbox game would save it, honestly.

I dislike the game's fake edgy-ish-ness and want it to live so the reviews can kill it. Seeing expression get selectively smothered like this is pathetic on Valve's part.

Two things. First, this isn't the first thread about hatred in this forum. Second, if google Steam, you can see this same information all over the front page. Until this morning, the last I knew about hatred was that it was coming out soon. Then I googled steam to check out any steam related news (because I like to think I'll live to see the steam controller be made commercially available), and the top headline under store.steampowered.com was the article on hatred. I also found a video link to TotalBiscuit's reflection on this, and it is weird to see Steam drawing lines like this without letting anyone know of any removal criteria beyond the implicit "we don't like this", despite the 93% yes vote on greenlight.

I'm a little confused by the logic I'm seeing here. Why are you condoning zombie violence? Surely that is a tier of Living vs Undead Also confused about why people keep mentioning morals here when the subject is digital art & expression, and Valve's decision to take Hatred down but leave far cry and GTA V up.

It's going to be the big hit it should have never been, thanks to Steam, the most popular game distribution giant, making the decision to take it down. It should have just gone up and flopped as it would have anyway. I have a feeling people would have not bought it just because of the content, but still the content is no reason to censor the expression.

@RockoDyne I would try to remind you and all other posters here to remain objective in this discussion. Morals are not a factor of art and expression.

 

If you wanted to put attention on the fact that a game was pulled despite a high interest rating, why not lead with that? The title could have been "Valve pulls Greenlight game with 93% approval reason, no justification given", for instance. But instead the thread is Hatred this, Hatred that, and the stuff about Valve pulling it despite its interest rating always comes second. You're leading with the name of a game that you're also saying should be given attention.

 

Art isn't what the artist creates, but what the audience perceives. As such it will always be filtered through every cultural lens that defines the partaker. The fact that most people are going to have a knee-jerk reaction to this and say it's too much is a part of that. Few, if any, of these people will be aware of the irony that they have already been acclimatized to far more graphic violence, just taken through an acceptable lens.

 

I said in the original thread that i hoped valve didnt yank it. The problem is steam is a virtual monopoly for pc games.

How long until valve starts pulling GTA5 and the like. What if the SJW start campaigning to pull other games (they already removed GTA5 from target), this is going to set a terrible precedent where even indies will start playing it "safe" (I dont want indies to just be art house games).

 

Mass murder mass murder games. Make them unprofitable. Trash them and give them no venue. Spill their financial blood down the sewer. Stomp their public face into oblivion. Let torture and murder porn devs suffer the consequences and have to go flip hamburgers for a living. I could give a damn what all the torture porn cheerleading queens and cheerleaders have to say with their vaccuously conceived argumentum about free speech and all that they hide their lack of ethics, morality and humanity behind. Your arguments leave me unmoved. Bravo to Valve and Steam for starting what I hope to be a future trend. Let the yaya clowns who voted for it go work out their issues with their mommies and daddies instead of though a simulation that is degrading and unworthy of the ennui and creativity real humans are capable of.. Killing games profit only the oligarchy and warmongers and societal destablizers, providing them with a stream of brainwashed and desensitized killers which can be called to their service against humanity to swell their bank account with booty.You want free speech? Now it is my turn. Eat it.

 

I don't consider myself more recognizable or popular than Valve and or Steam, so I'm not concerned about giving Hatred the following it's going to end up with. I'm an insignificant part of the upcoming exercise of the Streisand effect, haha. Maybe the title and initial post could have been worded better, the focus is definitely the fact that Steam pulled the game without giving a reason, and the likely criteria being made up as we speak will probably apply to other games (even if only manhunt at this point).

Hopefully they don't set the tone for everyone and Hatred has other means of distribution. Successful or not, that should be decided by the target audience, not a single person. The SJW part made me laugh xD No doubt they're already trying to have GTA V taken down for misogyny and blah blah blah. Even if they're right, it's up to them to not buy it & hurt the market, not hype it up even more and give it the additional exposure...

Okay... then let the audience perceive it. What we're dealing with here is Doug Lombardi and friend's personal preferences. I'm sure this game would also normally not sell much because the majority will dislike the content, but the game at least deserves that chance.

@ippdev your free speech is welcomed and protected. Why not let everyone have a shot at that and let the evolution of society drag this filth off the market instead of allowing repression to cause a surge of it? I don't even plan on buying Hatred myself, because the camera controls look wonky as hell and the content seems rather limited. Even the arm movements in the opening monologue let you see that the top of the top in animations the game has to offer are still wonky. Not to mention the head-shotgun-splat in the cutscene left behind no bone fragments... realism? I think not.

I also saw no baby strollers, pregnant women or young children... I think this dev is an edgy wannabe coward! He missed an easy opportunity to be the most graphic game of all time, but he wussed out. This game is as graphic as Dead Alive: Braindead. Over the top, cheesy, lacking in actually controversial subject matter. I rate 3/10 for shock value, 0/10 for user perspective (crappy camera) and 5/10 for gameplay (limited, lacking, but nostalgic!).

That's how you be objective

--edit

Oops, my mistake. This game is less graphic than DeadAlive: Braindead because that movie featured undead babies (implicit baby death in the womb), zombie sex (with a zombie priest, no less!), and the baby zombies killing their mother by bursting out through their mothers faces! People stomach it because of the amusing effects and visuals of the time period, but the content is considerably more graphic than Hatred is, even if it includes a few Hospital & Day Care dlc packs.

 

I, for one, welcome our new oligarchical, warmongering, destabilizing overlords.

 

Is that what you think will happen to something with a 97% approval rating?

 

Me too, Kent, me too.

 

That's a good point that I already made. An overwhelming majority want to at least see the the game on Steam. Valve has decided it knows better than >90% of people who voted for Hatred. What criteria was used to justify this, and how doesn't it apply to manhunt and other violent games on steam? We're waiting, Valve.

As for what you're quoting there, that's just how I respond to ippdev The assertion was made that mass murder games are filth. My response you quoted there is based on that assertion. I went along with it's "bad", so people should see for themselves. But as you noted, it has a high approval rating. Maybe it's not so bad if so many people want it, and it can't hurt anyone because it's entirely a digital product.

Either way, the consumer should decide. If you want to control what others do, you're going to have a really hard time dealing with the changes coming with the next few generations and what's being legalized Not that I plan to take part, but it's nice that other people are finally allowed to do certain things without being judged / arrested for non-violent actions. Video games makes you about as much a mass murderer as kite runner makes you a rapist.

Why shouldn't we? Every red neck in 'Murica can't stand up to tanks and drones. We lose, just let our new warlords take over and agitate our surrounding countries so they can nuke us and the world can start anew. :3

 

@Tomnnn, I have to admit, and sorry if this comes across in the wrong way, but I'm having a really hard time making heads or tails of your posts. My head hurts in trying. I can't tell what your actual position on this game is, to be honest. Your first post seemed fairly reasonable, so I "liked" it, but the further the thread goes, the more confused I get.

 

No, they've decided they don't want it on their service. You're projecting and/or assuming about their justification, there.

Nor can I. One post is on about how the media is giving a bad game attention, another is saying that Valve should sell it whether or not they like it. It's success or failure should be up to market conditions, but the media (who are a part of that market) shouldn't be involved. I don't get it either.

 

This, along with a bunch of other things you've said, seems to be coming from the entitled point of view that Valve are, by default, obligated to publish everything that anyone makes. What ever happened to their right to decide what they do and don't want to sell and distribute?

You keep saying the consumer should decide, but why does a consumer's right in this case trump the right of the provider?

Furthermore, Steam aren't "smothering" anything. They aren't stopping anyone else from carrying the game. It's not their responsibility to help other people's games become a success (or not). It's their responsibility to sell and distribute games they enter a mutually beneficial and mutually volountary sales agreement on. No more, no less.

Out of interest, what do you think of the recent news of Target in Australia deciding to no longer distribute GTA V? Are they obligated to carry a game that doesn't (or no longer) suits their positioning, or are you supportive of their decision? Is that any different to your views of Valve and, if so, why?

 

Sorry, I'll clarify this now then. The game itself? I think from a technical / mechanical viewpoint that the game looks like it plays poorly. Hopefully when it gets out and is reviewed, they didn't actually go with robotron64 controls & GTA 3 cinematic camera... As for the content, I can see a lot of effort in trying to be edgy. The antagonist looks homeless, yet owns a home and had the funds to obtain all of those weapons. His monologue / opening speech is so over the top and unbelievable that it actually made me giggle. I couldn't take it any less seriously if it ended with "Look out America, here comes 9/11 times a thousand!"

There isn't a lot of story to judge right now, but the direction is pretty clear. Even if it's a mass murder sandbox, that gameplay is going to get stale quick. Robotron64 will have more longevity than Hatred.

My concern is their sudden intervention with greenlight and the 14:1 vote for this game to be on it. 14,000 people showed interest in having Hatred available on steam. I acknowledge Valve's right to not stock some products, but greenlight is supposed to be about the consumers advocating for the products they want to see. Or so we thought.

Valve is projecting their views onto the consumers by turning away a product that was greenlit with >90% approval. I acknowledge their right to arbitrarily take things off Steam if they don't like them since they own it, it's just funny to see bs like this happen, honestly. It reminds me of that breast cancer foundation that turned down a huge donation because it came from pornhub, lol. I know that's getting off topic, but it's a little tiring for people to project their views into their business when it gets in the way of said business. Steam is a software distributor, not a church. Rated M is 17+, right? Why is AO an issue then at 18!? Because people, that's why.

Hmm... the most I can say concerning GTA V in australia and Hatred being banned or endorsed from Steam is that I really don't care either way. I stand by Bill Maher and say that people are stupid. This wouldn't be an issue if people weren't as stupid as they are. I'm not afraid to say this, and I'm already half way through the process of working in the field of education

"I don't like that 1 single product Target is stocking in the back shelf, so I'm not going to give them my business, mehhh."

It astounds me that people actually live like this. It has nothing to do with the actual business nor the product the person was considering shopping at Target for, yet it's driving them away! Can't wait to be a professor in 3 years and start fixing this trending mindset mess.

This post isn't going to get any clearer / more amusing than the stuff I italicized in quotation marks. It sums up my frustrations and firm belief that if people weren't that kind of dumb, then this topic wouldn't even exist. How many games are on Steam? Would this 1 title really bring them down, even with SJWs on their doorstep?

 

So what, it's steams house. They're just unwelcome guests and life isn't far. Enjoy the alternatives.

I have absolutely zero criticism of steam, and no argument will sway my opinion. I think the internet is full of ill-bred stupid conceited people who find flaw every company and every tiny thing. They just try to make everything else a problem so they might look better than the rats they are.

 

No, they aren't projecting anything onto anyone. They've made a decision based on what they think. They haven't said anything about why they took it down or whether or not people should play it. The only thing we know is that they have chosen not to sell it. Anything past that is conjecture and projection.

You seem to be strongly advocating the case that what they think doesn't matter, that they're obligated to sell it just because it exists.

No, that was never the issue. Domestic violence is something that people here in Australia are actively working against at the moment. With that potentially impacting the cultural context, Target (followed by at least one other) decided it was beneficial for them to stop selling the game after a petition was put together to raise awareness. Much like Valve, Target have said nothing about whether or not people should play the game and they are not attempting to censor it. They just weren't interested in selling it themselves any more.

 

@hippocoder

Steam is free to do as they see fit. It's true that other carriers may adopt the product. If they don't, the devs can fall back on uTorrent or MEGA.My apologies for the amount of speculation here, but I do hope a criteria eventually surfaces.

@angrypenguin it'll be interesting to see their reasoning and then apply the criteria to other games they will continue to sell.

As for Australia, I'm not sure I follow. Domestic violence has what to do with video games? I didn't know only Target stopped carrying it, when ever I see a headline like that online it's usually about Australia banning a game outright lol. Thanks for clarifying that it was only Target, but I still don't really understand their reasoning. They could have just as well stated GameStop is a more appropriate place for the sale of video games, and stopped stocking that stuff entirely.

Is there a line to cross? I think so, and that's digital vs reality. Fortunately, science. Digital anything doesn't transpire into real anything, ever. I've done papers on it myself and my research included other papers that actually suggest that video games reduce the occurrence of certain events in the real world, either by relieving stress or teaching people consequence. The consequence in Hatred is blatantly stated in the trailer. The lesson to be learned is that if you do anything this guy does, you're going to die, which he says himself while putting a few guns & grenades into some mysterious inside shirt pocket.

But when the subject is strictly digital, there are no lines. There may be subjective limitations that stop people from getting games like Hatred onto steam, but expression and art has no boundaries when the medium is digital.

Can your pet has a more gripping story and environment than Hatred does. Hatred sounds like it was written by an 11 year old making his own version of the manifesto of that lunatic that committed a shooting. Part of my interest in Hatred is that it's so poorly written, but people are eating it all up lol. I definitely blame that on stirring up my emotions and causing any inconsistencies you see between my posts.

 

So did you actually read the post?

 

...Meanwhile, with all of this hubbub about defending the "graphic" expression of a small dev company, I'm making a runescape clone that at the end, with polish, will be rated somewhere between PG12 and PG13 lol.

@angrypenguin yours just now or the original information about Australia, Target and GTA? I'm doing my best, really. Are you saying they don't want to contribute to the culture the game promotes by carrying it, especially now while Australia is fighting domestic violence? That's the best I can do reading that.

If that's the case, it's a weak effort for people like me who can see a Target and a GameStop literally right next to each other in a mall xD Maybe Australian malls are radically different (does Australia have malls? They have brothels!), but that gesture would be totally empty here. Maybe it works simply because it's Australia? I might have accidentally been racist there, somewhere. Is Australia even white? Or are you the color of your fine steak sauces? I jest.

"Goodness, we have to alter our path an extra several steps to enjoy some virtual domestic violence! Target is taking such a stand." -How Americans would react if that happened here

 

It was pulled? Awww... I was looking forward to not playing that game.

 

Exactly. Which is why digital porn has absolutely no physical effect on anyone. Or something.

 

My post, which explained the (potential) link to video games (ie: Target removing one from shelves) and mentioned that it wasn't just Target.

The point of bringing it up is that I think most reasonable people easily enough agree that Target are quite entitled to decide what they do or don't sell for their own reasons. I was wondering if you agreed, and why Steam might be any different.

You keep going on and on about how Valve are doing something wrong by not selling it, but in saying that you seem to be ignoring the fact that Valve have rights, too. Just as I have the right to choose not to buy the game, they have the right not to sell it.

 

Same. But I do wanna see some let's plays from TotalBiscuit, Markiplier, JonTron and AdamPlaze.

Haha, well the same can sarcastically be stated about porn "films". The bane & death of my childhood was overhearing kids in the cafeteria in high school talking about good films to watch for moves to try. So I'll concede that sex is a more unique case here, because it will more often than not cross into the physical world (south park even did an episode on this & murder porn literally becoming porn involving murder), even if it's something as minor as momentary arousal. I definitely mis-spoke there, I'd like to stick by my research & the continued existence of the human race that violence in mediums other than real life do not influence real life. I don't know how in the last few centuries this hasn't made a slippery slope style jump where violence and sex both influence real life, but I guess people are just that intelligent (also to revoke my previous statement stressing how stupid they are in general). Bravo, Ony.

You could have just asked I don't go off topic or dodge questioning if I'm wrong.

With Steam as their major distribution plan, and Steam as primarily a software distribution service and with overwhelming support from GreenLight, I feel like Steam dun goof'd and wronged the devs and the community who wanted to play Hatred. I don't think they're objectively wrong for taking any product off their shelves - but I may come back later and say it's objectively wrong if the standards they apply could also apply to say GTA5 or Manhunt (though to be fair, manhunt 2 didn't make the cut for similar reasons). Opinions are only objectively right or wrong when a standard is provided but that's getting onto another topic, again.

My original post has nothing to do with right or wrong. It was shock that people would buy into the cheese that is Hatred and try to get it on steam. There is also subsequent shock that steam would bother to remove the game, when other violent, broken and or incomplete games have been greenlit and still remain on steam. The discussion I had hoped would come from that would be discussion of how phony Hatred is and muse about games that are cheap attention grabs and not true expressions of the developer, not about Steam's right to remove content from their store. How did it even go to that? If it was me, then I derailed my own thread without even realizing it. Oops.

 

Well which is it? They either did something wrong or they didn't.

If they did, then what you're saying is that they're somehow morally obligated to publish anything and everything that exists.

 

That's why I underlined it. I don't intend to say they were objectively wrong, I intend to say the dev & community should feel wronged for the sudden pull. Plenty of people feel wronged and it's never clear if any wrong doing was actually done. That is probably how the Hatred developer and those 14,000 people feel right now, especially with no word yet from Valve on the criteria for the pull.

My personal feeling is that the criteria should come down to more than "because I said so". That's not really a clear rule or guideline for developers to follow. Also not sure how morals factor into this. Valve is a software distributor and publisher. Manhunt made it, manhunt 2 didn't make it, gta 5 made it, hatred didn't make it. There's clearly a believable violence threshold being used as a guideline... which leads to my confusion. What's believable about Hatred? I'm sorry for continually putting down the efforts of the writers, but it really is a ridiculously silly character.

"The neighbor's dog pooped on my lawn for the last time. I'm going to shove several grenades up his nose and shoot him in the face before the grenades explode. Then I'm going to feed him to his dog, and walk his dog on his own lawn until he poops out every last bit." -Hatred, bad neighbor DLC.

 

This is still a discussion? how boring. What are you hoping to achieve by not being involved and talking about it here?

Is there an agenda or do you merely find it a healthy dose of philosophy?

 

[QUOTE="Tomnnn, post: 1889196, member: 285669"
@ippdev your free speech is welcomed and protected. Why not let everyone have a shot at that and let the evolution of society drag this filth off the market instead of allowing repression to cause a surge of it? .[/QUOTE]

That is precisely what happened. Filth got no well distributed public marketplace. Maybe some other violence porn devs will take note that their efforts will amount to crap in a handbag.The marketplace also has conscientious consumers that will boycott and not spend their money with marketers that push products they disagree with. People are getting fed up with this crap and can see through the underlying motivations and not participating. All the better. Society currently sux hard. The visual arts of a society is both a clue and a glue to it's behaviour. George Lucas spoke to this and creators responsibility to society.There is no western civilization..just swivelisation... around the getting too be not so almighty dollar. Ghandi said it well. Western civilization? Great idea when it actually happens... to paraphrase him of course.. I turned down a 2300 dollar rap based endless runner based on it's content last night..and I am nearly broke with an electric bill due. I walk the talk and money does not sway me. Today the Universe gave me two jobs that will pay my bills that are decent pieces of creative work i would not be ashamed to have in my portfolio. Mind you I despise rap and the lack of talent. That lack of talent also applies to violence, gore and torture porn. I will not watch it nor participate in it's development, marketing or creation.