Removing Hatred is Dumb

A while ago a did a post about the game Hatred, which can be found here.  If you don't want to read it, then it basically says that while I didn't like the look of it, it didn't deserve to be banned or changed just because you are "offended" by it.

So the story is that Hatred was on Steam Greenlight and it had a bunch of thumbs up before Valve came along and pulled the plug.  They said they didn't want that shit on their store and it will not be made available on Steam.  Since then people have been getting all uppity about it and I wanted to address 3 things.

1)  It's not Censorship

This is a word that has been flying around my twitter and other places regarding the topic of the game being pulled and I can't help but feel some people have forgotten what the word censorship means.  Censorship is the SUPPRESSION of speech, public communication or what have you by people in authority.

Steam and Valve are not some major authority figure in gaming that decide what does and does not get released, they are a business.  That business has decided that a game like Hatred is not something they want in their store and have decided not to make it available as a result.  They are well within their rights to do that.  Now, weather or not they are buckling to pressure from a vocal minority of Social Justice retards is another discussion entirely but Hatred isn't being censored.

Just because it's not available on Steam doesn't mean it won't be available somewhere else.  Nobody (that I have seen) at the time writing this article is attempting to stop the production and sale of Hatred, they just want people to ignore it.

Censorship is the outright banning of a game like Rule of Rose in Europe, this is just business people making decisions and whiny idiots on the internet.

2) Removing the game is actually a dumb move

I never gave a flying fuck about Hatred really.  I saw the trailer and saw how 2Edgy4Me it was and how shit  the game play looked and decided just just ignore it and not think about it.  If Steam had let it get released to their store, the interested parties would have bought it and then everyone else would have ignored it or not known about it.

But no, you couldn't leave it alone could you?  Now you've made a big deal about it and given the game a lot of publicity but on top of that you've made it all taboo too.  It's like if someone puts a big fat flashing red button in front of you that says "DO NOT TOUCH" and nothing else.  Of COURSE a little part of you is going to want to touch it and see what the fuck happens, that's just human goddamn nature.

Hell, even I'm now more interested in purchasing hatred because of this event.  In my head it's like "Jesus, if it's too bad for Steam, a platform with games like Postal and Hotline Miami I just gotta see it now".  Thanks to Steam pulling the game off Greenlight I'm now filled with this perverse sense of curiosity and providing that it doesn't cost too much I could totally see myself buying it now.

3)  Hatred is nothing new

Why are people so bothered?  I mentioned Postal in the above section and that is a similar kind of game that got a similar kind of reaction.  But look at Postal now, it's pretty obscure and your average gamer probably won't know anything about it.  It's got infamy, sure, but there is a HUGE group of people who just know it as "that violent game that stirred some shit back in the day" and nothing more.

Let's not forget that a lot of people like to kill lazy afternoons with games like GTA.  But these lazy afternoons are not usually spent doing missions, oh no, they are spent putting in a cheat for all the guns and then murdering every single person in sight.  Man, woman, police officer, faceless tosser behind a car wheel, it doesn't matter, they are going to die for your entertainment.  I've done it, you've probably done it and a lot of people that I know have done it.  Getting pleasure from watching little pixel people die on a TV does not make you a terrible person and if you believe the opposite then you are a fucking idiot.

But I know why people are offended, it's because people WANT to be offended.  They want an excuse to have a nice little rage and get on their high horse about how good a person they are and how shitty a person the creators of Hatred are.  Being offended at a game like Hatred makes people feel good because they don't have to worry about dissenting opinions.  If someone says "well I quite like the look of that", you have an excuse to call them a shitty person, act holier-than-thou and have a majority of people agree with you.  These people are fucking morons and if I could slap you through my internet connection, I would.

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Hatred still looks shit but I guarantee there's a lot more people looking forward to seeing what the fuss is about now that you've hyped it up this much.  Just leave it alone, let it fall into obscurity and go find something that makes you happy.  It's not hard, for fucks sake.

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EDIT 17/12/2014:  I've discovered that Hatred has been brought back to Steam Greenlight.  That's cool and all but people are still moaning about it.  They still don't realise that talking about it so much is what's getting people interested.  Just shut the fuck up already!

On Hatred

Hatred is a game I've been largely ignoring.  I caught a quick glance at it back when it was first announced and then I just stopped caring until today.  I caught wind of an online petition made by some guy whom I can't remember the name of threatening the developers with all sorts of horrible crap unless they take down the game and apologise.

So I decided at that point to actually take a look, "how bad could it be?" I thought.  Well it's pretty bad, the game play trailer depicts some dude stepping out of his house and gunning down a bunch of innocents.  The action is occasionally split up with scenes of him gruesomely executing some poor person in some terrible way and there's a little bit at the start where he gives some speech about how much he hates the world.

I don't like the look of Hatred but not because it offends me or anything stupid like that, it just looks shit.  From what I could gather, game play wise, it just looks like Hotline Miami but with all the challenge and charm taken out. Also the game fucking REEKS of trying too hard.  It's obviously lacking in certain aspects so it's relying entirely on shock value to draw you in but really it just feels like something an extremely angsty 16 year old would produce.

However, as for people complaining about this game and calling for it to be banned or whatever, you people are fucking morons.  Sure, the game looks like shit and it's tasteless as all hell but it does have a right to exist.  You can't just live in a bubble the whole fucking time and demand that anything that even remotely upsets you be wiped from the face of the earth.  The developers of this game do have a right to make it and if there does exist an audience for this kind of game, or if it does turn out to be really good (HA!) then it will be successful.  If it's a shit game that no one wants to play, it'll bomb and chances are that it'll be a good while before anyone wants to try another shock value project like this again.

If you don't like it then just don't play it.  No one is going to FORCE you to play Hatred and you whinging about it to be censored just to suit your taste is as equally pathetic as the games tasteless content.  Let the people who just want some senseless violence have it and let the people with a sense of morbid curiosity for a game like this indulge and waste a few bucks.  You can go on playing the games YOU like and Hatred will have no bearing on that at all.

It's the kind of game that will fall into obscurity a month or two after launch and only a handful of people will ever mention it again.  Like Postal.  So shut up and just enjoy your own fucking stuff rather than trying to police peoples tastes and interests.