Hatred Rated Adults Only by the ESRB

[blackrave]

I have a question. This is a serious question, as I have not played either game I'm about to mention, only heard about them and seen some gameplay. How would Hatred, in-context, compare to Postal? Both games have about the same goal of "killing spree", right? Is the tone totally different in Postal?

Let me put it this way...in Postal 2 you go to work at a video game company, where you're fired on your first day. At that point, a bunch of protestors who had been chanting "games are bad, they make you bad" has one of their members "Let's do this! Come on everybody, I'LL KILL YOU!" and storm the building with pistols. You then kill all of them and it is then possible to unzip your fly and run through the pile of corpses pissing everywhere while you do. You can also get an item that's a petition (to get stupid congressmen to play video games) and just about everyone I've seen play the game likes to murderer all the NPCs that refuse to sign it.

It's...nothing like Hatred.

Called it!
erttheking is a fucking time traveler
How else he could know about game that isn't out yet?
[sub]Well... he could be pulling bullshit out of his ass, but what are the odds? [sub]Also- if you're pulling bullshit out of your ass, does it make you a bull?[/sub][/sub]

So, erttheking, on behalf of gamers of the past, please please please drop a copy of Half-Life3 on PirateBay.
I know we may look like cavemen to you, but I assure you that people would crack it in a week or two.
If not, then get back to your time and stop interfering with the past!

 

[Erttheking]

I have a question. This is a serious question, as I have not played either game I'm about to mention, only heard about them and seen some gameplay. How would Hatred, in-context, compare to Postal? Both games have about the same goal of "killing spree", right? Is the tone totally different in Postal?

Let me put it this way...in Postal 2 you go to work at a video game company, where you're fired on your first day. At that point, a bunch of protestors who had been chanting "games are bad, they make you bad" has one of their members "Let's do this! Come on everybody, I'LL KILL YOU!" and storm the building with pistols. You then kill all of them and it is then possible to unzip your fly and run through the pile of corpses pissing everywhere while you do. You can also get an item that's a petition (to get stupid congressmen to play video games) and just about everyone I've seen play the game likes to murderer all the NPCs that refuse to sign it.

It's...nothing like Hatred.

Called it!
erttheking is a fucking time traveler
How else he could know about game that isn't out yet?
[sub]Well... he could be pulling bullshit out of his ass, but what are the odds? [sub]Also- if you're pulling bullshit out of your ass, does it make you a bull?[/sub][/sub]

So, erttheking, on behalf of gamers of the past, please please please drop a copy of Half-Life3 on PirateBay.
I know we may look like cavemen to you, but I assure you that people would crack it in a week or two.
If not, then get back to your time and stop interfering with the past!

I'm talking about tone wise. Postal and Hatred are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to overall tone, that is unless the devs of Hatred have been sending completely the wrong message with their advertisements, and if that's the case it's their fault, not mine.

 

[blackrave]

I have a question. This is a serious question, as I have not played either game I'm about to mention, only heard about them and seen some gameplay. How would Hatred, in-context, compare to Postal? Both games have about the same goal of "killing spree", right? Is the tone totally different in Postal?

Let me put it this way...in Postal 2 you go to work at a video game company, where you're fired on your first day. At that point, a bunch of protestors who had been chanting "games are bad, they make you bad" has one of their members "Let's do this! Come on everybody, I'LL KILL YOU!" and storm the building with pistols. You then kill all of them and it is then possible to unzip your fly and run through the pile of corpses pissing everywhere while you do. You can also get an item that's a petition (to get stupid congressmen to play video games) and just about everyone I've seen play the game likes to murderer all the NPCs that refuse to sign it.

It's...nothing like Hatred.

Called it!
erttheking is a fucking time traveler
How else he could know about game that isn't out yet?
[sub]Well... he could be pulling bullshit out of his ass, but what are the odds? [sub]Also- if you're pulling bullshit out of your ass, does it make you a bull?[/sub][/sub]

So, erttheking, on behalf of gamers of the past, please please please drop a copy of Half-Life3 on PirateBay.
I know we may look like cavemen to you, but I assure you that people would crack it in a week or two.
If not, then get back to your time and stop interfering with the past!

I'm talking about tone wise. Postal and Hatred are on completely opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to overall tone, that is unless the devs of Hatred have been sending completely the wrong message with their advertisements, and if that's the case it's their fault, not mine.

1.Trailers do not need to be honest. They may be playing the public.
2.Your fault lies in stating your opinion as a fact.
3 I DEMAND HALF-LIFE3!!!

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

Well then, then I've got a whole new reason for disliking these guys. Nonetheless, until I have evidence to prove otherwise, I am going to assume that the material we have seen so far will reflect the tone of the game.

Opinion as fact? You know I can't help but feel like that gets thrown around every single time people say anything about anything. Of course the tones of both games are just my opinion. Do I need to end every sentence with "That's just my opinion?"

 

[blackrave]

Snip

Well then, then I've got a whole new reason for disliking these guys.

You don't have to like developers.
In fact you may even hate them.
BUT
Only thing that really matters is answer to the question "Is this game good?"
And you can't honestly answer it prior to release.

Opinion as fact? You know I can't help but feel like that gets thrown around every single time people say anything about anything. Of course the tones of both games are just my opinion. Do I need to end every sentence with "That's just my opinion?"

You know what you wrote and you know what I meant.
Stop pretending you're 12y old!

 

[azriel2422]

Looks to be about as disturbingly violent as Manhunt 2 to me so it seems pretty appropriate.

I have no sympathy for the makers of Hatred. It was made deliberately to get free publicity through controversy. Apparently they overdid it, whoops.

So I wonder.... if your in-game victims make smart ass quips while you beat them to death (GTA, Saint's Row) it get's you an M rating. If your victims beg and plead for their lives while you do it that ups things to AO. That appears to be the only difference between the two games. What am I not seeing here?

Is that not enough of a difference on its own? A relatively small difference (in design terms) can make a huge difference in how the game presents itself.

Playing Gears of War with the Locust replaced by unarmed crying schoolchildren would be much more violent, even with all the same animations and splatter effects. Or take Left 4 Dead and replace all the Zombies with people wearing concentration camp uniforms and star of David armbands and you'd have a game that would never be sold in mainstream stores.

I definitely don't think a game like this should be banned outright but being marginalized to the point of obscurity is something I'm basically fine with, especially since Hatred has been designed to wear the "controversy" label as a badge of pride.

Granted, I'm not American and I might not fully appreciate the significance of the different ratings but if Manhunt 2 is the baseline for a game violent enough to be an AO then Hatred is an AO.

The trailer played and I thought "there has to be some motivation for the protagonist". There was, it was hate, and then you saw him proceed to shoot up a bus stop, an office, and then take a police officer out with a shot gun to the back of the head. It's not like GTA in that you have to make that game into a mass murder killing spree. GTA at least has a story line, with character arcs (loose term lol) and motivations for their actions. I didn't see that with this game. I don't think the game should be banned, but an AO ruling seems legit.

 

[Kameburger]

That makes sense, lol I'm not sure anyone should be surprised by this.

My question would be why is this news? Having it be AO is sensible enough, but blasting its rating all over is basically free PR for them. I mean doesn't RockStar practically pay for stories like these?

 

[MerlinCross]

That makes sense, lol I'm not sure anyone should be surprised by this.

My question would be why is this news? Having it be AO is sensible enough, but blasting its rating all over is basically free PR for them. I mean doesn't RockStar practically pay for stories like these?

And yet all their games are rated M, even counting the drug use and sexual content(implied or otherwise) within the GTA games.

I do agree with you this, this is just free PR. Like it or hate it, talk of this game is like Everywhere now. Just a guess but if people didn't give this game the spotlight would it still have gotten an AO rating? Hell we wouldn't be talking about this game. Just a few topics here and there, with the game sliding onto steam quietly and forgotten. Until a steam sell happens and someone sees it for 2 bucks.

Course that's just a guess.

 

[Strazdas]

So, basically, Hatred is Porn.

well thats an interesting turn of events.

Then again the ESRB has always been useless, much like the broken and useless MPAA it was mistakenly modeled after.

To make the matters worse, many countries use ESRB as a legal limitation, as in this would actually mean its illegal to sell this game to minors.

What am I not seeing here?

Personal bias.

Well well well, this leaves steam with an interesting choice: either start letting AO rated games on the store, or re-remove Hatred. I really hope they go for the later, but if they go for the former I eagerly await the storefront being flooded with page after page of Eroge. Or to be fair they could take a immensely stupid third option and say AO for torturing people to death is a-OK but sex is still bad and scary and not allowed.

or, you know, steam is going to do whatever the fuck it wants, like its always did. the whole "Rating system" discrimination is bullshit anyway.

Playing Gears of War with the Locust replaced by unarmed crying schoolchildren would be much more violent, even with all the same animations and splatter effects. Or take Left 4 Dead and replace all the Zombies with people wearing concentration camp uniforms and star of David armbands and you'd have a game that would never be sold in mainstream stores.

and you dont see a problem with that?

 

[TheRoleplayingGamer]

Context people, context.

There's no satire, or parody here, nor is 'killing innocents' up to player digression like GTA, or the much better Saints Row games, or any sort of justification for it past 'the world is shit so I'm gonna kill every one'.

It is literally, just an ultra violent mass murder simulator. It deserves the AO rating.

I just made an account to share this, thought you might like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrmgwK5oPFM

 

[Strazdas]

I'm all for developers trying to make video games that tackle tabu themes and concepts, but when your ultimate reason for spiking controversy is "I just want to piss people off", then you don't deserve to call yourself an artist, or an adult for that matter.

but "i just want to piss people off" is exactly what people need now. people are way too oversensitive nowadays - as evident by response to this game. if overlysensitive people werent a problem this game would have been ignored and never got greenlit.

Is our society truly so prudish and ashamed of our own bodies that sex is considered more taboo than murder?

It is in US. Other places are less concerned about naked body.

Ugh, this game deserves to be released, but that doesn't mean it's necescarily any good. Frankly It just annoys me how some people somewhere think that the devs are paragons of free speech when really they're just trying to piss as many people off as they can.

so what your saying is - free speech pisses a lot of people off.

It would blow the ESBR minds if they ever knew about the adult mods for TES games.

oh, my, those. I was looking for better npc models for Oblivion because the default ones are total arse and stumbled upon mod that turns daedra into tentacle monsters that kidnap and torture NPCs by raping them.

I have a question. This is a serious question, as I have not played either game I'm about to mention, only heard about them and seen some gameplay. How would Hatred, in-context, compare to Postal? Both games have about the same goal of "killing spree", right? Is the tone totally different in Postal?

Let me put it this way...in Postal 2 ...

Please read what you quoted again. he said Postal, not Postal 2. the two games are VERY different. Postal 1 is as much serous murder simulator as Hatred is.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

I really hope they go for the later, but if they go for the former I eagerly await the storefront being flooded with page after page of Eroge.

Well it would be a welcome change from all the fucking Zombie mod/shovelware shit that's been there like a fucking plague.


I'm of two minds of this news as a whole: on the one hand I think the game should get the AO rating and that is the end of the matter. It's a game for grown-ups, move on. On the other, in the US at least it seems AO is death of a thousand cuts and is unfair.

Of course these geniuses could do something revolutionary like, oh I don't know, setup a paypal/credit card payment system on their own website and sell direct to the public. You know, and not pay Valve a cent.

 

[blackrave]

I really hope they go for the later, but if they go for the former I eagerly await the storefront being flooded with page after page of Eroge.

Well it would be a welcome change from all the fucking Zombie mod/shovelware shit that's been there like a fucking plague.


I'm of two minds of this news as a whole: on the one hand I think the game should get the AO rating and that is the end of the matter. It's a game for grown-ups, move on. On the other, in the US at least it seems AO is death of a thousand cuts and is unfair.

Of course these geniuses could do something revolutionary like, oh I don't know, setup a paypal/credit card payment system on their own website and sell direct to the public. You know, and not pay Valve a cent.

Especially when taking into consideration that in many countries Steam is already selling AO games.
Granted those have 18+ rating not AO (and in US those are rated M)
But it is only because some rational people decided that making 2 separate groups with a 1 YEAR DIFFERENCE makes no fucking sense.

That stupid ESRB alphabet rating should be changed into age number rating
1.Most people have no idea what these letters mean (at least according to recent studies). Specific numbers (lets say 3+,7+,12+,15+,18+) could make things much clearer.
2.It could allow removal of idiocy of having M and AO rating and making them into one 18+ category (seriously, how much game market share 17y old hold anyway?)

 

[EternallyBored]

Then again the ESRB has always been useless, much like the broken and useless MPAA it was mistakenly modeled after.

To make the matters worse, many countries use ESRB as a legal limitation, as in this would actually mean its illegal to sell this game to minors.

Many countries? I think you are confusing the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) with something else, the ESRB is only used by the U.S. and Canada, and it has no legal or government authority behind it. I am only aware of one other ratings organization, and that is PEGI in Europe.

The ESRB was formed in 1994 from the Interactive digital Software Association (IDSA), and it was created in order for the industry to police itself to prevent the government from coming in and trying to impose standards. It was created when the scare around violent videogames was gaining steam, and was a joint effort by North American based video game publishers to self-regulate the industry.

The current retail death sentence that is the AO rating is something that needs to either be clarified or changed, but the organization is not responsible for any rating board shenanigans or censorship outside of the US and Canada

 

[K12]

snip

Playing Gears of War with the Locust replaced by unarmed crying schoolchildren would be much more violent, even with all the same animations and splatter effects. Or take Left 4 Dead and replace all the Zombies with people wearing concentration camp uniforms and star of David armbands and you'd have a game that would never be sold in mainstream stores.

and you dont see a problem with that?

Erm... are you asking me whether I'm OK with the fact that a hypothetical game where you murder waves of concentration camp prisoners would almost cetainly never get sold (except on niche websites and straight from the publisher)

No... I don't see a problem with that? Are you saying that you do?

 

[hermes]

That one year gap is amazing. Like some sort of divine revelation will be bestowed upon in that interim.

OP:MorelikeIMforimmatureHUHEUHUEHHEUHUEHUEHUHEUHEUUEHUHEUHUEHUH

No, serious business. This is very serious. Like that bit where the dude in the trench coat calls people "maggots". It's very serious and very mature.

Honestly, this situation is hilarious. Hilarious cause the game is so terrible, and hilarious because of how people will respond to it(in the community and in the mainstream press).

I'd better grab me some popcorn >.>

I'm curious to see how this turns out. I think it's about time that the ESRB finally puts in writing, why they rate what they rate.

But as far as the AO rating goes, I say let it stand. Better to self-regulate than have governments step in and spoonfeed us.

They already did: http://www.esrb.org/ratings/ratings_process.jsp

Not to mention that the developers of the game get a fairly detailed list of issues and suggested changed for the ESRB to change the rating. Those documents are fairly extensive, and can be made public (other than the developers not wanting to spoil the game).

 

[ShakerSilver]

I have a question. This is a serious question, as I have not played either game I'm about to mention, only heard about them and seen some gameplay. How would Hatred, in-context, compare to Postal? Both games have about the same goal of "killing spree", right? Is the tone totally different in Postal?

Let me put it this way...in Postal 2 you go to work at a video game company, where you're fired on your first day. At that point, a bunch of protestors who had been chanting "games are bad, they make you bad" has one of their members "Let's do this! Come on everybody, I'LL KILL YOU!" and storm the building with pistols. You then kill all of them and it is then possible to unzip your fly and run through the pile of corpses pissing everywhere while you do. You can also get an item that's a petition (to get stupid congressmen to play video games) and just about everyone I've seen play the game likes to murderer all the NPCs that refuse to sign it.

It's...nothing like Hatred.

You never answered his question. Postal 2 is nothing like the first Postal, which was a straight-up murder rampage simulator with no sense of satire or irony, just like Hatred is looking to be really.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Manhunt was awesome and atleast it had a reason why you were killing and those you killed were gangs of sick fucks anyway. Its a game which im surprised no one has based a movie on. Not played MH2 as it was Wii only.

Played a leaked copy of Thrillkill. Had some interesting character design but ultimatly it was a crap beatemup game with gory attacks. Though liked the 4 player aspect.

Hatred just looks lame because its to obvious. There isnt even a reason or story apart from "i hate people." Most mindless shooters atleast have something that makes them stand out. For instance Loaded and ReLoaded on PS1/2 had fun character design.

I think Hatred will do well, but mostly due to people curious about what the big deal is.

 

[CaitSeith]

The game that aims to be one of the, if not the single most graphically violent game ever made gets an M-rating? I'm absolutely shocked. What a perplexing development, who ever could've seen this coming?

I did. But it perplexes me how many people are truly shocked and didn't see it coming.

 

[CaitSeith]

The game that aims to be one of the, if not the single most graphically violent game ever made gets an M-rating? I'm absolutely shocked. What a perplexing development, who ever could've seen this coming?

Except it didn't get an M rating, it got an AO rating. Which shouldn't really be a big issue for them seeing as it seems like they're going for digital distribution rather than box stores where the AO rating would hurt them.

Except Steam has a policy of not allowing AO rated games.

Not that I care for Hatred, but I find the situation a little... politically suspicious.

Well, practically all AO games are porn games. So, who knows? Maybe it will be the first one...