A co-worker of mine and I actually discussed the EC video when the network went down, preventing us from doing anything useful for a few hours (yay, technology).
He agreed with EC's overall point, that sadism for sadism's sake is unhealthy and has no positive effects on a normal, healthy person. He called it masturbatory. I agreed with his assessment that it was literal pornography for sadists, but pointed out that gaming itself is typically masturbatory - going back to original Space Invaders, which is literally a game of "shoot the thing" with no more justification than you're told.
I also pointed out that he liked Hotline Miami, and asked if that made him a hypocrite - that gave him pause. But he pointed out that it was "different" insofar as you were fighting 'bad guys', and that the content was dramatically more stylized.
That's what always bothers me about criticism against violence in media: The violence itself is never the problem. EC and Bob and most other people who think this cheaply made game is "disgusting" and try to say-without-saying that Steam and Microsoft and others shouldn't even sell it will also argue that violence can be a good thing... but only if it's in the context that they like. And this double-think has never made sense to me.
The slaughter in Bioshock Infinite or Spec Ops: The Line or The Last Of Us seems to be fully justifiable to most critics, so why is Hatred any different? My guess is that it's not about sadism: It's because it reminds them that games, one of the most exciting potential mediums available to the world are now, are still - by and large - just toys. Toys that they can still be judged as shallow or juvenile for taking seriously. That when you strip away the cinematic sensibilities and "moral choice" concepts, the games are still about pulling a trigger over and over again. It reminds people who want to see games taken seriously as an artform that - much like TV, movies, comics, novels, or any other medium available to them - most aren't all that interesting, they simply fill out a bullet list that the consumers who like that genre are looking for.
I asked my co-worker around this point if he felt that pornography was harmful alongside "sadist" games like Hatred. He said that, yes, he did. It was around this point I realized he and I were never going to agree on this one, but hey, at least we were both willing to listen.
Veered a little off point here, though. I don't wish being unemployed and miserable on any but the actual worst of humanity, and while Bob may be a rude blockhead with little to no sense of self-awareness, I don't think being a fool is any reason to go hungry. Good for him, I guess, for finding a platform willing to put up with him calling a sizeable potential part of his own audience subhuman. I still suspect that Bob's piece on the you-know-what-centric episode of Law & Order SVU (which seemingly found a home on Badass Digest, if I remember correctly?) was the final straw, but all any of us can do is guess.
I said after his "Rohan" piece I'd never click another piece of media he created, and I've yet to break that streak. So good luck to him, I guess.
Edit: I think, in hindsight, the "Be A Better Gamer" video is when I started to see the cracks form in Bob's persona. I don't disagree with the sentiment he was endording, but hearing MovieBob - a guy who's probably a hundred pounds larger than I ever have been - lecture anyone about fitness, and not roll his eyes and even acknowledge that yes, he knows he needs to get more cardio in himself - just felt like a total disconnect in reality.
I have a few similar issues with another former Escapist staffer, but at least Jim "Thank God For Me" Sterling only put on airs of self-aggrandizing narcissism as a joke.
