Valve Pulls Controversial Game Hatred from Greenlight - Update

[Signa]

This isn't a slippery slope,

Go ahead and keep saying that. This is the second game in as many weeks to be pulled by a retailer because someone who wasn't going to buy the game complained. You're right that it's their right, but I will remain skeptical of this slick grade.

 

[viranimus]

What I find perplexing is that people who willingly abandon their own legal rights and self interest to use steam would dare have the audacity to voice even the slightest dissent given this is just steam doing what it does and steam has repeatedly advised their subscribers that they will do this very thing.( and really what ever they want to with impunity and without fear of the consequences of its actions) Is that not a risky game to even think about biting the hand that feeds? In my personal estimation, it evaporates anything resembling credibility on ANY position towards steam when one is repeatedly informed that steam will begin shoveling week old fermented human shit down the users gullet, and yet striving to smile brighter and open up wider as they take perverse joy from clicking "I agree" with sphincter clenched anxiously awaiting the harm they just inflicted on themselves and every other gamer regardless if they use steam or not and envisioning what form that harm will take.

Knocks the wind out of any offense when you are on record confirming that you are fine with what ever method of screwing you that they see fit. If you wont lift a finger to protect yourself, then what difference does it make if you think it is right or wrong? At the end of the day youll still end up bowing to what ever unreasonable demands are made.

 

[FirstNameLastName]

At this point, looking at the trailer's YouTube page, I'm seeing a division between people who admit this is a tone-deaf game with about zero worth and too much moxie, and people who pretty much go "EFF YEAH! FUCK CONFORMITY, FUCK RESTRAINT, I'MMA KILL COPS ALL DAY LONG AND I'MMA LOVE IT! WOOT!"

The devs themselves seem to be in the later category.
I'm aware that the whole neo-nazi thing has been all but debunked, but I'm honestly not so sure when i read what they write. They seem to be completely delusional, like they've traveled from some parallel universe or something. They are always talking about how politically correct gaming is (despite all the violence, drug themes and sex that many games have), and how they feel they are rebelling against it, it's like they are fighting a war that was won long ago. It's almost as if they think anything short of brutally murdering countless inocents while they scream and beg for mercy is somehow that most dreaded of all bogymen; political correctness.

It's the way that they are so allergic to that one word that makes me suspicious over their true affiliation with neo-nazi groups, since that chronic allergy is something both groups seem to frequently share.


Either way, i still feel Valve is out of line here, but this is a much more conflicting issue for me. On one hand, i believe in freedom of artistic expression, but also the free market, and i realize that Valve has no obligation to stock the item in question, even though they haven't given any real reasons to pull the game. But on the other hand, it is because I hate censorship so much that it makes me wonder whether Valve has done us a favor here.
Hatred is basically a giant glowing target standing in the town square screaming, "look at me! look at me! Aren't i so very controversial? Wouldn't i just make the best reason for all you videogame-hating-censorship-loving groups to dust off those signs and begin campaigning again?"
The devs seem to be poisoning the well for all of us here, and it seems either the gaming world shuns it, or the masses will storm the gates and take it away from us; and we all know they won't stop at Hatred. Especially since even gamers who have fought on the side of GTA were rather sickened by the extent this game went to. If gamers aren't used to this kind of wanton violence, then the rest of the world certainly won't be.

EDIT: It's back up. And move over youtube, there's a new worst comment section.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

It's back up. And move over Youtube, there's a new worst comment section.

Ugh, yes. "I wanna kill some SJWs, please!" really doesn't help anyone.

Besides, and I'm asking that seriously, how does anyone actually model an SJW? You stick a neckbearded guy in Hipster clothes who's walking around with a sign or a bunch of pamphlets? You design one of the buildings to be the headquarters of a Tumblr-esque social media platform, and you have Trenchcoat Dude unleash Hell inside it?

In the game's defense, the devs made it fairly clear the protagonist/antagonist/whatever's oft-mentioned hatred is wide-ranging. If he hates Humanity in general, then there's no need to design specific callbacks to social groups or cliques. Ergo, all the idiots going "Make it possible for me to shoot down my personal pet peeve of the moment!" are missing the point.

And yeah, you're right. One dev going so far out of its way to seem nonconformist when we've been enjoying fairly nonconformist games for several years now is just - it's silly. Hatred could bring the worst Fox News-style sanctimonious commentators out for us again, and it could also stoke some idiot with disposable income and a murder-on to tack his name on the ages-old "The game made me do it!" murder defense.

I just want to head over to Poland with a truckload of cookies and then waltz in their offices dressed in a clown suit. "Aww, cute widdle devewopers; who wants some attention? Who wants a cookie? You gets a cookie! Now go home, stop working on this nonsense and eat that cookie. We heard you, we don't care and the medium does not need this."

 

[Fasckira]

Its all a bit moot considering its back now, Valve recovered from their knee-jerk reaction and did a u-turn.

 

[Strazdas]

I would like to know Steams reason for doing this.

This game was on greenlight. Greenlight statistics show that over 87% that bothered voting voted "yes" on it.

If Gabe and company decided tomorrow they only wanted to stock FPS, or dating sims, or even games approved personally by Anita Sarkeesian, that's their right. This isn't a slippery slope, as the store has always been the final arbiter of its stock.

Ill say the same thing i said about Apple removing Papers, Please.

Do they have a legal right to do this? Of course.

Should they have a legal right to do this? In my opinion - no.

What merit does a game literally about massacring innocent people have? Does it need to exist? At what point does Freedom of Expression go too far?

What merit does Avatar has? Art does not have to be about merit or what you consider good. And no, Freedon of Expression does not go to far by making a game you dont like.

Hatred, on the other hand, strives purely to place us in the head-space of a school-shooter. Interesting? Perhaps. But can you really blame Steam for shying away from this? This is like someone trying to put up a rape-simulaton game, and Steam taking it down. It's completely justified. Steam doesn't want to be associated with rapists any more than it does school-shooters. Especially not in this country.

Personally, the game doesn't offend me much, but Steam is a business, and it's bad business to associate yourself with this kind of material.

On the matter of selling incomplete trash indie games, however; that is a different story.

I can and i will. It is not stores place to dictate what kind of games i should like and what tones are acceptable. Its stores job to sell games. all games. Lets the buyers decide what they want to play. you know, none of this censorship of "Atmosphere i dont like".

Its only bad business because apperently people are still in the mindset of "i dont like it therefore you cant sell it". the sooner we get rid of such people the better.

Isn't that the point of greenlight? To see if a game can get enough approval to make it onto Steam? If it can't get enough approval it doesn't make it on. This isn't anything new, this is just the Greenlight process at work. And Hatred didn't pass the process. It's not like steam started selling Hatred and then backpeddled, it was only on Greenlight.

Hatred passed the process with flying colors. its the 7th most liked game on Greenlight ever.

I agree it's dumb and defeats the purpose of greenlight but calling Valve hypocritical is stretching it. All the violent games everyones noted are either satire or choice based. Hatred has a clear intent with no moral base to start from. This is similar to "Ethnic cleansing", same deal just a functional hate simulator. Theres a clear degree of awfulness separating this game than any of the other titles.

Manhunt 2, a game thats banned in over 10 countries for its extreme execution scenes is being sold on Steam. I played the game (its pretty shit actually). there is nothing "moral" about you killing everyone you meet there. altrough granted by the end of the game most of targets are actively hunting you.

This isnt censorship of a game like ive heard, its the exact same thing as target chosing to not stock GTAV

Both cases were cases of Censorship.

Actually, they did remove Earth: Year 2066 on a quality issue.

They removed it because it was nonfunctional (did not work at all for most people) and its actually back with another name i dont remmeber now.

They have chosen to not sell it from their own website. If this could lead to a slippery slope of Nintendo banning it's Mario and Zelda games, then the opposite solution, of demanding that they "need a reason" could just as easily lead to an anti-free-speech system, where privately held websites are obliged to either distribute a certain type of content, or forced to "give reasons" whether they want to or not.

If you are owning a videogame store you owe to humanity as a whole to sell all types of games. If you are unable to do so for reasons of your moral bancrupcy then dont own a store.

Can you tell me which one of them was available in the steam store on the after day after 2 people were killed in a cafe in Sydney by someone full of hate and then 122 school children were murdered in Pakistan. When circumstances change, policy changes.

completely irrelevant. thousands of people die every day, we should never release violent games. Steam is in no way responsible for what happened in Pakistan, so there is no reason to adjust policy. GabeN knows there is already too much of it thanks to the 9/11 lunacy.

Those are old stories not new ones. When Anders Breivik murdered 77 people in Norway the shops in Norway took WoW off sale. It was the appropriate course at that moment.

no, that was a bat-shit insane course at that moment. that action means that there is direct link between WoW and Breivik, which as we both know is false.

By labeling the decisions of any and all media stores, online or otherwise, not to sell any given work as censorship, you're neutering the weight the term carries. Valve isn't practicing censorship of Android based games by failing to sell them. Even given that much broader definition of censorship, your given definition fails to mention the removal of a product that would be bad for business.

Steam is PC games store, therefore it is expect that it sells PC games and not android games. When it fails to sell PC games based on its personal beliefs it is censorship. When it fails to sell Android games it is because Steam is not an Android store.

Gabe Newell could ban Fallout New Vegas from Steam tomorrow because he thinks that Fallout 3 is better and he just wanted the ultimate fanboy dig.

He has a legal right to do so, correct. this would still be a move thats shit and this ability is damaging to society. In such obviuos case as F:NW though its likely society would punish Gabe themselves, however not all cases are as obviuos.

Lets not stop there, lets have them host e-books. Not just any books either, but Jack Thompson's books, and on the front page. Because freedom! Anything less is censorship.

If Steam was a book retailer yeah, i would demand that it would host all books, even ones from Jack Thomson. What goes on front page is mostly popularity choice anyway so no reason to demand JT on front page. he will either get there or not.

I mostly agree with TotalBiscuit and Jim Sterling, and I suspect that the crux of the issue has to do with some of Valve's shareholders or higher-ups potentially having connections or personal aspirations that get in the way of a completely impartial administration.

Valve does not have Shareholders. It is a privately owned company owned previuosly by two people equally and later all by Gabe Newell. The other owner was always just a silent partner and went on to work elsewhere couple years into companies life.

While we're at it, lets force Valve to host Ethnic Cleansing and Custer's Revenge.

What's ethnic cleansing got to do with releasing a game.

Ethnic Cleansing is a title of a video game. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_Cleansing_%28video_game%29]

 

[ryukage_sama]

From the ACLU:

Private pressure groups, not the government, promulgated and enforced the infamous Hollywood blacklists during the McCarthy period. But these private censorship campaigns are best countered by groups and individuals speaking out and organizing in defense of the threatened expression.

https://www.aclu.org/free-speech/what-censorship

That is what we're doing. We're questioning these private censorship campaigns by being the groups and individuals speaking out and organizing in defense of the threatened expression. I don't find anything in Hatred remotely appealing, but I will defend the right for the creator to express his wishes to the death.

I see your point that censorship campaigns can be orchestrated by private, non-governmental groups. What this circumstance lacks is an organized campaign. There's no conspiracy to prevent the game from being published. Valve is not a pressure group, it is just one store front that doesn't want their business tied to this game. Games (although the extent to which some of them are games can be tenuous) which feature explicit sexual content have long been sold digitally through alternative venues because the mainstream digital store fronts won't sell them alongside Call of Duty. This hasn't prevented them from being made, sold or played. Even without extreme sexual content or violence, many books and films are require independent distribution because publishers and/or distributors don't want them.

Without a conspiracy, I don't see an example of censorship. It doesn't make sense for a retailer to say, "Well, since somebody has to publish it, I suppose we'll just have to take the PR bullet this time," just to satisfy complaints from a private pressure group attempting to compel businesses to sell a product they don't want to sell. Until PayPal and credit card companies block payments for this game (like they did for WikiLeaks), the developer of Hatred has avenues to sell their game.

It's fallacious to think of Steam as the entirety of the digital marketplace.

The devs seem to be poisoning the well for all of us here, and it seems either the gaming world shuns it, or the masses will storm the gates and take it away from us; and we all know they won't stop at Hatred. Especially since even gamers who have fought on the side of GTA were rather sickened by the extent this game went to. If gamers aren't used to this kind of wanton violence, then the rest of the world certainly won't be.

I get the feeling the developer is counting on the controversy. Advertising it as "the game too violent for Steam" will just drum up sales on whatever venue(s) they publish on. They can still make and sell the game, but I'd like the rest of us (Valve included) to be able to maintain some distance from it, if we so choose.

 

[Erttheking]

This isn't a slippery slope,

Go ahead and keep saying that. This is the second game in as many weeks to be pulled by a retailer because someone who wasn't going to buy the game complained. You're right that it's their right, but I will remain skeptical of this slick grade.

Considering that people who were never going to buy the game are also complaining about not being able to buy it, it's only fair.

 

[Baresark]

There, now everyone can stop worrying that Valve is foisting their morals on them and is now not being hypocritical. What a funny world we live in. You are damned if you do and damned if you don't.

The craziest part is this. No one knows why Valve actually took the game down. Everyone seems to have fallen into a trap by this games developers and has helped them market it. Valve is guilty of curation since Greenlight came into the picture, it's just less common now. They never stated it was because of the content, everyone just assumes, which says lots and lots about the content. Valve is famous for never giving a reason as to why they deny a product. I'm would not be offended if they never decided to sell a game I didn't want to play, personally. God knows I wish they would take some of the shovelware crap they have off of the store.

This isn't a slippery slope,

Go ahead and keep saying that. This is the second game in as many weeks to be pulled by a retailer because someone who wasn't going to buy the game complained. You're right that it's their right, but I will remain skeptical of this slick grade.

The only thing I would say is that two games don't make a pattern. Also, you seem to be using the slippery slope in it's fallacious form.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

Update: Hatred is back on Steam. Hatred developer Destructive Creations purported Valve co-founder Gabe Newell emailed Jarosław Zieliński to apologize. Destructive Creations posted a copy of what it claims is an email from Newell on the developer's Facebook page [https://www.facebook.com/destructivecreationsteam/photos/a.367406143426716.1073741828.311540585679939/387264774774186/?type=1&permPage=1], and it reads:

"Hi, Jaroslaw.

"Yesterday I heard that we were taking Hatred down from Greenlight. Since I wasn't up to speed, I asked around internally to find out why we had done that. It turns out that it wasn't a good decision, and we'll be putting Hatred back up. My apologies to you and your team. Steam is about creating tools for content creators and customers.

"Good luck with your game.

Gabe"

Good to hear it's back up on steam. Let the market decide if they want the game, and let the market decide if it will be a success or not.

 

[SecondPrize]

I've no interest in playing this as it actually does look just like a murder sim, but I'm glad that people who want to buy it on steam will be able to do so.
Also, people spouting the neo-nazi and political affiliation crap need to look at your sources. These devs are Polish and every single one of them lost family to the Nazi invasion and occupation.

 

[Doom972]

It really was a weird decision. I'm glad to see that Valve are able to recognize a mistake, fix it, and apologize.

 

[Erttheking]

Its OK guys, game is back, you can stop complaining about nonexistent censorship and go back to furiously jerking it to your creepy snuff porn game.

...Really dude? Really? Feel free to disagree with people, but that's no reason to let common respect fly out the window.

 

[Lightknight]

Hmm, this represents a crucial turning point that Steam almost made. In which they begin morally curating the content they allow rather than keeping the platform an open market where possible.

Good on Gabe for realizing the mistake and realigning them with their company's focus. Not that I care or will ever play this game. But should a controversial game ever arise that I do want to play, I want the open market to at least permit it. What's interesting is that Steam's nigh-monopoly on computer gaming basically gives it not just banning power but legitimate censorship power. Most retailers like Target banning something simply allows you to walk across the street and get something else. But steam is really the only place people get video games in mass so it being banned there leads to people traveling down dark alley ways lined with gargoyles and shadows.

I still want quality control though. Just not morality patrol.

Its OK guys, game is back, you can stop complaining about nonexistent censorship and go back to furiously jerking it to your creepy snuff porn game.

...Really dude? Really? Feel free to disagree with people, but that's no reason to let common respect fly out the window.

Make sure to flag his comment for review. Pretty slam dunk as far as moderation is concerned.

 

[Something Amyss]

Go ahead and keep saying that.

I will, because it's true. I know you have issues with truth statements, but I don't.

Nice quote mine, though. Omitting the relevant part as to why it's not.

Ill say the same thing i said about Apple removing Papers, Please.

Do they have a legal right to do this? Of course.

Should they have a legal right to do this? In my opinion - no.

Wait wait wait....marketplaces should not have the right to determine the content they sell? Really?

 

[Don Incognito]

Steam is PC games store, therefore it is expect that it sells PC games and not android games. When it fails to sell PC games based on its personal beliefs it is censorship. When it fails to sell Android games it is because Steam is not an Android store.

That is absolutely, completely, 100% wrong definition of censorship.

If I provide product by manufacturer A at my office, but I don't provide a competing product by manufacturer B, I am NOT CENSORING manufacturer B. I have made a business decision.

Good heavens, can we please stop using words to mean what we want them to mean?

 

[Something Amyss]

That might be true if there was any sort of real campaign to have Hatred removed.

More to the point, and this is the part Signa clipped in his quote mine:

This isn't a slippery slope, as the store has always been the final arbiter of its stock.

So yeah.

This is not a new thing. This is not even something happening more frequently nowadays. This is a very, very old power marketplaces have had for as long as the concept of the free market has existed.

Granted, I'm pretty sure that's why I was quote mined. The argument of a slippery slope doesn't hold up very well when compared to, you know...reality and stuff.

I mean, I take your point that there was no campaign and whatnot, but I don't think we even need to go that far.

Side note: if book stores don't sell my novel, I'm going to start screaming censorship at the top of my lungs.

The craziest part is this. No one knows why Valve actually took the game down.

Facts have long been irrelevant in gamer outrage. The craziest part is, when we're portrayed as reactionary and childish, we get even more reactionary and childish. But this in itself should be proof of why people feel that way.


The only thing I would say is that two games don't make a pattern. [/quote]

Two games being optionally not stocked, one with no reason disclosed, in a society where there are tons of ways to access both games still.

Anyway, I don't give a damn whether this game is stocked or not. If they stock it, I won't buy it. IF they don't stock it, I won't buy it (not that I could). I just think it's so bizarre that all of a sudden, stores have to stock certain games or it's some Orwellian future inbound.

If someone was trying to get it banned, or something to that effect, that'd be one thing.

...Really dude? Really? Feel free to disagree with people, but that's no reason to let common respect fly out the window.

Because it was only at that point, on page four of like the fourth topic on the matter, that respect flew out the window.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

I call it where I see it and when I have the strength to do it.