The controversial and unsettling Hatred is on Steam Greenlight (update)
Update: 6:26 a.m. Pacific: Hatred is back on Steam Greenlight. Developer Destructive Creations claims it received the following apology from Valve boss Gabe Newell:
“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. lt 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.”
Update: 12:30 a.m. Pacific: Hatred developer Destructive Creations released a statement on the game’s removal from Steam Greenlight:
“Even though games like Manhunt or Postal are still available on Steam we of course fully respect Valve’s decision, as they have the right to do so. In the same time we want to assure you that this won’t in any way impact the game’s development, game’s vision, or gameplay features we’re aiming for. The game is still to be released in Q2 2015 as planned.
“Moreover we don’t treat this as a failure because yet again this showed us a huge community support we’re totally overwhelmed with. After only a couple of hours Greenlight campaign being live, Hatred gathered 13,148 up votes and ended up on a #7 on Top 100 list.”
Update 11:45 a.m. Pacific: Hatred is gone from Steam Greenlight. That was fast.
Well, I guess now the people get to decide.
The highly controversial Hatred is on Steam Greenlight, a service on Valve’s digital store in which the community votes for games to become available for purchase on the network.
Hatred has garnered a ton of controversy for its incredibly violent trailers (like the new one below). Even in an industry where most popular games use murder as a core mechanic, seeing Hatred in action is deeply unsettling. The main character is a psychopath who decides to kill as many people as he can before he dies. Trailers show him blowing people’s heads off as they beg for their lives.
While Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed perpetuate the idea that killing is sometimes necessary for the greater good or survival, Hatred so far appears to be simply about murder for the sake of the murder. The main character’s I-hate-the-world attitude resembles the mental unbalance of actual mass shooters.
If nothing else, Hatred is certainly raising plenty of debate. Does a line actually exist for how far violence in gaming should go? Why is one type of digital murder OK, but not another? Is Hatred’s unsettling portrayal of death actually a good thing for an industry that usually treats violence as a mission objective?
While we all ponder that, if you think you could actually have fun playing as a deranged murderer who stabs and shoots civilians and police officers to death as they flail and yell at you stop, you can vote for Hatred on Steam Greenlight.
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