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Old 01-30-2015, 04:37 AM   #1
deoxys
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Hatred (the video game)

Alright... I think this is a topic that warrants a discussion because it's the first time in several years we've had a game this controversial getting a lot of press.

What you need to know: Hatred - Here's the new trailer (Warning: Very graphic, strong language, viewer discretion advised). The premise is you play as an adult man personified as an edgy emo sixteen year old fed up with humanity, so he decides to get some weapons and kill everyone he can (particularly the most innocent of innocent people - the more innocent, the more he wants them dead). It's an isometric third person shooter that allows for "cinematic" executions which allow the player to violently and painfully murder their victims in unique ways, such as curb stomping them, putting a shotgun in their mouths, setting them on fire, etc.

A few weeks ago, Steam pulled the game from their Greenlight section due to its violent nature only to have it reinstated a day later by Gabe Newell himself. However, since then, the game has received an Adults Only rating in NA, only the second game ever to receive the rating for purely violent reasons, and Steam prohibits the sale of AO games in their catalog.

The game is getting a lot of controversy for fairly obvious reasons. When the game was removed from Steam initially, a lot of people were upset and thought it was wrong and censorship, while others believed the move to be a justified business practice on Valve's end. The controversy now is essentially whether the game should be accepted or condemned and the opinion is a pretty split one. A lot of gamers seem to be expressing interest in the game and have the opinion that it looks legitimately fun, while others find the entirety of it to be deplorable and disgusting, and others who are simply put off by it for the sheer fact that they believe it was created solely to create controversy and that it will bring back the tired "are video games making people violent" discussion that was prevalent in the 90s and early 00s.

A few idea questions to help start the debate: How do you feel about this? Are you interested in it? Would you play it? Do you feel that "it's either all okay, or none of it is" can be applied here? Should the game be well received, treated like any other game, condemned, ignored, or otherwise? If video games should be considered art, should this be as well? Should gamers be critical of it, or is accepting it a sign of gaming's immaturity? Does it even deserve all of the discussion of the controversy surrounding it? Is the game any more grim or violent than games like Postal, Grand Theft Auto, or Plague Inc/Pandemic?


Debate away.
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Old 01-30-2015, 08:15 AM   #2
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Honestly it looks like it's designed to appeal to the whiny teenage bullshit market. Slap an 18 (or whatever the equivalent rating is elsewhere) and call it a day imo. Like, earlier today I was playing Hitman: Absolution and detonated an explosive in a busy crowd to kill my target - you can freely commit large scale terrorist attacks in Hitman and it doesn't garner this level of controversy. In the same game I smashed open a policeman's head with an axe because he caused me to game over half a dozen times in a row. This isn't really anything new, the makers of this game are just causing controversy deliberately to get attention - to sell their game to the whiny teenage market who think that because something is controversial or offensive it automatically has value. Imo the appropriate reaction is to eyeroll, slap the highest rating on it and move on.

As for the "art" thing or whether the existence of games like this demeans games a whole - I will accept that when film buffs accept that the trashiness of The Covenant and Star Wars Holiday Special or the violence and gore of Cannibal Holocaust means that film overall aren't an art form, or the terrible Fifty Shades of Grey or ultraviolent A Clockwork Orange mean that books can't be art. The existence of crap and/or superviolent examples of an art form doesn't destroy the art form as a whole, nor does calling something art automatically mean it isn't a steaming pile of shit - plenty of things that are art are also just trash.
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Old 01-30-2015, 04:57 PM   #3
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Looks kinda fun, actually. Sure, it's graphic, it's sick and wrong, but...?

As long as it's just violence and not sexual violence (not as in BDSM, but the other, bad thing), I don't see the problem.
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Old 01-30-2015, 09:31 PM   #4
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It doesn't look fun and appears pretty tasteless and low-brow. Giving it an AO rating is all and good, but nobody obeys those ratings. The game's appeal is very strongly to 14 year old edgedarks with frustrations toward friends and family, and those are the people who will play it.

So, I guess my opinion is a mix of the two posts above. I think sexual violence is more likely to creep into real-world behaviour and manifest as non-violent, but passive aggressive misogyny. I think if everyone read the labels only the most mature people who would recognize what the game is would be eligible to play it.
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Old 02-03-2015, 11:44 AM   #5
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This game's so edgy it's got 80% accuracy.

It's actually hilarious how grimdark and edgy it is, and that the devs are serious about it. There's the almost certainty some idiot will use it as an excuse for Yet Another High School Massacre, but then that would make the devs out to be not quite right in the head.

Granted, you can't call the act of murder art, and it's never going to reach Australian shores (quite rightly) given how anal they are about red in games, and the premise itself makes the game seem like a murder simulator, which it basically is. I feel there might be some psychological use for it, maybe as a sort of forensic study or summat, but the current thought I have of it at the moment is "Oh jesus, the bastards are serious about this shit? Bahahahaha!"
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Old 02-03-2015, 12:25 PM   #6
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Meh, only crazies murder people. People need to take responsibility for their crazies instead of blaming media for them doing crazy things.

As for the video game, never played it.
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Old 02-03-2015, 12:32 PM   #7
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Well I mean other than the cinematic sequences, this isn't the first game where you could just do wanton violence and murder.

I don't know, this game seems really stupid although I really would prefer if people didn't use this as another tirade against video games.
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Old 02-03-2015, 12:48 PM   #8
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Yeah, this is one of those games made with the sole intent of creating controversy. It just wants to be edgy and push the limits so it's talked about and exposed, leading to people buying it because they're either silly or want to experience it for themselves. In the latter case, plenty of reviewers and LP'ers will probably buy the game just to talk about how bad/stupid it is, which is exactly what the developers were hoping would happen. It's a minimal effort cash grab, plain and simple.
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Old 02-04-2015, 03:24 AM   #9
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Who's to say that there's nothing artful about murder? There's an interesting subplot about the entire thing in the beginning of Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie. But anyway, this looks like a pretty interesting game and the amount of gore and realism in killing is certainly more than in any game I've seen so far. So just from the cinematics it seems playable, plus I'm getting a strong feeling that the story will be in so bad it's good territory. So I'll probably pick it up. I really see no point in the controversy over this. I would have thought the argument was over after "No Russian."
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Old 02-04-2015, 03:50 AM   #10
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Quote:
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To sell their game to the whiny teenage market who think that because something is controversial or offensive it automatically has value.
You see, it's working!
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Old 02-04-2015, 04:22 AM   #11
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Actually its controversy made it known to me, and the quality of the game is what makes me want to play it. One of the best games I've ever played was pretty much 100% catering to the punk teen market. Controversy doesn't have anything to do with how good a game is.
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Old 02-04-2015, 04:26 AM   #12
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Who's to say that there's nothing artful about murder? There's an interesting subplot about the entire thing in the beginning of Cards on the Table by Agatha Christie. But anyway, this looks like a pretty interesting game and the amount of gore and realism in killing is certainly more than in any game I've seen so far. So just from the cinematics it seems playable, plus I'm getting a strong feeling that the story will be in so bad it's good territory. So I'll probably pick it up. I really see no point in the controversy over this. I would have thought the argument was over after "No Russian."


You cannot compare this to No Russian. That campaign mission in MW2 was a. Skippable to the point where the game specifically asks you two or three times if you are certain you want to go ahead and do it, b. It set the story for the rest of the entire plot through the end of MW3, and c. You could complete that mission without once pulling the trigger. And the fact that it forces you to slowly walk through the whole thing while it was occurring was to purposefully upset you to get you emotionally involved with the protagonists and antagonists of the story.

I don't see how you can't see the point in there being any controversy over this. The game as seakitteny said pretty much markets itself as a straight murder simulator with some isometric style gameplay inbetween. The game was made to cause controversy. We have successfully pretty much averted having games being attacked in the western media as making people violent and such for a few years now, and gaming seems as though it's finally starting to grow out of its awkward teenage phase in its place in modern culture and society - it's being much more widely accepted and understood and seen as something that can be compared to film, graphic novels, and literature. I am of the opinion that games like this are going to damage that reputation the medium has slowly been building, if it garners enough attention and traction, and it could set it back a bit in terms of development given the inevitable associations of immaturity and disgust society could project upon it.

And besides that, it was annoying enough the first few hundred times the media and concerned soccer moms have tried convincing everyone that games are terrible and will make your kids want to go shoot people up, despite there being evidence that actually shows the contrary (though I suppose correlation doesn't equal causation).
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Old 02-04-2015, 04:28 AM   #13
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Actually its controversy made it known to me, and the quality of the game is what makes me want to play it. One of the best games I've ever played was pretty much 100% catering to the punk teen market. Controversy doesn't have anything to do with how good a game is.


Yes well you see the problem here lies in the fact that you think DmC: Devil May Cry is a good game so your opinion is automatically null and void ;P
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Old 02-04-2015, 06:30 AM   #14
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Similarly I am fairly certain this game does not once try to force you to play it. People will create controversy over anything. Also, the game hasn't even released and there's no proof that the protagonist will turn out to be a hero. It could well be a case of villain antagonist. Furthermore, if games like this damage the reputation that video games has built up, the problem lies with the people, not the games. You vastly overestimate how much general society gives a fuck about video games. It's a case of a vocal minority because like it or not less and less people are giving a single fuck about what the news is saying each day. Again, the game is a game. Virtual reality is the point of games. News media could easily have twisted Postal 2 into something like this because they really wouldn't give a crap that it's lighthearted(if anything, it would fuel it all.) The fact that Postal 2 has not shown up on anyone's radar pretty much confirms to me that this won't.

Also DmC: Devil May Cry is awesome okay.
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