Valve Removes ‘Hatred’ From Steam Due To Controversy
Violence in video games is nothing new; it has always been present in one form or another whether it was shooting down ducks in "Duck Hunt" or falling on spikes in "Megaman." Of course it's been years since the SNES was relevant and as video games matured for an older audience the violence escalated further; The "Grand Theft Auto" series always let players go on random killing sprees, "Mortal Kombat" has ridiculously violent fatalities that involve pulling out spines or beheading and "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" has one of the most infamous violent scenes ever seen in a video game where the player is an undercover terrorist and must kill civilians in an airport.
So what makes "Hatred" any different from these games? Well in "Grand Theft Auto" you can do other things aside from kill and in games like "Far Cry" and "Tomb Raider," you're at least fighting bad people. The controversial game from indie Polish studio Destructive Creations was advertised as a mass murder simulator and caused a sea of controversy when the trailer that showcased a mass killing of civilians was released last October. Polygon called it the worst trailer of the year, while Kotaku felt incredibly uneasy viewing the gameplay.
The game had many people on twitter angry and appalled, although it looks like this is what developer Destructive Creations was hoping for. A representative from the studio had told Gamespot that they wanted to make a game that wasn't politically correct and didn't try to be some higher form of art; rather it was supposed to be something different and filled with pure entertainment.
While the studio was hoping for a PC release through Steam, it looks like that might not be the case anymore as Forbes has reported that Valve has taken the game off the Greenlight Program. "Based on what we've see on Greenlight we would not publish Hatred on Steam. As such we'll be taking it down," Valve's Doug Lombardi said in regards to the cancellation.
While most people will be glad that "Hatred" was essentially given a death sentence and will probably never see the light of day the game did have its fair share of defenders. Eurogamer revealed that the game was ranked #7 in the Green light program and had 13,148 yes votes in support of the game. It remains to be seen if "Hatred" will ever make a return.
HATRED Gameplay Trailer (Credit: Youtube/PC Games)