Hatred [redacted] Steam [redacted] censorship!

“This is censorship! This is Halloween censorship!” The boys cried out, not knowing what the term is actually used for. The same goes for “political correctness;” it’s now just a blanket statement for anything that upsets the classically marketed demographic in video games. Hatred, a game about reveling in the vile executions of innocents, has been removed from Steam Greenlight. Cue an Obi-wan reference.

Valve removing a game from anywhere on their property isn’t censorship, first off. Let’s make that one clear. It’s not making a statement on political correctness either. It’s a business strategy, like anything the company does. Business and morals rarely mix and if there’s one year that’s made it abundantly clear that Valve is a business, it’s this one.

We need to briefly tackle the context of Hatred’s existence, to see what got us to this point. Initially, the game came out with an announcement trailer riding on shock value alone. A disgruntled anti-hero wants to kill everyone and then proceeds to do so. We get to see shots of that character toying with innocent victims, having women fellate a gun before blowing their brains out, thrusting their big, hard knife in and out of a helpless police officer. It’s the ultimate macho power trip, to an uncomfortable degree. That angle hit home and many publications lambasted the game’s vile presentation, despite the gameplay footage showing a seemingly capable isometric shooter. It’s pretty hard to have a game in 2014 still get shot down purely over violence issues, so the developer achieved what they oh-so desperately tried to achieve: gross people out.

Waiting a sensible time for criticism to wind down, including some outlandish remarks about the developer’s affiliations, Hatred wound up on Steam Greenlight. Unfortunately, some of these allegations stuck around. It’s the ridiculous climate we’re in, where every argument is immediately the truth and, in turn, a lie as well. Schrödinger’s thing; that’s another popular buzzword term. During that time, its message to go “against trends” of games being “politically correct” (there’s that term again) had also amassed the team a small army of people resonating with this message and the currently popular anti-culture in video games. You know the one.

In what’s called synergy, the launch was a massive success and Hatred quickly gained tens of thousands of “Yes” votes. That’s happened before though. Plenty of games get approved on Steam Greenlight in just a day or two, because they’re riding on the internet time span of success. That’s what Destructive Creations is so keen on pointing out, after the game was removed. So many people voted! If that was relevant, we wouldn’t be here right now. Also, by the by, this mentality alludes that 1 vote = 1 sale, which is, as any of their indie dev peers could reaffirm, setting yourself up for some huge disappointment. This is the internet; people enjoy mouthing off a lot more than they enjoy following through with actual resources. Don’t worry, they’ll find some convenient excuse soon enough.

That mouthing off part, that’s a lot more of a problem. Pages upon pages of reactions on Hatred chimed in with how they were voting just to spite others. Some said so with ridicule, some went a bit further. Nearly all of it was openly hostile against one or more targeted groups of people. The developer was commended for “standing against the SJW cancer infesting gaming.” People cast a vote “because of all the politically correct buttholes trying to censor it.” There are those terms again! It’s all thoughtless rhetoric; words someone picked up elsewhere and is now parroting over and over, in the hopes the faceless void will accept them as their own.

Imagine that though: Your entire audience is people whose sole reason for wanting Hatred on Steam is because they want to antagonize other people. It’s not the game itself that matters, not in its existence in a vacuum, but only as the opposite of another game. It’s essentially as if Gone Home was a tireless diatribe about some lesbians who talked about being oppressed by the patriarchy and how video games are for stupid virgin neckbeards, while braiding their armpit hair…or whatever else the dudebro is so upset about with that game that it’s singled out as part of the useless rhetoric. It’s probably something to that extent.

Dozens upon dozens of reactions are of people who want to hurt others in some way; that’s what Valve should be tipping its hat to. I hope you see where the problem here is. You can’t have something just to damage others. And if that alone wasn’t enough to remove it, which it is, there’s a superlative step to these comments. Several commenters also made their desire clear to include schools or the ability to murder infants, babies even. The more despicable the revelry of violence, the better. They wanted to make sure that they could be as wretched as possible. It wasn’t just good enough to upset others, it needed to stretch the point to an even more ridiculous degree. This is a huge concern for a product that’s already meant to exist as a counter to other games.

Found your new favorite shirt.

While everyone’s grasping at straws why Valve would remove this, even a person such as myself with little understanding of business can understand why any company would do so. They don’t want to touch that landmine of an openly hostile community, because it’s just waiting for a PR nightmare to happen. This is the equivalent of welcoming Stormfront on the store. As much as that platform has every right of existence, Valve is not going to live in the “innocent until proven guilty” model in the off-chance every single aggressive entity on there is going to behave. Probability wouldn’t have any of it. It couldn’t be more basic risk management than it is now. Yeah, leagues off toddler-murdering scumbags isn’t something that you want to be associated with; big shock there.

To the argument Valve “isn’t being clear” on Hatred’s removal: The unwritten rule that a game is or isn’t published at Valve’s discretion is much, much older than today. Dutch porn game Seduce Me tried and failed to breach Greenlight back in 2012. Better yet: Games are removed from Greenlight, Early Access and the storefront fairly regularly these days. It’s like our collective memories only go back to last week. There’s an argument to be made that Valve does allow them on there in the first place, but that’s a discussion for another day.

Better yet: This sort of curation is something so many of us have been crying out for this year. Steam has been slipping and it’s time to tighten up! Ok, it happened now. Valve just recently cracked down on its lack of effort and has instituted more rules left and right on its site, to great dismay to those upset about their civil liberties. This is something you wanted, remember? You wanted more involvement, so you’re not presented with something awful. It’d be great if you accepted that this will sometimes collide with a decision you don’t agree with. Otherwise, Valve is just in a no-win situation, where any novelty is bombed for the sake of it. Change is bad!

Also, stop pretending Postal is as serious as you're pretending.

“But game X is on the store, so why…” I’m going to stop you right there, buddy. Never use that phrase again. I’m not even calling it an argument anymore. I’m done with that sort of dismissiveness, since it removes any possibility of change in the first place. If one’s existence excuses the next, then everything is valid forever. Time doesn’t move that way for humans. Postal is on Steam? Ok. Manhunt is on Steam? Alright. So, were going to conveniently ignore that, upon their respective release, these games were not only hugely lambasted as well, but also actively banned from platforms? Cool.

This “X so why not Y” comments are, again, dismissing Hatred as being something that exists on its own, which frankly only drives the point home about its pointlessness. In only being able to justify a game with similarly controversial titles, it has no chance to be viewed on a case-by-case basis. Neither Postal nor Manhunt were in development in the present. Neither games resonated what messages recent mass murderers, such as Elliot Rodgers, sent out into the world. Neither were backed by a widespread movement of, well, hatred. This is not a form of synergy you want. This is not something that is marketable, because its downsides far outweigh the financial aspects of it. Valve doesn’t want to be the precedent that links violent video games to atrocities; not even close. Who would? Frankly, it’s much less understandable why something as rotten as Air Control is still on Steam than wondering why Hatred isn’t. Let’s not wrangle in that point too much either though, since that’s a “more upset about X than Y” point as well. It ain’t a contest.

Destructive it is.

And the worst part: Hatred doesn’t look like the standard quick cash grab. If only the developer wasn’t so hell-bent on being the edgiest teen in class with that shock value bit, they could sink into the anonymity of the crowded shooter genre and maybe come out with a following without any hooks.

Destructive Creations is determined to see Hatred release. I want to see Hatred release too. In fact, I think it should purposely avoid Steam, because if it can succeed without Valve’s store, that’d be a truly powerful testament to shut up every sanctimonious bastard like myself who points out the game’s issues. It’s nearly impossible to gain any continued success on PC without Steam these days. If they make it there, they can make it anywhere. That would prove undeniably that Hatred is as solid as all this bravado thrown around would make it seem.

I’ll say this though: I sure hope the developer is working extremely hard, harder than any other team on the planet, to make sure Hatred is airtight. It’s going to need to be perfect and interesting to boot, because all this attention is working for them right now, but it’s also a double-edged sword. The game’s detractors are watching too and they want this to go down the toilet hard. Any tiny little flaw or inconsistency Hatred will have will now be put under the microscope to showcase the game’s failing. If it releases, it has to be better than anything else we’ve ever seen. Better make a list and check it twice, because Satan Claws is coming to toooooooown!