Gamers Are Going to Have to Step Up Part 2: Hatred Edition (UPDATED)

Less then a month ago, I wrote the first part of this article. Since writing that, we have seen such motives in action. The day after I wrote it, the #Gamergte movement pushed a developer through Greenlight because some assholes online decided her involvement with it meant her game should not be sold. If you read the comments on part 1, we had a troll show up who didn’t like being told that OR that he apparently cared enough to post 6 of the 9 comments on that very article. It was amusing, but the really good news is this developer got through Greenlight because people have had enough of the SJW “do as I say or you don’t get work” bullshit.

But sadly, a darker event has now also occurred. Do you remember the game Hatred? It was announced a few months ago, and if you need a reminder, you can watch the trailer here, courtesy of PC Games. Now that you know what the game is, did you know it was on greenlight? I say was because Valve took it down, which is where I have an issue.

Greenlight was made to let the users decide what they want on the Steam service, and while shit does get across, it was valuable because it gave us, the gamers, a chance to decide what games we wanted to see and play rather then just leaving it in the hands of publishers who will take the “appeals to most people” approach which leaves us all with basically the same game repeated in each genre. I’m not even saying there isn’t a place for that, but to have the ability to supplement that ourselves was a great thing.

Sadly, I now have to say was because Valve has set a new president by removing the game Hatred from this function. At the time it was removed, it was one of the top 10 games being considered, and the reason we have been given by Valve is vauge at best. They claim a breach of Terms of Service, though what that breach was is unknown. From our end, we can determine it’s not the quality of the end product, for we have seen outright broken and unfinished messes make it to Steam through Greenlight. We can also assume it was not offensive enough in it’s own right, for they have the three Postal games available for sale as we speak… the first of which I have personally owned and played the CD version back when it came out, and which seems to me exactly what this new game is with some graphical updates. And unless a new trailer came out I am not aware of, the game is not porn. It seems, rather, that the only reason this game was removed, was because someone with a stick up their ass reported it.

So the question becomes why do I personally care and why should you? Well if you wanted to buy this game when it comes out and now have one less way to do so, you should care, but this is not where I sit. When I played the original release (Postal) I found it dull as hell and had no interest in playing it again after about 20 minutes. However, by removing a game that clearly the audience wanted, Valve has rendered their own tool through which we are supposed to be given the collective ability to choose games for the service we want to use, compromised. We have now been shown this tool will only work as well as the company lets it, and not to the original intent of letting gamers have control of their service. As such, we gamers now will need to begin thinking of going not just around the journalists with an axe to grind, but the tools we ourselves have access to.

I know in this particular case, even as I still will not be buying the game, I intend to help those who want to. I will be looking to see who sells the game and spreading the word here for anyone who wants it. I would actually love to see a database for such a purpose arise out of this situation, but seeing as my time is too limited to maintain such a thing, I would not be able to or in all fairness ask another to do it for me. Still, I recommend at the very least we keep open and spread the word amongst our own. That way. we as gamers can still take the power to decide what games we have access to, even if others try to take action to remove the game so others can not buy what they do not like. That is not a power I will give up without a fight.

UPDATE: As of now, not only is Hatred back on Greenlight, but it is number 1 in the charts. While this is a great development (as it shows gamers will get what they wanted from the service) this episode still showed a weakness. And while a need to give a link to sources may be gone for now, we can’t walk away from this lesson. We need to be ready to do this for any game we believe unfairly hiddne from it’s audience. This showed us it can happen… and sadly I do not doubt it will eventually.