Ian Howarth: "Hatred has caused a lot of controversy in the gaming community since its announcement, even going as far as to be removed from Steam’s Greenlight campaign. Of course Valve eventually pulled a U-turn on that, which captivated a lot of attention; boosting it to the most voted game at the time. The attraction that Hatred brought upon itself for being ‘ultra-violent’ is one of the best marketing strategies I’ve ever seen because in reality it is nothing more than a sub-par twin-stick shooter with bad controls, laughable dialog and voice acting, the most insultingly stereotypical main character I’ve ever seen, and eye-straining graphics. Although, it was still the top-selling game on Steam upon it’s release, placing above Grand Theft Auto V and the recent, highly praised, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt."
A game about killing people.
This game was just gratuitous violence. I don't know why it was rated AO. It's no worse than a GTA killing spree, Hotline Miami, or even the 'No Russian' COD mission. Reminded my of a weaker Dead Nation except no zombies.
And we have highly sexualised Japanese games like Senran Kagura which are often either borderline, or practically straight up soft core.. and not even rated AO, some even rated lower age than GTA!
Makes you wonder what's wrong with the ratings systems overall tbh, potentially exposing kids to all kinds of nasty stuff.. but then that's more the parents fault anyways, and the upper age ratings are definitely nowhere near kid friendly, yet you still get little kids playing certain things they shouldn't be.
Sex should not even be an issue. Violence, on the other hand, should have restricted access. I don’t know anything about this particular game, but sounds like the difference between this and GTA is that GTA is a game about mafia, so violence itself isn’t the lure of the game. It’s telling a story. But a game about murder, is a game centered on murder as the selling point. I Don’t know, I see a difference here.
@genericgamer01
We are confusing a number of issues here:
1) I think we all agree that any outright censorship is bad.
2) violence does in fact have negative impact on young kids.
3) as a matter of public welfare, some things are not better left to the unchecked discretion of people, in this case parents. This is why we all obey traffic laws.
4) while the right to raise your children how you see fit is a fundamental right, not all parents know how/are able to raise their children in a proper way, and the rights of the child and society should also be considered. Unfortunately, while we get a manual with everything, and attend classes for things like driving, a child does not come with a manual and no classes are offered to parents about how to raise a child.
5) there is a strong interest in protecting those in our society who do not have a means of protecting themselves. This includes children who cannot protect themselves from bad parenting.
6) we do in fact have experts in every field, both inside and outside government, who have dedicated their lives to specific fields, and DO know more in that subject than the general public. (To argue otherwise is called anti-intellectualism, which is a major problem in our society today, i.e. flat earthers)
Therefore, we should have regulations that guide parents, and also prohibit them from allowing their young to engage in activities that are either damaging, or have the propensity to derail their development into functioning positive members of society.
Lastly, the issue of politicians using video games as a means to seem tough, is an altogether separate problem as these individuals should not be allowed to take the reigns from experts on matters of public policy without scientific support.
I guess the biggest difference here is the goal of Hatred is to murder where as GTA isn't all about killing sprees, Hotline Miami is too cute to be taken seriously, and COD isn't all about wiping out Russians. Best comparison is probably Dead by Daylight where 50% of the game is being a serial killer trying to kill survivors in gruesome ways and it is only rated M.
I'm surprised Switch is getting this and PlayStation/Xbox isn't. The game was basically Postal with better graphics and more realism.
I'm not. Sonys the one that's been caught censoring anime bikini girls. Nintendo has been vocal about being against censorship.
https://www.google.com/amp/...
https://www.exclusivelygame...
Haha. Only with the switch, because money. Nintendo has censored more games than anyone.
Nintendo will censor their games but not 3rd parties. That's what tey said since few will click any links.
@reals
So only with either company's most recent consoles? The ones most relevant here in 2020?
@ Ted
I just find it funny that people make it seem like Nintendo has always championed non censorship. They have only relaxed their stance to deliver to their shareholders. Good for them, I guess.
@reals
What I think you're noticing is people going at Sony, because they have been the censorship kings of this generation.
I've never seen people voicing Nintendo's anti-censorship stance, because they've obviously been bad with that in the past. But we're talking about now, and Sony is the one always seen censoring content nowadays.
A look at five games that gamers loved but most critics hated.
Advent Rising is another good example. It got panned by critics but it has a good story and I enjoyed playing it. The graphics are dated, the enemies all look the same, but it was made in 2005 so what do you expect? I wish they made the sequel so I could finish the story but I think the critics killed it off.
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I seldom trust gamers or critics anymore. A lot of times high scores just mean how likely you are to enjoy something from the game, but rarely anything about how much you would enjoy said things, or whether the highly preferred type of qualities in a game you’re looking for are even in it. My initial gut feeling of the premise of a game is usually all I need.
Joanna Mueller writes: "Since the 1980's, video game advocates have been arguing for the protection of games as a medium of free speech. Frankly, I consider myself in that camp, but just because a game can push against the boundaries of common decency doesn't mean it should. Especially if the developer is just hoping to ride the wave of pearl clutching controversy to the bank."
Nothing wrong with pushing for controversy, but the game still has to be worthwhile. Lots of games in the 90s showed that.
Because the novelty will eventually wear off and the audience will eventually wise up.
So what? If there's a market for something then why should anyone care if it gets filled, as long as it's not something illegal? You can dislike so-called "edge lord" games all you want (in fact, you can like or dislike whatever you want, full stop) but even if games like Hatred are just trying to take advantage of anti-SJW backlash to make a quick buck, the fact that they exist at all is important in a culture that's becoming increasingly puritan and censorship orientated. Art is supposed to push the envelope. It's supposed to make you think. And even if all a game makes you do is think about why certain people are so desperate to ban it.
