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Hatred: The Most Despicable Game of All Time?

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Blambo said what I was trying to say much more succinctly. I think Hotline Miami is fundementaly different from this peice of shit game. It feels weird for me to be be in the position of defending the nuances of this, as I didn't really like Hotline Miami, and have never played a GTA game (or Postal, etc.)

 

I guess my main issue with equating these kind of games too closely is that it mostly seems to be from a position of "this isn't any worse than popular game X, who cares", rather than "popular game X is disturbingly similar to this, maybe I should re-evaluate why I like it so much". Thankfuly the Idle Thumbs community seems to be more of the latter.

 

Also the developers themselves confirm how genuine this shit is, in their own words it's a reaction to how "polite, colourful, pc, arty" games are so "trendy" now, and that they want to make "pure gaming pleasure". Just to be different.

 

I'm sure they also hate how trendy it is to not eat your own shit, and will prove just how different they are by having poop breakfast lunch and tea everyday.

I don't know how they're going to source enough fiber for all those movements, but they're "an experienced team and know how to handle the challenge".

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Since it's being built in UE4, it's safe to assume there's an ongoing subscription-based license agreement between Epic and Destructive Creations, correct? Epic should refund DC its money up to this point, terminate the license and say, "thanks, but no thanks."

 

Asking for their logo to be removed from the trailer and all future marketing materials is a good start, but feels like a half measure to me.

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Since it's being built in UE4, it's safe to assume there's an ongoing subscription-based license agreement between Epic and Destructive Creations, correct? Epic should refund DC its money up to this point, terminate the license and say, "thanks, but no thanks."

 

Asking for their logo to be removed from the trailer and all future marketing materials is a good start, but feels like a half measure to me.

I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea of Epic being able and willing to pull the license out from under developers' feet, even if those developers are despicable.

 

More than anything else, this just makes me sad. 10 young men willing to dedicate years of their life to... this.

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I had the same reaction until I read polygon's piece on the trailer, updated with the following comment in response to Epic asking their logo be removed from all marketing material.

 

 

Then I headed over to their website which they have decided to call their "web command" because they're so fucking high minded.  Hatred seems to be the video game version of people who say "words are just words", ignoring the fact that meaning is what makes a word a word.  The fact that anyone thought that something as powerful as UE4 was mandatory for a top down shooter calls into question not just the premise of the game but the sanity of it's creators.  UE4 is only mandatory insofar as it allows the devs to further outrage people.  Everything about this game seems to be focused on stirring up a shit storm the same way think tanks release articles that are little more than thinly veiled insults.  They may as well be standing on top of a building screaming "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!" for all the difference it makes.  They make some claim about how society has somehow wronged the protagonist but are seemingly uninterested in addressing what exactly that means--almost like gamergate finally turned in on itself and morphed into an actual game.  I wish I could be more articulate about this at the moment, but I just really can not stand how absurd all this is, and I'm still hoping I'll wake up tomorrow to find out this was just an overly elaborate Onion article.

I make a point not reading polygon since they can find fault and over analyse everything, thus sucking the fun and joy out of anything. But figured this was worth a look since the game warrants their usual kind of attention... turns out it was just reporting and making the tech companies that their logos were being used. Sure? With this much negative PR it's not surprising they wouldn't want to be associated with it.

 

I know I am being pretty callous and quite possibly ambivalent, but this is more or less the same topic that came up in the Battlefield Hardline thread. I am having a very hard time understanding the "acceptable and not acceptable line" in video games these days. Every single one of the mechanics that's the trailer showed have been in dozens of games, the amount and portrayal of the violence is on par with many violent video games. I know I'm probably understanding this incorrectly, but just because you swap out the context of who you are virtually murdering to something a little closer to home, middle class suburbanite culture,it's suddenly the worst thing on earth? 

 

Frankly I just shake my head in bewilderment, there isn't much of a difference. If somehow the violence was more explicit or the mechanics so fundamentally different than most games, or it was literally teaching people how to commit actual murder or build a bomb or something, then yeah, I could see the outrage. But this looks like the same type of game as dozens of others with window dressing people don't want to see.

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I know I am being pretty callous and quite possibly ambivalent, but this is more or less the same topic that came up in the Battlefield Hardline thread. I am having a very hard time understanding the "acceptable and not acceptable line" in video games these days. Every single one of the mechanics that's the trailer showed have been in dozens of games, the amount and portrayal of the violence is on par with many violent video games. I know I'm probably understanding this incorrectly, but just because you swap out the context of who you are virtually murdering to something a little closer to home, middle class suburbanite culture,it's suddenly the worst thing on earth? 

 

Frankly I just shake my head in bewilderment, there isn't much of a difference. If somehow the violence was more explicit or the mechanics so fundamentally different than most games, or it was literally teaching people how to commit actual murder or build a bomb or something, then yeah, I could see the outrage. But this looks like the same type of game as dozens of others with window dressing people don't want to see.

 

I have a hard time saying that the entire context of the event is little more than window dressing.  As misguided as it may be, other violent games use violence as a means to an end whereas Hatred asks you to kill just because you can.  To say the two are the same is like saying that a crime of passion is the same as a premeditated one.  I really think you are putting way too little emphasis on the context here.

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I wonder what those gamergate people think about this game.

 

"I think games shouldn't be tainted by indie developers and their politics, therefore I choose to support this explicitly political indie game."

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And, let's be honest with ourselves here, "I can't wait to murder all those innocent women."

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I can wait. I'm too busy murdering aliens, zombies and other beings.

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I have a hard time saying that the entire context of the event is little more than window dressing. As misguided as it may be, other violent games use violence as a means to an end whereas Hatred asks you to kill just because you can. To say the two are the same is like saying that a crime of passion is the same as a premeditated one. I really think you are putting way too little emphasis on the context here.

I'm kind of in the middle here. I get what you're saying, but I think in a lot of games the point is still to kill people just because you can and there's just some contrived justification slapped on top to make the player feel better.

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I'm kind of in the middle here. I get what you're saying, but I think in a lot of games the point is still to kill people just because you can and there's just some contrived justification slapped on top to make the player feel better.

 

If this were a game with any sense of purpose I would agree with you.  The more I learn about it and the developers the more I am convinced this game exists to shock you and allow the developers to cry censorship when people inevitably have a problem with what they are doing.  I get wanting to give them the benefit of the doubt, but what they are doing is so intentionally juvenile and manipulative that I just can't.

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I have a hard time saying that the entire context of the event is little more than window dressing.  As misguided as it may be, other violent games use violence as a means to an end whereas Hatred asks you to kill just because you can.  To say the two are the same is like saying that a crime of passion is the same as a premeditated one.  I really think you are putting way too little emphasis on the context here.

 

So the fictional intention of a virtual character murdering other virtual characters justifies the violent display? Yeah, I guess, since I am not 100% familiar with a lot of overly violent video games these days, let me go digging around and break those apart and present them in a later comment; because I think if we closely look at it, there isn't much of a difference. 

 

Without knowing a single detail from Call of Duty(meaning I am probably wayyyyyyyyyyyyy off base here) but having the context of "Kill the bad terrorists" is just as appalling. Arming your virtual victims doesn't justify what the game designers intended the player to willingly participate in.

 

And just to be clear, I am not defending the game or giving the developers any justification. I think it looks dumb, but it's the same kind of dumb all the other games of this type are, so I'm really trying to figure out why people get bent out of shape over this and not the millions of others. (Not to give myself an out here, I'm sure there a flaw in my logic somewhere down the line)

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So the fictional intention of a virtual character murdering other virtual characters justifies the violent display? Yeah, I guess, since I am not 100% familiar with a lot of overly violent video games these days, let me go digging around and break those apart and present them in a later comment; because I think if we closely look at it, there isn't much of a difference. 

 

Without knowing a single detail from Call of Duty(meaning I am probably wayyyyyyyyyyyyy off base here) but having the context of "Kill the bad terrorists" is just as appalling. Arming your virtual victims doesn't justify what the game designers intended the player to willingly participate in.

 

And just to be clear, I am not defending the game or giving the developers any justification. I think it looks dumb, but it's the same kind of dumb all the other games of this type are, so I'm really trying to figure out why people get bent out of shape over this and not the millions of others. (Not to give myself an out here, I'm sure there a flaw in my logic somewhere down the line)

 

Well all this seems to assume that people don't have a problem with Call of Duty's violence, or at least that the violence in games like that aren't enough to warrant an outrage.  Speaking for myself, my answer would be that looking at what a game asks you to do isn't enough, you must also understand why the game asks, or at least provides the ability, for the player to do those things.  GTA's violence seems to be in support of this idea about surviving in a violent world whereas the violence in hatred seems to be to make the world more violent.  I understand your position, and it's one I probably would have shared a few years ago, but I just can't see it as anything other than the "why aren't we talking about this" style arguments that dominate the news media today.  As if the bad behavior of others, or their poor choices, is justification enough for the developers of hatred to make even worse decisions.  By the way I don't mean to be attacking you here, I just don't think I've ever had such a visceral reaction to a game as I've had to this one.

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Well all this seems to assume that people don't have a problem with Call of Duty's violence, or at least that the violence in games like that aren't enough to warrant an outrage.

I don't think you have to assume that. Otherwise it wouldn't be popular. Of course, you, or that guy, or that lady might be an exception and actually have an issue with CoD, but it's pretty obvious people into these kinds of games... don't. The CoD crowd is probably mostly the same as the Halo crowd (I would believe, and here I am making an assumption, of course) and I doubt you'd find many people in there who think CoD is more objectionable than Halo.

 

It remains to be seen whether this will have the same reception. I think it won't.

 

Although... I suspect the genre - top-down shooter - will be a bigger hindrance to its popularity than anything else.

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I'm not sure whether this is a valid comparison but here I go...

 

The narrative context that mechanics take place in certainly do matter with regards to the emotional impact and morality of the actions portrayed.

Take the example of sexual situations as they can be portrayed in media.

 

I don't have any problems with sex scenes in movies, when they're done well they can be romantic, sweet and generally make people feel good, if possibly a bit embarrased.

However, when I saw the rape scene in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I became uncomfortable to the point of nausea. It's one of the most horrendous things I've seen, to the point that I do not want to watch that movie ever again.

The main difference between these examples is that the positive one concerns two (or more) consenting characters take part in the "mechanics", while the rape is forcefully done to an unwilling individual.

 

In most games, the human enemies you shoot are either soldiers, criminals or police officers. People with training, equipment and hopefully an understanding of the situation they've entered.

While they in most cases certainly do not wish to die, the assumption is that they are at least aware of the risk and have accepted that risk. Additionally, because of their training/experience and their equipment they pose a threat to you (although the stakes are generally stacked in the players favor).

As such they're combatants, willing participants in the mechanics of the game (as willing as NPC's can be at least).

 

In Hatred a lot of focus seems to be put on executing these mechanics on individuals that are portrayed as civilians, non-combatants, while showing lingering shots of them begging for their lives. Seeing that trailer made me feel a lot like I felt when I saw that scene from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, only this time we're apparently asked to play as the perpetrator.

 

I certainly don't think the violence in "regular" games is completely without issues. One could argue that violence is not a good thing even in situations where it can be justified, but that this game doesn't stand out amongst others? I don't agree with that.

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Maybe it's just me, but I did not notice the trailer mostly depicted violence to non-whites. I just saw a long haired guy executing various people.

I just re-watched the trailer because of the mentions of racism etc.. And yes it's true, pretty much all highlighted executions are against non-whites. Does this my view I posted earlier. Well, yeah, because now the game does present a purpose for this violence: ethnic cleansing. They should have present a more balanced set of executions, 1 white person, 1 colored person, 1 asian person, and 1 puppy. That would be way more political correct. Of course there's still the ties to white supremacy which would make that political correct presentation of executions rather dubious.

I'm not sorry for my initial view on the game due to me not acknowledging any race or ethnicity being presented in the trailer.

 

 

I wonder what those gamergate people think about this game.

I didn't notice consciously but I kept getting a weird fascist/racist/skinhead/nazi vibe from the whole thing for some reason and I wonder if that was why.  I didn't notice directly because I was really so put off by the whole thing that I was actually backing away from it and slowly moving my mouse to close the tab in my browser...I couldn't even watch the whole video...it was just bad.

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I'm not sure whether this is a valid comparison but here I go...

The narrative context that mechanics take place in certainly do matter with regards to the emotional impact and morality of the actions portrayed.

Take the example of sexual situations as they can be portrayed in media.

I don't have any problems with sex scenes in movies, when they're done well they can be romantic, sweet and generally make people feel good, if possibly a bit embarrased.

However, when I saw the rape scene in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo I became uncomfortable to the point of nausea. It's one of the most horrendous things I've seen, to the point that I do not want to watch that movie ever again.

The main difference between these examples is that the positive one concerns two (or more) consenting characters take part in the "mechanics", while the rape is forcefully done to an unwilling individual.

In most games, the human enemies you shoot are either soldiers, criminals or police officers. People with training, equipment and hopefully an understanding of the situation they've entered.

While they in most cases certainly do not wish to die, the assumption is that they are at least aware of the risk and have accepted that risk. Additionally, because of their training/experience and their equipment they pose a threat to you (although the stakes are generally stacked in the players favor).

As such they're combatants, willing participants in the mechanics of the game (as willing as NPC's can be at least).

In Hatred a lot of focus seems to be put on executing these mechanics on individuals that are portrayed as civilians, non-combatants, while showing lingering shots of them begging for their lives. Seeing that trailer made me feel a lot like I felt when I saw that scene from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, only this time we're apparently asked to play as the perpetrator.

I certainly don't think the violence in "regular" games is completely without issues. One could argue that violence is not a good thing even in situations where it can be justified, but that this game doesn't stand out amongst others? I don't agree with that.

In regards to games like CoD I'd agree, but in regards to open world games like GTA a lot of the appeal comes from being able to cause chaos in a civilian setting (hence the title of the series). Most of the people I know focus on the sandbox angle when playing GTA and just run around killing people. When I played Vice City I didn't even do any missions, I just used the all guns cheat and ran around shooting people. I think the fidelity of the game and tone are the main things keeping it from being off-putting.

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While I feel that the whole idea of this game is extremely distasteful, I do think they should have the right to make and sell it (though I certainly won't be buying it). My main problems with this game stem not from the fact that it forces you to engage in a killing spree of the innocent, but because it's a blatant attempt to sell a game based purely on shock value. This is just speculation, but it appears from the trailer that there is a huge emphasis on stylistic violence and cinematic fatalities, rather than gameplay features or an original story. Not only does the main aspect of the gameplay look extremely easy (killing enemies that have no means or intention of defending themselves), but there was no mention of any character motivations besides wanting to kill as many people as possible and die in the process. I think this makes for a very boring game that seems more like it should be on a flash game website rather than being sold for cash.

Now some of you may say “but there are many great games where you play as a villain, just look at GTA or Saint's Row 2!” While I do agree that playing as a villain can be fun, I think this game lacks something that most of those games do: a relatable or empathetic character. I'm not saying the protaganist should be remorseful or reluctant but I think in order to justify playing as such a scumbag there should be some context as to why he is like he is so you could possibly put yourself in his shoes. In this game the protaganist is simply painted as a deranged psycho killer, meaning it would be very difficult to empathize or relate to this character unless you have murderous tendencies yourself, and I just don't think most gamers do. The reason a game like Super Mario Bros. can have such a simple yet effective story is because Mario is setting out to do something that most people consider to be a very noble act and all of the hardships he faces along the way just reinforce the point that he really believes in what he's doing. This is something a lot of people, including myself, can relate to: dedication to a cause you believe in, that is why most games tend to have a somewhat heroic protaganist. Without this driving aspect of the story, the game may end up feeling pointless or meaningless, unless the gameplay makes up for it by sheer fun factor (like GTA or Saint's Row), however from the looks of it, this game does not seem to accomplish that.

TL;DR: I think this game looks terrible.

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Re. Cine's post, it was unclear if he'd be back in reading this thread even if he's not posting, but regardless I wanted to say to everyone that I hope that kind of drive-by fuck you go fuck yourself doesn't become commonplace. I like these forums because of the high level of discourse and the feeling that if I say something stupid or wrong-headed I'll get told why, not flamed to death for it. 

 

As for my opinion on Hatred, it's been pretty thoroughly covered by the discussion here already!

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Re. Cine's post, it was unclear if he'd be back in reading this thread even if he's not posting, but regardless I wanted to say to everyone that I hope that kind of drive-by fuck you go fuck yourself doesn't become commonplace. I like these forums because of the high level of discourse and the feeling that if I say something stupid or wrong-headed I'll get told why, not flamed to death for it. 

 

Agreed!

 

I think this game looks pretty dumb but it's hard for me to get upset about what is obviously such a transparent attempt to generate outrage.

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I've only watched the trailer for this game, but my opinion is that the game looks entirely abhorrent and not a game that I would be willing to play. However, I have no desire to condemn others for playing it, and I would actively oppose any movement to ban such games.

 

I'm pretty sure that games still don't turn people into killers, and I feel that any censorship of entertainment is wrong. If an individual gets some kind of thrill out of playing a game like this — much like a sizeable number of people enjoy books with extremely controversial subject matter, paper-thin plot slash horrors, violent porn, etc — I don't have the right to judge them for it. Anybody who does so is quite simply arrogant, although expressing personal disapproval is fine.

 

I think we're going to see a lot more games like this, and that games are increasingly going to have this side catering to various taboos that is somewhat akin to comparing film and pornography. Describing all of these things as 'games' is something that will probably have to stop in the end, though.

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I'm not really the censoring type, but I think I am definitely okay with people not giving their money to neonazis.

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Everyone who thought that it was a nauseating power fantasy, step up and claim your no-prize! Hatred's being made by neo-Nazis.

I'm curious why this information is being ignored by the mainstream? It seems people are quickly defending this game as art without really looking at the devs behind it. The devs call it propaganda on their site. It's curious that a game like Bayonetta2 gets criticism for sexism but not this? Maybe because the game isn't fully released yet. I just think it's weird.

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There's this cognitive dissonance between accepting games that are promoting violent messages (not necessarily containing violent content) and rejecting sexism and problematic messages in games. I have no idea why this is the case. It could be the subconscious 4chan within all of us that says "you can hate as long as you hate everyone equally."

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