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[SealyStar]

I want to chip in on the "Is it free speech?" thing. "Free speech" is not exclusive to governments. Only the government is legally obligated to support it, but other entities can choose to support or oppose it. Valve has generally sided, for better or worse, on the free speech side, which made the Hatred takedown shocking given that it was no worse than a number of games on the service.

If Steam were one competitor in a genuinely free digital-distribution market, it wouldn't have been a big deal. However, it has a near-monopoly (>75% market share), which means that a game that doesn't make it on Steam is unlikely to make it at all; the only PC game of the past few years that was a big success without Steam has cubes and was recently bought out by Microsoft.

People have never questioned Valve's monopolism because they've been benevolent with it through things like Greenlight and the ridiculously good sales they have periodically. However, the Hatred takedown represented what concerned gamers have long feared, that Steam's power (NPI) could be used as a weapon to coerce developers and publishers into alignment with Valve's interests, whether ideological or financial.

[Rez]

I've always thought that fascism, racism, etc, aren't inherently bad. Wait, don't reply yet! Actions are bad. If the Poland decides to be a fascist state, that's mostly okay with me. Ditto if they decide by majority that you've got to be ethnically polish to get in. I draw the line at denying other people what I consider to be inalienable human rights, which I'll admit is a hard line to track. So far as I can tell, these guys haven't really done that. So for me, I'm not worried about them.

You do not understand what fascism is

e: or what human rights are for that matter.

But better to snark at him, in self-assured superiority, than explain yourself.

[pisskop]

Hunh.  There are plenty of people who admire what fascism is capable of without wanting what it often encourages.  Industriousness and the merging of politics and business being examples.

[Cheeetar]

I've always thought that fascism, racism, etc, aren't inherently bad. Wait, don't reply yet! Actions are bad. If the Poland decides to be a fascist state, that's mostly okay with me. Ditto if they decide by majority that you've got to be ethnically polish to get in. I draw the line at denying other people what I consider to be inalienable human rights, which I'll admit is a hard line to track. So far as I can tell, these guys haven't really done that. So for me, I'm not worried about them.

You do not understand what fascism is

e: or what human rights are for that matter.

But better to snark at him, in self-assured superiority, than explain yourself.

Sometimes it's best to pick your battles- not getting too involved with somebody who thinks 'fascism and racism isn't that bad, really!' seems like it might be a wise idea.

[Mictlantecuhtli]

You do not understand what fascism is

e: or what human rights are for that matter.

I find this hilarious considering one of the main aspects of fascism is selectively enforced censorship to stamp out personal expression. Lol.

[Henny]

Talfryn appears to be saying that though fascism and racism can lead to many bad things, they are not themselves inherently bad. His example was of Polish people voting to only allow ethnically Polish people to live in Poland. Is it racist? Sure - it's discriminating based on race. Is it bad? Not necessarily. They should be able to run their country how they like.

Why the heck fret over the consequences of a policy when there are highly abstract statements?

[Talfryn]

Sometimes it's best to pick your battles- not getting too involved with somebody who thinks 'fascism and racism isn't that bad, really!' seems like it might be a wise idea.

It's awful that my statement got misconstrued like that.

What I said, is fascism/racism = not bad. Full stop. I'm not arguing for their being mostly not bad. I'm arguing that they, being concepts or feelings/ideas, are wholly not bad. Nor good.

Let's say I'm horribly racist and a fascist. Certainly some may believe that after my statement. If as such I think "These arabs shouldn't be allowed to vote! Only pure blooded Talfrinians should be able to vote, and by that I mean only me, and by that, I mean, nobody should vote haha I'm a dictator"

That's a thought. I've not yet hurt anyone, or if I have it's myself, which as a consenting adult I'm allowed to do. No act, no issue.
Now, if I degrade people based upon my fascist/racist beliefs, I would judge myself to be acting against (my) morals.

If we stop allowing people to have thoughts or ideas that are bad/antisocial/discriminatory then wtf are we doing? One, you don't change a persons behavior by telling them they "can't" do something, and two, is that really how we want to do things?

Edit: I'll come out and say, despite being a /reaaally/ socially liberal American, I do still have prejudices. I struggle with not blaming obese people for their issues, and often fail. Black men in hoodies give me pause. These are misconceptions I have, and I don't have any pride in them. They suck, and I try to correct them when possible. I do this because these misconceptions hurt my ability to interact with certain populations. If I was living on a mountain top tending to a shrine, it really wouldn't make a difference. Situational vs. inherent.

[Nick K]

Is anyone actually arguing for censorship here? I think a lot of us people who aren't comfortable with sending money to people who support far-right groups aren't saying that Valve should censor them, but that it's ridiculous for individual gamers to be give them money because of some "free speech" concepts... especially as they are in fact being allowed to put their game on steam.

If you want to fight for free speech and you feel that game developers should have a right to put any game whatsoever on steam as long as it's legal, then why not campaign for Valve to allow  content like adult games on steam? Those are completely legal, and unlike hatred (which is on greenlight again) they are banned from steam.

My personal view is that I don't care about the game being edgy, I care about where the money might end up. These developers are likely to make many millions from their game and I rather suspect that some of that will end up in the hands of extremist groups who'll use it to fund their messed up political or violent agendas.
I'd be happy to buy a game like Hatred if it was good and if the developers weren't associated with abhorrent groups like that. I'd be equally unhappy to support even the least-controversial, most PC game ever if its developers were neo-fascists.

Some people have said that there are other equally-bad developers. Examples please! I don't care about some random underling in a big company, but if there are other development teams with strong links to extremist groups then I want to avoid giving them my money too! Don't mention Ford or Disney though... they both died long ago so their politics aren't relevant to how I spend my money today.

As for the whole " If I was living on a mountain top tending to a shrine, it really wouldn't make a difference". True. I agree. I don't care about far-right groups that live on mountaintops and don't take action to "degrade people based upon fascist/racist beliefs" as you put it.
These far-right organisations are not living on mountaintops. They're living in a country that has actual minority people - not potential future immigrants but Muslims, Jews and gays that were born and raised there. They don't have control over the government, thank god, or no doubt there'd be some quite nasty consequences. They still go as far as they can - often breaking the law in the process - to make the minorities they hate feel threatened and afraid.

[Rez]

I find it fairly amusing how many people who disapprove of this game don't understand the Streisand effect.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

I find it fairly amusing how many people who disapprove of this game don't understand the Streisand effect.

You shouldn't. That's pretty obvious. If they did the effect probably wouldn't exist... and I'm sure it's far less "don't understand" than "aren't aware of".

[Leafsnail]

If we stop allowing people to have thoughts or ideas that are bad/antisocial/discriminatory then wtf are we doing? One, you don't change a persons behavior by telling them they "can't" do something, and two, is that really how we want to do things?

I'll let you in on a secret: freedom of speech does not mean you have to approve of everybody's views.  Indeed I'd say that being able to point out how bad some beliefs are is a very important part of it.  This hypothetical person who holds beliefs that they literally never act on does not exist - in the real world people's ideas influence their actions, and this leads to minorities being hurt by racists.  This is especially true if they gain political power - do you really think that fascists will respect people's inalienable rights?  The entire point of the ideology is that they do not!  They outright state that Muslims should be kicked out (at best) and that gay people should be arrested!  They already harrass and attack minorities now!  Jesus Christ.

But this is getting a bit off-topic, if you want more serious points rather than withering scorn from me you should probably make a GD thread called "Are Racism and Fascism That Bad Really" instead.

[lijacote]

But this is getting a bit off-topic, if you want more serious points rather than withering scorn from me you should probably make a GD thread called "Are Racism and Fascism That Bad Really" instead.

They are just thoughts, and thoughts can't kill! Therefore we must do nothing about racism and fascism.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

</dumb idealist>

[Graknorke]

Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?

[Talfryn]

http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?topic=146739.0

For the discussion on the power/moral quality of ideas.

/- Back to topic

I feel like this game would be better if it took a more sandboxy come up with madcap ways to kill people scheme than "hold down the mouse button for five minutes straight" vibe No Russian had.

[SharpKris]

i've got no idea why the public was so butthurt about the violence in this game, you'd think they wouldn't care with all
the violent games that are already on steam.
my problem with this is that steam lets shit games get on steam.