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[Glowcat]

Why is everyone freaking out over Hatred, when in Hotline Miami you can do all the things you can do in Hatred? You can murder civilians, you kill dozens of cops in one level, and the executions you can do range from the sadistic to the outright insane. Is it that the graphics are more realistic, or is it the fact that Hotline Miami is actually a good game with something to say? The former seems more likely, since I didn't hear this much of a freakout about Hotline Miami when the trailer arrived for it, and that's all that the controversy is going off of.

My issue with the game is a combination of things. The game trailer focusing on being able to kill marginalized groups that right-wingers typically hate or their "protectors" (don't ask me how right-wing logic works but anti-authoritarian sentiment has shown itself in the past), followed by a dev team that espouses classically bigoted views and rails against "political correctness" in games, and especially in what appears to be a setting played straight, where a white dude is "fed up with society" and decides to indiscriminately murder people, leads me to suspect this is just a simulated fantasy of right-wing extremists. Even Postal tried to make some kind of commentary on the shooter's state of mind.

As you said, most games at least try to say something about their culture, but what is 'Hatred' saying? Who is 'Hatred' trying to appeal to? What is it saying when it pretends its game is just harmless entertainment?

[pisskop]

Why is everyone freaking out over Hatred, when in Hotline Miami you can do all the things you can do in Hatred? You can murder civilians, you kill dozens of cops in one level, and the executions you can do range from the sadistic to the outright insane. Is it that the graphics are more realistic, or is it the fact that Hotline Miami is actually a good game with something to say? The former seems more likely, since I didn't hear this much of a freakout about Hotline Miami when the trailer arrived for it, and that's all that the controversy is going off of.

My issue with the game is a combination of things. The game trailer focusing on being able to kill marginalized groups that right-wingers typically hate or their "protectors" (don't ask me how right-wing logic works but anti-authoritarian sentiment has shown itself in the past), followed by a dev team that espouses classically bigoted views and rails against "political correctness" in games, and especially in what appears to be a setting played straight, where a white dude is "fed up with society" and decides to indiscriminately murder people, leads me to suspect this is just a simulated fantasy of right-wing extremists. Even Postal tried to make some kind of commentary on the shooter's state of mind.

As you said, most games at least try to say something about their culture, but what is 'Hatred' saying? Who is 'Hatred' trying to appeal to? What is it saying when it pretends its game is just harmless entertainment?

Right wing?  I could say the same exact thing but replacing 'right wing' with 'anarchist commie'.

[nenjin]

We've already had the Left Behind Video Games. Seriously, setting aside the graphicness of the violence, Hatred is a pale comparison of the unpleasant ideology shown off in that game.

Games based on repugnant ideas are not new, and this one least of all.

[penguinofhonor]

Will they be making games based off the new Left Behind with Nic Cage?

[Reelya]

That brings to mind Doug TenNapel. The guy created Earthworm Jim and The Neverhood. Some people want to shut down his new game since he's a Conservative Christian Republican with the cliched views you'd expect, nothing that stands out really, doesn't like abortion, says feminism should "let men be men", not in favor of gay marriage. Doesn't like the ACLU. Those are the worst things the blogger could cite against him. I mean "let men be men" is hardly the worst anti-feminist "hate speech" out there, yet the blogger writing this up makes it sound like he's worse than Hitler.

I'd argue he doesn't infuse any of that "message" into his games, so this is about attacking his creative works based on who he is, not what they contain.

Or ChristCenteredGamer, a site who's been ridiculed just because it reviews games from a more conservative christian viewpoint, even though it separates games into "Gameplay" and "Moral" reviews so there's no collusion.

Also, pretty sure data shows Super Bowl causes way more violence than action movies or video games, specially domestic violence.

Actually the superbowl -> domestic violence link has been debunked. it was based on faulty data that had nothing to do with the superbowl. i.e. there's no data to support the claim. Someone took a sample of data about women in one town needing ER treatment slightly more often on days the local football team was playing. Probably due to people drinking more alcohol / getting in more accidents on those days. It was a really small sample though so not a reliable sample size:

http://skepdic.com/essays/superbowl.html

On the day of a win the actual mean number of women admitted is 1.05, the average expected number is 0.75, one day after a win, actual 0.80; expected = 0.58; two days after a win, actual 0.70, expected 0.63.

On "win" days, therefore, violence increased 40%. But there were only 20 such days during the two-year study period. Doing the arithmetic, we find that 15 cases were expected, while the actual number was 21--a difference of six cases.

So, 15 -> 21 cases across 20 days in one town was exagerrated to equal a 40% increase in cases on "Superbowl Sunday". So the whole thing is down to 6 extra hospital admissions cases across 20 days compared to the average.

There was no actual connection to the Superbowl. Reporters also checked out Women's refuges and hotlines, and they said they don't get any more calls on Superbowl than any other day. Superbowl isn't any more dangerous than other days. The real domestic violence threat is Christmas, but that doesn't play as well with the media, since Superbowl is seen as a guy's day and they were desperate to connect DV to "guy stuff". Not that I'm into football mind you, but nonsense is nonsense.

http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/superbowl.asp

[Glowcat]

Right wing?  I could say the same exact thing but replacing 'right wing' with 'anarchist commie'.

I meant right-wing nationalists similar to the KKK and Neonazis. I'd guess having their views of explicit hatred marginalized has made the bitter towards the state. I'm not sure about Poland's politics when it comes to such parties but I doubt they're much different.

[Sheo]

Right wing?  I could say the same exact thing but replacing 'right wing' with 'anarchist commie'.

I meant right-wing nationalists similar to the KKK and Neonazis. I'd guess having their views of explicit hatred marginalized has made the bitter towards the state. I'm not sure about Poland's politics when it comes to such parties but I doubt they're much different.

He does kill white people who are not the police in that trailer, but of course I cannot speak for the authors of this game. It'd be rather weird to have a Neo-Nazi game made in Poland, though.

Then again, even if it is that the message that is trying to spread, I'm very anti-banning in general. Don't like it, don't buy it has always been my motto.

There's no "poisoning of the children". If this game does turn out to be Nazi trash, only skinheads and other extremists will buy it, and thus it'll be buried. No big worries.

I do understand your concern is with the message rather than the content(As in, you oppose Hatred for a different reason most people opposed, say, Rapelay) but even then, I do think it's better to use our consumer rights to express ourselves, rather than a political ban that might set a bad precedent in the future.

[penguinofhonor]

Who's recommending a political ban?

[Sheo]

Who's recommending a political ban?

Head derp. Excuse me, I haven't slept in a while and english is not my first language, so sometimes I slip up in meaning.

None of us, of course, and I mean in making the game be cancelled/not made at all.

Apologies.

[TamerVirus]

I thought the game was all about equal opportunity killing?

Man, woman, privledged, oppressed. All die.

Except children and animals, apparently

[Reelya]

Its unequal if you can kill everyone equally. Men are only 75% of murder victims in real life, it's only fair to round that up to 100% in games.

Murdering people in a game who are, as a group, the most likely murder victims in real life? What harm could that possibly do?

[Bohandas]

I thought the game was all about equal opportunity killing?

No, that's Postal 2
"Please don't think I'm a bigot. I kill races equally."

[Sheo]

I thought the game was all about equal opportunity killing?

No, that's Postal 2
"Please don't think I'm a bigot. I kill races equally."

I've actually heard good things about replayability in Postal 2.

Given I'm rather hard to offend, would you recommend it as a game, gameplay-wise?

[Neonivek]

You do kill a woman in Hotline Miami. And lots of black mobsters as well (one of the special enemy types is a black guy, simply because of limited models I think, not actual racism). So it can't be double standards.

That is true, though it's only one and she's kinda unimportant.

And yeah, the models were p limited in that game, so I'm pretty sure racism wasn't one of the reasons.

Given my knowledge of both feminism (Anita Sarceesian Styled) and just flat out Hollywood Archtypes.

The fact that "it's only one" is actually worse. If women were dispersed as alternate/original models of the various enemy types it would be less of an issue. Yet because there is one female character it points attention to it. Given she was also likely attractive it means it was also sexually fueled violence perpetrated by a male character.

As for the fact that "Black man" is a specific enemy type... Come on... It was "Black Man" as an enemy type. I am pretty sure they were cashing in on racial stereotypes here. MIND you, I don't think many people care... but still.

Also PLEASE do not let this post derail this. I am just saying that it is easy to interpret the game as sexist and racist with just that.

[penguinofhonor]

Another thing I have learned is that children are introduced to occult concepts through this game.  Now, I am not going to say that all Pokemon games are bad for everyone, or that all parents should ban their children from playing this game, but be aware that if you are not equipped to deal with this, like I believe that I am, it might be best to stay away.

There are a few things in this area to be aware of.  First, is that the trainers bring in other creatures to fight for them.  Some may view this as analogous to summoning in the occult realm.  Another aspect is dualism, or the idea of light vs. dark, with neither being inherently better or worse than another.  For example, there is a complex rock/paper/scissors system with eighteen different types of creatures and attacks, with different strengths and weaknesses of each.  Certain types, like psychic, ghost, dark, and dragon, are not considered by nature any better or worse than fire, water, bug, normal, or the new fairy type.  This is unfortunately an occult concept.

I don't think this site is getting made fun of just for having a conservative viewpoint. I think it's getting made fun of for having a conservative viewpoint from 1980.