I'm going to be very interested in seeing what happens when the game is released, people shoot up schools and neighborhoods and people have the temerity to call the developers on their bullshit. Or that maybe, just maybe, they have a responsibility to society, just like everyone, not to encourage that sort of evil.
And they picked one hell of a political climate to do it in.
I'm honestly not sure what you think would happen.
I'm going to be very interested in seeing what happens when the game is released, people shoot up schools and neighborhoods and people have the temerity to call the developers on their bullshit. Or that maybe, just maybe, they have a responsibility to society, just like everyone, not to encourage that sort of evil.
And they picked one hell of a political climate to do it in.
I'm honestly not sure what you think would happen.
I am guessing World War III
Switch SW-6182-1526-0041
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
There is no political climate in which it is "safe" to shock people; some people will always resent being shocked.
Anyway, I don't imagine Hatred will be inspiring any killing sprees anytime soon. ("After the release of Nintendo's latest Mario game, we're reporting a 30% increase in mushroom consumption and people getting stuck in pipes. Those with pet turtles are urged to keep them inside for their own safety."
In fact, it's entirely possible that the ability to virtually murder people in high def will act as a stress reliever.
There is no political climate in which it is "safe" to shock people; some people will always resent being shocked.
Anyway, I don't imagine Hatred will be inspiring any killing sprees anytime soon. ("After the release of Nintendo's latest Mario game, we're reporting a 30% increase in mushroom consumption and people getting stuck in pipes. Those with pet turtles are urged to keep them inside for their own safety."
In fact, it's entirely possible that the ability to virtually murder people in high def will act as a stress reliever.
All it's going to do is attract more awful people to the gaming space. It's not going to make people more violent, it's going to make the gaming space filled with more GG like assholes.
There is no political climate in which it is "safe" to shock people; some people will always resent being shocked.
Anyway, I don't imagine Hatred will be inspiring any killing sprees anytime soon. ("After the release of Nintendo's latest Mario game, we're reporting a 30% increase in mushroom consumption and people getting stuck in pipes. Those with pet turtles are urged to keep them inside for their own safety."
In fact, it's entirely possible that the ability to virtually murder people in high def will act as a stress reliever.
All it's going to do is attract more awful people to the gaming space. It's not going to make people more violent, it's going to make the gaming space filled with more GG like assholes.
The industry has been growing every year, the number of people playing games grows every year. More people participating inevitably means more assholes, Hatred or no Hatred.
There is no political climate in which it is "safe" to shock people; some people will always resent being shocked.
Anyway, I don't imagine Hatred will be inspiring any killing sprees anytime soon. ("After the release of Nintendo's latest Mario game, we're reporting a 30% increase in mushroom consumption and people getting stuck in pipes. Those with pet turtles are urged to keep them inside for their own safety."
In fact, it's entirely possible that the ability to virtually murder people in high def will act as a stress reliever.
All it's going to do is attract more awful people to the gaming space. It's not going to make people more violent, it's going to make the gaming space filled with more GG like assholes.
The industry has been growing every year, the number of people playing games grows every year. More people participating inevitably means more assholes, Hatred or no Hatred.
Shift in percentage then. You'd hope that arseholes, being the minority amongst humans, would be marginalised the more people get involved - and that's kind of what we're seeing. It's just the arseholes we've got at the moment aren't happy with that and so are acting louder in order to try to shift the balance in their direction for a little while.
There's definitely a difference between videogames in which violence occurs and videogames that intend to be offensively violent (and again with those that aim to be comically violent). There's links to the same sort of arguments you'd have when bringing up the apparently wierd issue of sex and violence in the media - in which serious violence is understood as being acceptable to show to a younger audience than normal sex. It's relatively easy to rate things based on the acts involved, but very complicated when there's a range of motives and situations that can put those acts in very different brackets.
Motive (and how it's portrayed) matters a lot, I don't think anyone would argue that the violence in Star Wars, Reservoir Dogs and Hostel are the same because they all include some form of amputation.
Was Postal that sophisticated? I thought we were talking about a similar kind of thing to the earlier GTAs and Carmageddons - killing civilians for points, who would otherwise largely be blindingly unaware of your activities.
Or was Postal the first game to try to humanise your victims?
Thought Manhunt would be the go to comparison for this kind of thing, though that still had the same figleaf Taken uses, in that your victims are bad people and 'deserve it'.
There is no political climate in which it is "safe" to shock people; some people will always resent being shocked.
Anyway, I don't imagine Hatred will be inspiring any killing sprees anytime soon. ("After the release of Nintendo's latest Mario game, we're reporting a 30% increase in mushroom consumption and people getting stuck in pipes. Those with pet turtles are urged to keep them inside for their own safety."
In fact, it's entirely possible that the ability to virtually murder people in high def will act as a stress reliever.
All it's going to do is attract more awful people to the gaming space. It's not going to make people more violent, it's going to make the gaming space filled with more GG like assholes.
So to be clear, the way you're going to stop the people who attack and belittle others for their arbitrary tastes in art is by attacking and belittling them for their arbitrary tastes in art?
There is no political climate in which it is "safe" to shock people; some people will always resent being shocked.
Anyway, I don't imagine Hatred will be inspiring any killing sprees anytime soon. ("After the release of Nintendo's latest Mario game, we're reporting a 30% increase in mushroom consumption and people getting stuck in pipes. Those with pet turtles are urged to keep them inside for their own safety."
In fact, it's entirely possible that the ability to virtually murder people in high def will act as a stress reliever.
All it's going to do is attract more awful people to the gaming space. It's not going to make people more violent, it's going to make the gaming space filled with more GG like assholes.
So to be clear, the way you're going to stop the people who attack and belittle others for their arbitrary tastes in art is by attacking and belittling them for their arbitrary tastes in art?
That doesn't sound like a very good plan.
What are you on about? Yes, a game which has no story besides "go kill defenseless people because you're crazy" with absolutely no subtext is going to appeal to certain type of person. That person is an asshole.
This is unrelated to if the game should be on a service or not. If the game is exactly what the devs say it is, it doesn't have any redeemable or attractive qualities to it.
Good to know that everything in the world is fine and doesn't need reporting upon, otherwise The Sun (and their sister publication The Times who have been reporting on this non-story) could be considered scum-sucking shitbags for taking up time on this publicity stunt and getting people riled up about "censorship".
Are you
Are you sure that this tabloid is a newspaper
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
I dont understand how people keep saying that Hatred is just like every other violent video game even after it got a AO rating
Maybe, just maybe, there is a reason for that
It's being compared to a handful of games for very specific reasons. Hotline Miami because that game is also about a psychopath on a violent rampage; GTA because that's the most popular violent video game out there (with comparisons discussing how the game's context alters the perception of its content and whether that's valid); Manhunt (one of the two dozen or so games to ever get an AO rating); and Postal (which as I understand it is also considered to be a crassly violent game about a man on a shooting spree).
But I think the wider point is that it's hard to conceive of anything Hatred could be that would make it dangerous in any way that wouldn't apply to most violent video games.
I dont understand how people keep saying that Hatred is just like every other violent video game even after it got a AO rating
Maybe, just maybe, there is a reason for that
It's being compared to a handful of games for very specific reasons. Hotline Miami because that game is also about a psychopath on a violent rampage; GTA because that's the most popular violent video game out there (with comparisons discussing how the game's context alters the perception of its content and whether that's valid); Manhunt (one of the two dozen or so games to ever get an AO rating); and Postal (which as I understand it is also considered to be a crassly violent game about a man on a shooting spree).
But I think the wider point is that it's hard to conceive of anything Hatred could be that would make it dangerous in any way that wouldn't apply to most violent video games.
Timing and effort meets a wider audience, pretty much. If we're asking the question "Why might Hatred cause more damage that previous violent video games?".
Shitty graphics and a smaller community have limited most other games, with the more popular ones rapidly evolving out of the same kind of mould if you're comparing Hatred to stuff like GTA nowadays rather than the early versions. Hatred could easily reach 1000X more people than Postal did, and maybe even could (since old games tend not to get revisited unless they're exceptional) - at a time when the issues involved in making a game like Hatred are under the public eye.
Obviously for a given value of dangerous, whether you're looking at broad social trends or specifically an individual committing some atrocity they otherwise wouldn't have. Can certainly see it causing harm as far as the general idea of games and gamers in society goes, but reckon the later is probably irrelevant (other than the influences by the former).
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
Hotline Miami because that game is also about a psychopath on a violent rampage; GTA because that's the most popular violent video game out there .
One guy in GTA5 is also a psychopath on a violent rampage and the other two aren't much better. Or at least that's how I compare the games.
Don't get me wrong, I love playing psychopaths on violent rampages, but based on the gameplay and main gist of the story so far I can't really say Hatred is much worse than these other games.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
I dont understand how people keep saying that Hatred is just like every other violent video game even after it got a AO rating
Maybe, just maybe, there is a reason for that
It's being compared to a handful of games for very specific reasons. Hotline Miami because that game is also about a psychopath on a violent rampage; GTA because that's the most popular violent video game out there (with comparisons discussing how the game's context alters the perception of its content and whether that's valid); Manhunt (one of the two dozen or so games to ever get an AO rating); and Postal (which as I understand it is also considered to be a crassly violent game about a man on a shooting spree).
But I think the wider point is that it's hard to conceive of anything Hatred could be that would make it dangerous in any way that wouldn't apply to most violent video games.
Timing and effort meets a wider audience, pretty much. If we're asking the question "Why might Hatred cause more damage that previous violent video games?".
Shitty graphics and a smaller community have limited most other games, with the more popular ones rapidly evolving out of the same kind of mould if you're comparing Hatred to stuff like GTA nowadays rather than the early versions. Hatred could easily reach 1000X more people than Postal did, and maybe even could (since old games tend not to get revisited unless they're exceptional) - at a time when the issues involved in making a game like Hatred are under the public eye.
Obviously for a given value of dangerous, whether you're looking at broad social trends or specifically an individual committing some atrocity they otherwise wouldn't have. Can certainly see it causing harm as far as the general idea of games and gamers in society goes, but reckon the later is probably irrelevant (other than the influences by the former).
I don't think Hatred is going to have anywhere near the audience that GTA has. Or, like, I've killed the population of a small nation (of brown people) over the course of the Uncharted games, and so have 17 million other people. That is the actual sales total for the series, not a made-up "hojillion" number. In contrast, Hatred got something like 200,000 Greenlight votes before Steam approved it for sale. So we're talking a difference of a couple orders of magnitude.
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JuliusCaptain of Serenityon my shipRegistered Userregular
I dont understand how people keep saying that Hatred is just like every other violent video game even after it got a AO rating
Maybe, just maybe, there is a reason for that
It's being compared to a handful of games for very specific reasons. Hotline Miami because that game is also about a psychopath on a violent rampage; GTA because that's the most popular violent video game out there (with comparisons discussing how the game's context alters the perception of its content and whether that's valid); Manhunt (one of the two dozen or so games to ever get an AO rating); and Postal (which as I understand it is also considered to be a crassly violent game about a man on a shooting spree).
But I think the wider point is that it's hard to conceive of anything Hatred could be that would make it dangerous in any way that wouldn't apply to most violent video games.
Timing and effort meets a wider audience, pretty much. If we're asking the question "Why might Hatred cause more damage that previous violent video games?".
Shitty graphics and a smaller community have limited most other games, with the more popular ones rapidly evolving out of the same kind of mould if you're comparing Hatred to stuff like GTA nowadays rather than the early versions. Hatred could easily reach 1000X more people than Postal did, and maybe even could (since old games tend not to get revisited unless they're exceptional) - at a time when the issues involved in making a game like Hatred are under the public eye.
Obviously for a given value of dangerous, whether you're looking at broad social trends or specifically an individual committing some atrocity they otherwise wouldn't have. Can certainly see it causing harm as far as the general idea of games and gamers in society goes, but reckon the later is probably irrelevant (other than the influences by the former).
I don't think Hatred is going to have anywhere near the audience that GTA has. Or, like, I've killed the population of a small nation (of brown people) over the course of the Uncharted games, and so have 17 million other people. That is the actual sales total for the series, not a made-up "hojillion" number. In contrast, Hatred got something like 200,000 Greenlight votes before Steam approved it for sale. So we're talking a difference of a couple orders of magnitude.
Yeah the "Online PC games sales are a tiny part of the total market" argument goes both ways. Most people aren't going to give a shit about Hatred.
There is no political climate in which it is "safe" to shock people; some people will always resent being shocked.
Anyway, I don't imagine Hatred will be inspiring any killing sprees anytime soon. ("After the release of Nintendo's latest Mario game, we're reporting a 30% increase in mushroom consumption and people getting stuck in pipes. Those with pet turtles are urged to keep them inside for their own safety."
In fact, it's entirely possible that the ability to virtually murder people in high def will act as a stress reliever.
All it's going to do is attract more awful people to the gaming space. It's not going to make people more violent, it's going to make the gaming space filled with more GG like assholes.
So to be clear, the way you're going to stop the people who attack and belittle others for their arbitrary tastes in art is by attacking and belittling them for their arbitrary tastes in art?
That doesn't sound like a very good plan.
Oh man if someone's taste is garbo Imma totally say so.
I really like when examples of violent, controversial, and disgusting video game gets mentioned Duke Nukem Forever hardly ever makes the cut, like it was even bad at being that
It is delicious to me
Paladin on
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I really like when examples of violent, controversial, and disgusting video game gets mentioned Duke Nukem Forever hardly ever makes the cut, like it was even bad at being that
It is delicious to me
Duke Nukem Forever was an awful awful game, its only risky thing was the nudity and the alien rape, both sexual not at all some kind of mass shooter fantasy.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I'm sure it had some gory stuff in it; I just can't remember any of it
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I dont understand how people keep saying that Hatred is just like every other violent video game even after it got a AO rating
Maybe, just maybe, there is a reason for that
It's being compared to a handful of games for very specific reasons. Hotline Miami because that game is also about a psychopath on a violent rampage; GTA because that's the most popular violent video game out there (with comparisons discussing how the game's context alters the perception of its content and whether that's valid); Manhunt (one of the two dozen or so games to ever get an AO rating); and Postal (which as I understand it is also considered to be a crassly violent game about a man on a shooting spree).
But I think the wider point is that it's hard to conceive of anything Hatred could be that would make it dangerous in any way that wouldn't apply to most violent video games.
Hotline Miami was about subtext and style. While it was also about a mass murderer on a rampage, there was much more to it than that.
While GTA allows for rediculous murder sprees, that's again not the whole package, and hasn't been since the jump to 3d.
Manhunt I think is an apt comparison.
Postal as well, even though there is a difference where Postal was basically trying to be edgy shock comedy. I think it was awful and stupid, but basically harmless.
What is really off putting about Hatred is the overall tone of the trailer and the statements by the developers as far as the context of the violence (there isn't one). Basically AFAIK the game has a serious tone, with the main character killing not only innocent people but ones that show fear and terror. And the developers have basically acted like that's it as far as a narrative. So basically the appeal of the game is... Killing terrified unarmed people in a game with a serious tone and semi-realistic violence?
None of those other games are based around that premise.
Edit: I was wrong on Postal of you're talking about the first one and not the sequels. The first one sounds pretty much exactly like what we know about Hatred.
Was Postal that sophisticated? I thought we were talking about a similar kind of thing to the earlier GTAs and Carmageddons - killing civilians for points, who would otherwise largely be blindingly unaware of your activities.
Or was Postal the first game to try to humanise your victims?
Thought Manhunt would be the go to comparison for this kind of thing, though that still had the same figleaf Taken uses, in that your victims are bad people and 'deserve it'.
The first Postal is pretty much what Hatred is without the exposition from the character.
Postal 2 was a "go about your day but everyone else is an asshole and the world hates you" simulator in which the goal was to go about your day without murdering people. But you could totally murder everyone and they would cry and beg etc.
Well if the game ever does get a release it'll be a nice test to see who's probably a shitty person on your steam friends list.
Does this go for any violent game?
In which you are a psycopath murdering screaming civilians begging for their lives? yes. So anyone who has postal or the like.
So it isn't the violence but the portrayal of the virtual victims begging for their lives?
Yes the games narrative of "kill innocent people and make them beg for their lives" is off putting. In the same way I don't watch Eli Roth movies or the horrid "The Following" because I'm not interested in psychotic violence for pleasure.
It doesn't help that Hatred is appealing to the ethics in gaming journalism set, so again if a friend of mine was playing this game I'd dump them from my friends list.
I would like some money because these are artisanal nuggets of wisdom philistine.
I once bought a pretty evil game to test if I was a sociopath or not
turns out that is not a healthy question to ask yourself
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Well if the game ever does get a release it'll be a nice test to see who's probably a shitty person on your steam friends list.
Does this go for any violent game?
In which you are a psycopath murdering screaming civilians begging for their lives? yes. So anyone who has postal or the like.
So it isn't the violence but the portrayal of the virtual victims begging for their lives?
Yes. If you enjoy a game where committing extreme violence, for no reason, against innocent people who are begging for their lives, crying, pleading, is the whole game, you're probably a shitty person.
Just like of you enjoy a flash game about killing someone you don't agree with you're also probably a shitty person.
Well if the game ever does get a release it'll be a nice test to see who's probably a shitty person on your steam friends list.
Does this go for any violent game?
In which you are a psycopath murdering screaming civilians begging for their lives? yes. So anyone who has postal or the like.
So it isn't the violence but the portrayal of the virtual victims begging for their lives?
Yes. If you enjoy a game where committing extreme violence, for no reason, against innocent people who are begging for their lives, crying, pleading, is the whole game, you're probably a shitty person.
Just like of you enjoy a flash game about killing someone you don't agree with you're also probably a shitty person.
Or like if you play a game about invading and occupying a foreign country, placing a bomb in a terrorist attack, or using IEDs to kill people, you're a shitty person.
Well if the game ever does get a release it'll be a nice test to see who's probably a shitty person on your steam friends list.
Does this go for any violent game?
In which you are a psycopath murdering screaming civilians begging for their lives? yes. So anyone who has postal or the like.
So it isn't the violence but the portrayal of the virtual victims begging for their lives?
Yes. If you enjoy a game where committing extreme violence, for no reason, against innocent people who are begging for their lives, crying, pleading, is the whole game, you're probably a shitty person.
Just like of you enjoy a flash game about killing someone you don't agree with you're also probably a shitty person.
Or like if you play a game about invading and occupying a foreign country, placing a bomb in a terrorist attack, or using IEDs to kill people, you're a shitty person.
Ah, yes, of course. There is absolutely no difference between a game set in a war and a game that asks you to take joy and entertainment from slaughtering unarmed innocent people begging for their lives for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
No I don't.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Well if the game ever does get a release it'll be a nice test to see who's probably a shitty person on your steam friends list.
Does this go for any violent game?
In which you are a psycopath murdering screaming civilians begging for their lives? yes. So anyone who has postal or the like.
So it isn't the violence but the portrayal of the virtual victims begging for their lives?
Yes. If you enjoy a game where committing extreme violence, for no reason, against innocent people who are begging for their lives, crying, pleading, is the whole game, you're probably a shitty person.
Just like of you enjoy a flash game about killing someone you don't agree with you're also probably a shitty person.
But it's not real. Which cuts both ways, to me--if vicarious enjoyment of fictional violence is wrong, then I don't see how any "reasons" for that violence or any characterization of the victims could change that, because it's all equally (and deliberately) invented. I mean, is it okay to enjoy the mass murder in Uncharted because Drake really, really wants the treasure? Or because they shot first? (I mean, we had people today in the movie thread arguing that it's wrong for actual soldiers in actual wars to enjoy killing the enemy.) Is it okay to enjoy a slasher movie, or a gory action film? Either people should be judged on their emotional reactions to simulated violence or they shouldn't be, but if you're going to do it, you should be indicting as shitty a much wider swath of the population than just the people who will like Hatred.
Well if the game ever does get a release it'll be a nice test to see who's probably a shitty person on your steam friends list.
Does this go for any violent game?
In which you are a psycopath murdering screaming civilians begging for their lives? yes. So anyone who has postal or the like.
So it isn't the violence but the portrayal of the virtual victims begging for their lives?
Yes. If you enjoy a game where committing extreme violence, for no reason, against innocent people who are begging for their lives, crying, pleading, is the whole game, you're probably a shitty person.
Just like of you enjoy a flash game about killing someone you don't agree with you're also probably a shitty person.
But it's not real. Which cuts both ways, to me--if vicarious enjoyment of fictional violence is wrong, then I don't see how any "reasons" for that violence or any characterization of the victims could change that, because it's all equally (and deliberately) invented. I mean, is it okay to enjoy the mass murder in Uncharted because Drake really, really wants the treasure? Or because they shot first? (I mean, we had people today in the movie thread arguing that it's wrong for actual soldiers in actual wars to enjoy killing the enemy.) Is it okay to enjoy a slasher movie, or a gory action film? Either people should be judged on their emotional reactions to simulated violence or they shouldn't be, but if you're going to do it, you should be indicting as shitty a much wider swath of the population than just the people who will like Hatred.
Well if the game ever does get a release it'll be a nice test to see who's probably a shitty person on your steam friends list.
Does this go for any violent game?
In which you are a psycopath murdering screaming civilians begging for their lives? yes. So anyone who has postal or the like.
So it isn't the violence but the portrayal of the virtual victims begging for their lives?
Yes. If you enjoy a game where committing extreme violence, for no reason, against innocent people who are begging for their lives, crying, pleading, is the whole game, you're probably a shitty person.
Just like of you enjoy a flash game about killing someone you don't agree with you're also probably a shitty person.
Or like if you play a game about invading and occupying a foreign country, placing a bomb in a terrorist attack, or using IEDs to kill people, you're a shitty person.
Ah, yes, of course. There is absolutely no difference between a game set in a war and a game that asks you to take joy and entertainment from slaughtering unarmed innocent people begging for their lives for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
I'm pretty sure by that metric the enjoying the Saints Row games makes someone a shitty person. When shit goes down they cower and beg and life there is so cheap. You can't not end up slaughtering people who wouldn't otherwise qualify as an 'enemy'.
Oh, they're fun. But playing them is a bit like leaving things to sit in a room full of smokers. Eventually this grimy film covers everything and you feel very uncomfortable about it.
Also, reducing the counter-argument to 'liking games with conflict in them makes you shitty' doesn't make you a shitty person. It's just not really very effective given that a vast majority of all games produced involve conflict at some point. Fucking RISK is about invading and occupying foreign countries. Playing it doesn't make you an asshole.
Well if the game ever does get a release it'll be a nice test to see who's probably a shitty person on your steam friends list.
Does this go for any violent game?
In which you are a psycopath murdering screaming civilians begging for their lives? yes. So anyone who has postal or the like.
So it isn't the violence but the portrayal of the virtual victims begging for their lives?
Yes. If you enjoy a game where committing extreme violence, for no reason, against innocent people who are begging for their lives, crying, pleading, is the whole game, you're probably a shitty person.
Just like of you enjoy a flash game about killing someone you don't agree with you're also probably a shitty person.
But it's not real. Which cuts both ways, to me--if vicarious enjoyment of fictional violence is wrong, then I don't see how any "reasons" for that violence or any characterization of the victims could change that, because it's all equally (and deliberately) invented. I mean, is it okay to enjoy the mass murder in Uncharted because Drake really, really wants the treasure? Or because they shot first? (I mean, we had people today in the movie thread arguing that it's wrong for actual soldiers in actual wars to enjoy killing the enemy.) Is it okay to enjoy a slasher movie, or a gory action film? Either people should be judged on their emotional reactions to simulated violence or they shouldn't be, but if you're going to do it, you should be indicting as shitty a much wider swath of the population than just the people who will like Hatred.
Context does matter.
And what makes the context different between a mass shooting and a terrorist bombing?
Are people playing Counter Strike reprehensible if they play as T because they are simulating a terrorist attack?
I have friends that were blown up and lost limbs to IEDs, does that mean it's ok for me to label someone as a shitty person that plays Insurgency and they use IEDs to kill the other team?
Well if the game ever does get a release it'll be a nice test to see who's probably a shitty person on your steam friends list.
Does this go for any violent game?
In which you are a psycopath murdering screaming civilians begging for their lives? yes. So anyone who has postal or the like.
So it isn't the violence but the portrayal of the virtual victims begging for their lives?
Yes. If you enjoy a game where committing extreme violence, for no reason, against innocent people who are begging for their lives, crying, pleading, is the whole game, you're probably a shitty person.
Just like of you enjoy a flash game about killing someone you don't agree with you're also probably a shitty person.
Or like if you play a game about invading and occupying a foreign country, placing a bomb in a terrorist attack, or using IEDs to kill people, you're a shitty person.
Ah, yes, of course. There is absolutely no difference between a game set in a war and a game that asks you to take joy and entertainment from slaughtering unarmed innocent people begging for their lives for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
I'm pretty sure by that metric the enjoying the Saints Row games makes someone a shitty person. When shit goes down they cower and beg and life there is so cheap. You can't not end up slaughtering people who wouldn't otherwise qualify as an 'enemy'.
Oh, they're fun. But playing them is a bit like leaving things to sit in a room full of smokers. Eventually this grimy film covers everything and you feel very uncomfortable about it.
Also, reducing the counter-argument to 'liking games with conflict in them makes you shitty' doesn't make you a shitty person. It's just not really very effective given that a vast majority of all games produced involve conflict at some point. Fucking RISK is about invading and occupying foreign countries. Playing it doesn't make you an asshole.
The Saints Row games are basically violent cartoon playgrounds though, while games like Grand Theft Auto at least have an ostensible air of gravitas to them. They're trying to be taken seriously. The humor isn't dumb jokes, it's clever satire, etc.
I think GTA has shifted from violent cartoon playgrounds to...whatever it's trying to be now. (No spoilers, please. I still haven't played V.) And having just completed SR3, I can say there was certainly a lot of fun in rolling down the streets blowing shit up in a tank. And they went pretty balls out with some of those major set pieces. But I was still disturbed by how disposable regular citizens are. It sometimes felt like a Dark Side playthrough in the first KOTOR. Just a bunch of petty, evil minded shit to fill up some metre. At least in SR2 I could call ambulances if I accidentally killed somebody.
It'd be nice if every game had a larger point to make. But they don't. SR games have been fun so far, but they don't really have a message deeper than 'blow shit up real good'. Which is fine. But I can't deny it makes me a tad uncomfortable.
Hatred can do what it wants. But my quota of ultra-violence is filled by other games with less sketchy backgrounds.
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I'm honestly not sure what you think would happen.
I am guessing World War III
Anyway, I don't imagine Hatred will be inspiring any killing sprees anytime soon. ("After the release of Nintendo's latest Mario game, we're reporting a 30% increase in mushroom consumption and people getting stuck in pipes. Those with pet turtles are urged to keep them inside for their own safety."
In fact, it's entirely possible that the ability to virtually murder people in high def will act as a stress reliever.
All it's going to do is attract more awful people to the gaming space. It's not going to make people more violent, it's going to make the gaming space filled with more GG like assholes.
The industry has been growing every year, the number of people playing games grows every year. More people participating inevitably means more assholes, Hatred or no Hatred.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Shift in percentage then. You'd hope that arseholes, being the minority amongst humans, would be marginalised the more people get involved - and that's kind of what we're seeing. It's just the arseholes we've got at the moment aren't happy with that and so are acting louder in order to try to shift the balance in their direction for a little while.
There's definitely a difference between videogames in which violence occurs and videogames that intend to be offensively violent (and again with those that aim to be comically violent). There's links to the same sort of arguments you'd have when bringing up the apparently wierd issue of sex and violence in the media - in which serious violence is understood as being acceptable to show to a younger audience than normal sex. It's relatively easy to rate things based on the acts involved, but very complicated when there's a range of motives and situations that can put those acts in very different brackets.
Motive (and how it's portrayed) matters a lot, I don't think anyone would argue that the violence in Star Wars, Reservoir Dogs and Hostel are the same because they all include some form of amputation.
Does this go for any violent game?
In which you are a psycopath murdering screaming civilians begging for their lives? yes. So anyone who has postal or the like.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Or was Postal the first game to try to humanise your victims?
Thought Manhunt would be the go to comparison for this kind of thing, though that still had the same figleaf Taken uses, in that your victims are bad people and 'deserve it'.
Maybe, just maybe, there is a reason for that
So to be clear, the way you're going to stop the people who attack and belittle others for their arbitrary tastes in art is by attacking and belittling them for their arbitrary tastes in art?
That doesn't sound like a very good plan.
Nah, assholes are people who know what they do hurts people and don't care. Have a lack of empathy.
What you're talking about is people annoying others, which might not say much about anyone besides the person who's annoyed.
What are you on about? Yes, a game which has no story besides "go kill defenseless people because you're crazy" with absolutely no subtext is going to appeal to certain type of person. That person is an asshole.
This is unrelated to if the game should be on a service or not. If the game is exactly what the devs say it is, it doesn't have any redeemable or attractive qualities to it.
Are you
Are you sure that this tabloid is a newspaper
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
It's being compared to a handful of games for very specific reasons. Hotline Miami because that game is also about a psychopath on a violent rampage; GTA because that's the most popular violent video game out there (with comparisons discussing how the game's context alters the perception of its content and whether that's valid); Manhunt (one of the two dozen or so games to ever get an AO rating); and Postal (which as I understand it is also considered to be a crassly violent game about a man on a shooting spree).
But I think the wider point is that it's hard to conceive of anything Hatred could be that would make it dangerous in any way that wouldn't apply to most violent video games.
Timing and effort meets a wider audience, pretty much. If we're asking the question "Why might Hatred cause more damage that previous violent video games?".
Shitty graphics and a smaller community have limited most other games, with the more popular ones rapidly evolving out of the same kind of mould if you're comparing Hatred to stuff like GTA nowadays rather than the early versions. Hatred could easily reach 1000X more people than Postal did, and maybe even could (since old games tend not to get revisited unless they're exceptional) - at a time when the issues involved in making a game like Hatred are under the public eye.
Obviously for a given value of dangerous, whether you're looking at broad social trends or specifically an individual committing some atrocity they otherwise wouldn't have. Can certainly see it causing harm as far as the general idea of games and gamers in society goes, but reckon the later is probably irrelevant (other than the influences by the former).
One guy in GTA5 is also a psychopath on a violent rampage and the other two aren't much better. Or at least that's how I compare the games.
Don't get me wrong, I love playing psychopaths on violent rampages, but based on the gameplay and main gist of the story so far I can't really say Hatred is much worse than these other games.
I don't think Hatred is going to have anywhere near the audience that GTA has. Or, like, I've killed the population of a small nation (of brown people) over the course of the Uncharted games, and so have 17 million other people. That is the actual sales total for the series, not a made-up "hojillion" number. In contrast, Hatred got something like 200,000 Greenlight votes before Steam approved it for sale. So we're talking a difference of a couple orders of magnitude.
Yeah the "Online PC games sales are a tiny part of the total market" argument goes both ways. Most people aren't going to give a shit about Hatred.
Oh man if someone's taste is garbo Imma totally say so.
It is delicious to me
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Duke Nukem Forever was an awful awful game, its only risky thing was the nudity and the alien rape, both sexual not at all some kind of mass shooter fantasy.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Against aliens, and nothing that I remembered as like "Wow" Other than "wow I shouldn't have bought this game."
pleasepaypreacher.net
Hotline Miami was about subtext and style. While it was also about a mass murderer on a rampage, there was much more to it than that.
While GTA allows for rediculous murder sprees, that's again not the whole package, and hasn't been since the jump to 3d.
Manhunt I think is an apt comparison.
Postal as well, even though there is a difference where Postal was basically trying to be edgy shock comedy. I think it was awful and stupid, but basically harmless.
What is really off putting about Hatred is the overall tone of the trailer and the statements by the developers as far as the context of the violence (there isn't one). Basically AFAIK the game has a serious tone, with the main character killing not only innocent people but ones that show fear and terror. And the developers have basically acted like that's it as far as a narrative. So basically the appeal of the game is... Killing terrified unarmed people in a game with a serious tone and semi-realistic violence?
None of those other games are based around that premise.
Edit: I was wrong on Postal of you're talking about the first one and not the sequels. The first one sounds pretty much exactly like what we know about Hatred.
Postal 2 was a "go about your day but everyone else is an asshole and the world hates you" simulator in which the goal was to go about your day without murdering people. But you could totally murder everyone and they would cry and beg etc.
So it isn't the violence but the portrayal of the virtual victims begging for their lives?
Yes the games narrative of "kill innocent people and make them beg for their lives" is off putting. In the same way I don't watch Eli Roth movies or the horrid "The Following" because I'm not interested in psychotic violence for pleasure.
It doesn't help that Hatred is appealing to the ethics in gaming journalism set, so again if a friend of mine was playing this game I'd dump them from my friends list.
pleasepaypreacher.net
turns out that is not a healthy question to ask yourself
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Yes. If you enjoy a game where committing extreme violence, for no reason, against innocent people who are begging for their lives, crying, pleading, is the whole game, you're probably a shitty person.
Just like of you enjoy a flash game about killing someone you don't agree with you're also probably a shitty person.
Or like if you play a game about invading and occupying a foreign country, placing a bomb in a terrorist attack, or using IEDs to kill people, you're a shitty person.
Ah, yes, of course. There is absolutely no difference between a game set in a war and a game that asks you to take joy and entertainment from slaughtering unarmed innocent people begging for their lives for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
But it's not real. Which cuts both ways, to me--if vicarious enjoyment of fictional violence is wrong, then I don't see how any "reasons" for that violence or any characterization of the victims could change that, because it's all equally (and deliberately) invented. I mean, is it okay to enjoy the mass murder in Uncharted because Drake really, really wants the treasure? Or because they shot first? (I mean, we had people today in the movie thread arguing that it's wrong for actual soldiers in actual wars to enjoy killing the enemy.) Is it okay to enjoy a slasher movie, or a gory action film? Either people should be judged on their emotional reactions to simulated violence or they shouldn't be, but if you're going to do it, you should be indicting as shitty a much wider swath of the population than just the people who will like Hatred.
Context does matter.
I'm pretty sure by that metric the enjoying the Saints Row games makes someone a shitty person. When shit goes down they cower and beg and life there is so cheap. You can't not end up slaughtering people who wouldn't otherwise qualify as an 'enemy'.
Oh, they're fun. But playing them is a bit like leaving things to sit in a room full of smokers. Eventually this grimy film covers everything and you feel very uncomfortable about it.
Also, reducing the counter-argument to 'liking games with conflict in them makes you shitty' doesn't make you a shitty person. It's just not really very effective given that a vast majority of all games produced involve conflict at some point. Fucking RISK is about invading and occupying foreign countries. Playing it doesn't make you an asshole.
And what makes the context different between a mass shooting and a terrorist bombing?
Are people playing Counter Strike reprehensible if they play as T because they are simulating a terrorist attack?
I have friends that were blown up and lost limbs to IEDs, does that mean it's ok for me to label someone as a shitty person that plays Insurgency and they use IEDs to kill the other team?
The Saints Row games are basically violent cartoon playgrounds though, while games like Grand Theft Auto at least have an ostensible air of gravitas to them. They're trying to be taken seriously. The humor isn't dumb jokes, it's clever satire, etc.
It'd be nice if every game had a larger point to make. But they don't. SR games have been fun so far, but they don't really have a message deeper than 'blow shit up real good'. Which is fine. But I can't deny it makes me a tad uncomfortable.
Hatred can do what it wants. But my quota of ultra-violence is filled by other games with less sketchy backgrounds.