The game is now listed on desura as DRM-Free now (it wasn't before) so those us want it free can get it

Hey, I bet you are the avatar of forums, I mean, you are a great word bender, I used Fish as an example.
And then why does DC claim GOG told them the game was good but they can't sell it? It would be easier to say GOG is a bunch of snobs or something like that. It would make the game even more controversial.

The game seems to have been delayed on Desura. It now has a July 1 release date there, while Destructive Creations' site says that the Desura release date will be announced soon™. Also, buying the game on the developer's website only grants you a Steam key.

you do know that gOg is a professional store.... do you really expect them to say - "Your game is a bit rubbish, sorry!". That would be very unprofessional and damage gOg in the long term. They would say something which sounds good to the developer, but do not mean anything at all. And that's what they did.

Another possibility is that Destructive Creations is not telling you everything. What if the reply is longer? Something like "The game is good, but we can't. There is just to many glitches and bugs at the moment. Resubmit a new build when you have ironed them out"....

Not really. Firstly it would alienate most of gOg's user base, and secondly it will burn Destructive Creations future attempts to get on gOg (with Hatred or any other future games). It would be a rather silly thing to do.

You have elements of that in many games. "Vampires The Masquerade" has two games where you play the monster, with enough gameplay and story elements that make it interesting. Games like "Prototype" let you play the monster in an open world. Such games, along with "AvP", let you toy with food as much as you want - you can chase a chosen helpless target around, and play cat and mouse with it as long as you want before swallowing him. Same with the likes of "Carmageddon", "Stubbs", "Elder scroll" (become a vampire or a werewolf), and "Ghost Master", etc (heck, some might argue that even the Arkham series would qualify). The thing is, you do it for five minutes and then it feels bland. So you have the rest of the game to advance in content until your next slice of aimless sadistic relaxation. Aimless sadistic relaxation which is a fun concept for a moment, but not satisfactory for long : you can find many apps about slapping a politician (or a foreigner), and they do have some download success, but they hardly constitute viable games.

I think that, on the true game front (especially indie, where you have quite a few vampire games exploiting light/shadow puzzles), we are already served the best way we can be...

The problem is very few enter in the area of horror (Withotu being also another genre) Imagine playing for example Amnesia, from the perspective of the entity pursuing the main character. Overcoming the obstacles the human builds to stop you, just an example. Of course the point is making a good game, and that is where the challenge lies, not in the originality of the concept. Some good games are rather unoriginal and some bad games are very original.
Until I hear the full story and corrupt inide developers stop being corrupt indie developers I will not discard my theory without good evidence.

Your words... you do know that Hatred is developed by... umm.... indie developers?

And it does not change the fact that gOg have to act professional.... but please, feel free to have your theory.

I don't have very solid evidence, but I have ways to prove it is plausible. GOG does not liek to lose games in their catalog. Some indie developers are corrupt, and if they hate DC for whatever reason they could push GOG by threatening with removing games. Therefore GOG would yield because they don't want to risk everything for a single game.
Saying "We can't sell it" is not that professional, it sounds more like scared. And not all inides are corrupt, but those who are are also very powerful.

yes you are correct it is called burden of proof.

For LeonardoCornejo, Burden of proof means one has to prove one's assertions as true. So if you make a claim, in this case "GOG rejected the game because it was controversial" you will have to prove that is the case, if not then it's false until you prove otherwise. Not the other way around.

I partly agree, not that it sounds like being scared, but it do not feel like a complete message. Which probably mean there is more to that message than what DC is showing on Twitter...

and one of the thing about Indies? they are not very powerful at all... which is why they are indies... unless you count Valve or EA as indies (which you actually can, but that's a completely different discussion).

I did google "Withotu" expecting it to be another game genre (japanese or something). D'oh.

Anyway, one issue with the "horror" genre is, heck, the horror itself. It is mostly felt when there is a sense of dread, of fear, of vulnerability. This is felt by/through the victim. The monster is giggling. When you identify to the monster, is it still horror ? Does it still belong to the genre, or does it subvert it into its opposite ? For me, Jaws and its sequels belong to different genres, because in the sequels I root for the shark and don't care about the victims. The original Jaws manages to make me believe in its protagonists and side with them - and feel horror at what they face.

That may be one reason why most games that have you play the baddie have a cheerful tone. They rarely try to elicit a feeling that is at odds with their function. Haunted houses are scary when you're on the frightened end. When you're the frightener, it's a comedy - which gets aknowledged by most "inverted horror premise" games. And the more tension and obstacles you add (in order to not make it just an interactive torture app), the less it stays horror : Despite his occasional shriek-at-civilian-to-make-it-curl-and-weep moments, AvP's Alien is itself a horror-survival victim trying to escape death against all odds. Fright Night's vampire has to mariobros his way through idiotic ghosts and skeleton hands. Masquerade's vampire mostly fight each others. And Terrordrome wasn't pitting horror figures against a gallery of passive victims.

Basically, I consider that a "[horror] [game] [where you play the monster]" is a contradiction in terms. And that attempts to combine all of these just either fall flat or unwittingly ditch one. Succesful games consciously ditch one.

Tinfoil hat time!

What if I told you... that the Hatred devs wanted to drum up some more manufactured controversy by preemprively "banning" the game from sale in Australia and Germany. The GOG crew, with the considerable backlash against region-locking Hotline Miami 2 and Commandos still fresh in their minds, chose not to play along, fearing that this would undoubtedly lead to more sour grapes among their customers. So they chose that they "can't" sell the game, without considering the shitstorm this refusal might eventually lead to.

I loved this conversation. Now I am inspired to write down some ideas I came up with.
Wow. That actualy makes more sense than my theory. Of course, until something new comes out all these theories are in the air as plausible.

Hmm... interesting thought, although if that were the case one would think they'd make a point of telling us. Unless they can't for some legal reasons.