Jonesy89: That said, I don't want this game to be banned. I am, however, going to avoid it so long as the information available continues to indicate that it has no artistic merit to its otherwise tacky violence. It's not that I think that this is to be condemned for causing school shootings; it's that I think that the material thus far released paints an image of a shit game. But hey, who knows, maybe the gas leak in the dev's office will get fixed and they will start putting effort into providing some context for the violence that, while still being uncomfortable, serves good narrative.

Jonesy89: Kill Bill wasn't about slaughtering innocent civilians. It was at its heart a film about revenge by way of killing assassins in combat. As for games as an art form, I agree. It's a shame that the devs on Hatred designed the game to deliberately not be an artistic statement, if their comments are to be believed. If there were any indication that the devs were going to use the violence for some artistic goal, I might find it interesting; to quote Yahtzee from his Extra Punctuation column:

"Killing monsters? Great. I'm all over it. Pile them in with a fucking snow plow and I'll make with the rockets. Killing cartoon villain humans in a silly game, like Deadpool? Rock on, laugh it up. We're not really supposed to identify with Deadpool, anyway, just point and laugh. Killing humans in a game to establish that our character has completely lost it, as in God of War and Spec Ops? Like it. Player-protagonist disconnect, very effective storytelling tool. Go nuts. Killing in self-defense because the guys are trying to kill you? Well, yeah, alright, as long as you never consider it something to be done casually. And that starts getting iffy when you start pre-emptively snapping necks before they've even had a chance to bring their individual intentions across."

From what I can tell, none of those purposes are being served. The game is playing itself fairly straight and is all about killing outside of self defense. Maybe there's an argument that the game is meant to serve the purpose that I bolded; given the subject matter of the game, it certainly seems that's the one that's most likely applicable to Hatred. Sadly, the devs comments seem to counter that possibility:

"These days, when a lot of games are heading to be polite, colorful, politically correct, and trying to be some kind of higher art, rather than just an entertainment--we wanted to create something against trends," the studio said about Hatred."

By their own words, there is no aspiration to use the violence to serve some artistic purpose; it's supposed to be straight up entertainment in and of itself. The gloomy, depressing mood and the sounds of civilians plead while begging for their life is supposed to be inherently entertaining without any other context. That might not be so bad in a comedy game or whatnot where the violence was whacky and silly, but again, the game is reveling in the nastiness of the main character, not so we can gain an insight into the nature of what drives someone like this to commit murder or so that we can be shown the consequences of our actions. In the information presented thus far about the game, we are supposed to find it entertainment because we find killing civilians in and of itself entertaining, no more, no less.

That said, I don't want this game to be banned. I am, however, going to avoid it so long as the information available continues to indicate that it has no artistic merit to its otherwise tacky violence. It's not that I think that this is to be condemned for causing school shootings; it's that I think that the material thus far released paints an image of a shit game. But hey, who knows, maybe the gas leak in the dev's office will get fixed and they will start putting effort into providing some context for the violence that, while still being uncomfortable, serves good narrative.

realkman666: For the record, I see nothing wrong with playing a character that kills random people just for fun. I enjoy the Spec Ops thing, but this is very valid too, and very different. Perhaps the detractors are afraid they will enjoy it, or that I will enjoy it too much and become like the character?

realkman666: How is it glorifying anything?

SnakeSqueaker: They're making killing innocent people the main point, and I think the only point, of the game and people play games for fun. So to me they are glorifying it like it's something fun to do. The whole premise is creepy, how could that even be fun role playing as a mass murderer?

On that same note, I don't think it should be banned, people should have the freedom to choose whether or not to play it and I don't think there is any correlation that violent games make violent people. Some people do like really violent, gruesome games, I just am not one of those people lol.

SnakeSqueaker: The whole premise is creepy, how could that even be fun role playing as a mass murderer?

Neobr10: Have you ever killed innocent civilians in GTA?

tajemniczybeton: Neogaf has banned discussion about it:
http://i.imgur.com/2fUlxfS.jpg

tajemniczybeton: Neogaf has banned discussion about it:
http://i.imgur.com/2fUlxfS.jpg