And that's fine, but when a store continues to sell games that are out-and-out scams with no compunction and only puts their foot down for something like this, it comes across as blatant censorship. They have no moral high ground here.

Few suits have been successful, but yes. Suits like this have been filed. I seem to remember a case in which the author of a book was successfully sued for supposedly providing the "blueprint" for a robbery in a novel. Of course, even unsuccessful suits are expensive and bad for PR, and they are reasonably common. A couple of examples:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kinkel/blame/summary.html (See first paragraph)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/1295920.stm

Filed against the author. Filed against the game makers. Not the publishers. Not the store that the games were available from (which Steam would be in this case).

Well said.
Blockbuster already pre-empted this possibility to a large extent through self-regulation (refusing to rent certain types of movies--over R rating, etc.) Granted, I haven't heard of a distributor being sued in a case like this, but I don't see why it couldn't be tried if it could be proved where a shooter bought a certain game (which is possible with internet sales whereas the shooter would have to have kept a receipt, and the lawyers for the suing party would need access to it, to make suing a distributor possible in the brick-and-mortar distribution days.)

We're going to have to agree to disagree here. All studies I've ever heard of conclude that there's no correlation between violent media and real-life violence or an inverse correlation, and the very idea that the possibility of the store being sued for a game only a little more violent and distasteful than other games that they sell contributed to their decision seems patently ridiculous. It comes off as a convenient way of hand-waving the double standard in what Steam is willing to "protect" its customers from.

EDIT: I have a Steam game called "Fairy Tale About Father Frost, Ivan and Nastya." It's unplayable, crashing for me (and if the reviews are anything to go by, everyone else) just minutes into the game. Always after solving an early puzzle. This is nevertheless good enough to be available on Steam's store.

Well said. Just because a store has the right to take part in censorship(not sell a product because it's content is not PCt) doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. The Westboro Baptist Church has the right to troll people at funerals but they are definitely wrong for doing so. I have the right to walk around and say things to strangers so horrible that they will be traumatized for life but doing so would not put me on the moral high ground. The right to do something doesn't = right and only an insane person would disagree with me.

Again: Any given store has the right to refuse selling any given product. Censorhip would imply that Steam is forced by outside forces to refuse to sell a product, or that Steam is specifically focusing on not selling games with a certain theme, or that Valve is pressuring all the other stores to not sell a product. As far as I'm aware, neither of these is what's happening - someone at Valve is unfomfortable with what this game represents, and isn't uncomfortable with what you call scams (which is bullshit by the way, it doesn't take a particularily smart person to realize that others might not see early access as such). If you want to call out Steam on scam, call it out on crap like selling Earth 2160 when it flatout wasn't working - and even then:
a) Steam is quite overtly suggesting that playability of titles is a responsibility of whoever put the title on Steam (I still think it was Steam's responsibility to pull the game after getting so much negative flank, but whatever, GOG directly assures quality, yet there were times GOG used to sell games which barely worked as well - now fixed with the refund policy)
b) Steam still has the right to refuse selling any given product. If they didn't have a reason to refuse it, they quite simply would have not done it - Valve is not manned by people who randomly click buttons, it did not grow this big without being capable of making decisions. They don't need a moral ground or anyone's approval, if they're not comfortable with a product, they may not sell it. It's as simple as that.

There were practices by CD-Projects which I found questionable in the past, and there are still actions which I find slightly shady. Yet I'm not running around yelling bloody murder it's censorship they refuse to sell some games because I subjectively dislike an entirely different spectrum of their business decisions.

Look, I find the issue simple enough - making an examplary case out of Steam refusing to sell Hatred is a dangerous precedent, which can just as easily backfire on GOG, if people manage to yell loudly enough. So the solution is - don't, until a pattern emerges. The moment Steam refuses all violent games, something fishy is going on. Other than that, I'm sure Steam refuses dozens of games on daily basis.

No they don't. There is now a precedent of court banning this behaviour. And I'm not sure what about US, but I do know that in Czech Republic, you can get legally punished for such acts.

No you don't. You can absolutely get sued for slander (is it slander?), and lose the case.

"Any given store has the right to refuse selling any given product."
You already said this to him in a previous post. I don't see the point of repeating Steam's rights, over and over again like a parrot. Rights also have nothing to do with this thread so it makes no sense for you to bring them up unless you just want to troll people. Rights have nothing to do with what is right and what is wrong.

"As far as I'm aware, neither of these is what's happening - someone at Valve is unfomfortable with what this game represents"
Because it's not PC enough for them, therefore what they are doing is censorship. And your definition of censorship is incomplete. We are not talking about state censorship here. We are talking about censorship and one store can be guilty of this by refusing to sell a product because they think the product will help spread evil.

In that case, GOG is guilty of censorship against real-time strategy by refusing to sell machines of war, guilty of censorship against puzzle games by refusing to sell Thomas was Alone and Braid if I recall correctly. In the strictest sense of the world, yes, it is censorship - both by Valve and by GOG. Is it legally considered censorship however? I don't think so, unless you actually give me a legal precedent which would say otherwise.

Also, I wasn't speaking of state censorship, you should probably read my post again.

And again, that's perfectly fine. I'm not saying they don't have the right to do it. I'm making a personal judgment against them and their inconsistent policing because despite it technically being their right, they've done nothing to earn that right.

You're putting words in my mouth. The games I mentioned were never actually finished, being put out there in an unfinished state while promising certain features. The developers simply abandoned the games after players paid. They're not examples of early access done right, nor do their failures reflect on the system as a whole. However, the mentioned games are still available on the service, as is the game I mentioned in my last post's edit that simply doesn't work for anyone.

Wouldnt be too sure of this. Wasnt this the point of the most recent changes to steam? Dev's can generally do what they want, and steam doesnt seem to bother to QA what games come into the store - see all the shovelware (and those infamous cases...).
Hiding behind a "We arent comfortable with this" is a very vague statement as to why the game has been taken off the store.How about going into detail instead of just a generic statement?.

?

Mostly, I have said my piece. Look, what I'm worried here is the effect of outcries like these on overal refusal policies of online retailers, because I firmly believe they should keep this right. For the sake of Valve? Not specifically, for the sake of all online stores, for them to be capable of refusing any given product they don't find comfortable selling, and that includes GOG. And yes, I do realize this outrage is probably not big enough to change anything, so I can just let you people vent and carry on with my life.

They'd get ripped to shreads. It's the same reason as to why GOG never voices why did they refuse a game. It's really just a practicality, altho I would have liked reasons for all the refusals myself. Alas, both GOG and Valve are covering their hides, rightly so.

And Valve is a US-based company IIRC, I don't think the reasoning is difficult to figure out, I too believe they just don't want to get into legal issues later down the line - if Hatered didn't manage to gather so much notoriety, it would probably get on the service.

That wasn't a criticism directed toward all early access games, as demonstrated by the three games I specifically named after the part you quoted to explain what I meant by scams. Sorry it that was unclear.

That's fair, but the same criticism can't be levied at GOG because they actually refuse games for a variety of reasons that are always shrouded in mystery. Sure, there are a few terrible games here, but there's nowhere near the amount of shovelware and number of unplayable games that grace Steam, GamersGate, and other places that stock "junk" games. My point is only that you have to occasionally exercise that right to refuse or else risk having future refusal appear as censorship when juxtaposed with that hands-off history.

I suppose that bit about carrying on with your life means that you're done with this bit of back-and-forth, though. Best wishes with said life, and may we find something else to argue about again soon in the near future.

I really don't want to get involved with the whole thing about the game. I do have my own views on it as do many others here.

However, this whole thing with it being pulled from Steam Greenlight, there is a report button on Steam on the Greenlight listings, maybe there was a load of users that reported the game for its content and that has swayed Valve to do what they have done, they get loads of reports and no doubt any business would be the same and they will act on it.

There are to many variables on why this game has been pulled from Steam Greenlight, Steam and user reports are just 2 examples, there is more at play than just that though.