Refusing to sell a game because the game is low quality or won't sell enough copies to be worthwhile is different than taking part in censorship. Refusing to sell a game because an agreement couldn't be made with the publisher is different than taking part in censorship. Censorship is abusing your power, as a store to try to become the thought police or bending over and supporting the thought police like a cowardly little worm.

Oh I absolutely will :-P I am now quite interested in Steam's refusal policies in the past tho - since there aren't many games which has gathered quite as much notoriety as Hatered, we also have no clue which other games were refused from the service for the most part, now that Valve has more or less opened the floodgates. I do think they draw the line at overt pornography, but aside from that... Oh well.

Gaming Hypocrisy.

There was a pricing problem for Thomas, they didn't refuse to sell the game because of content.

I don't know about "censorship" and such, but I'm not too sure what Steam is doing here is even MORALLY wrong.

I remember reading a while back about some Christian baker/cake-maker in the UK that refused to design/ bake a cake for some function promoting some LGBT advocacy group because they disagreed with their agenda/beliefs. The situation is somewhat analogous: someone is requested to put resources (baking materials, or server space and bandwidth and advertising) to advance a cause that you don't agree with (irrespective of whether that cause is right or wrong), and they say "No thanks, we don't want to". Why SHOULD they have to provide resources for something they don't wish to promote?

Now see, looking at it like that gave me a new perspective. Steam doesn't care about censorship or being the thought police. Why would it? Being an amorphous company, rather than (for example) a Christian husband-wife baker team, It probably doesn't even have a "moral code" that it wishes to abide by and reject things that don't follow it. Steam cares about the bottom dollar, and how much money it will earn, and it seems they decided that the promoting/hosting/distributing a game that's main selling point so far seems to be how edgy and violent it will be, and probably won't sell all that many copies, and probably result in negative blowback for steam (resulting in possibly less use of the platform over-all) wasn't worth it- a reasoning you outlined as being different than censorship.
Steam has many games that I'd say are more violent and edgy and disturbing, but those probably didn't make their entire marketing campaign about that, so those games flew under the radar, and nobody cared (least of all steam).

The game, if/when released, would probably still be available loads of places, just not steam. Seeing as steam has something of a monopoly on PC digital distribution, one may think that's a bit unfair, but I'm not sure how wrong it is, and I'm not sure it constitutes censorship either.

Needs moar rectal rehydration. lol guise its just a game

As I said in another topic, Valve don't remove controversial big publishers' games. But don't hesitate to do so for small developers.

There is a difference between Steam and a Christian bakery. A Christian bakery is not capable of censorship because what they sell is cake. Just cake. So by refusing to make a cake for a cause they don't agree with, they aren't supporting censorship. But I still think what they did, makes them asshats. I've haven't put much though into this so maybe I could be wrong. Maybe this Christian bakery is guilty of censorship.

"Why SHOULD they have to provide resources for something they don't wish to promote?"
Because if they don't, they are taking part in censorship and censorship is evil. If they don't want to promote a product they don't like, they can just sell the product but not advertise it. Yes, I know for those stores, it's like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. But that's life. If I became the owner of Walmart or Steam or whatever, I would sell a game made by Anita Sarkeesian(even though I think she is an evil man hater) if she made a game because if I don't, I'd be supporting censorship and that is something 1000 times worse.

I don't care what Steam is and what they want. They are still taking part in censorship and it is wrong.

"and probably won't sell all that many copies, and probably result in negative blowback for steam wasn't worth it."
I highly doubt this. First of all, the blowback will be nothing more than a bunch of people whining at forums and on blogs. I highly doubt these people will boycott Steam if Steam started selling Hatred. And if they did, no loss there because most of these people aren't even real gamers. And if Hatred was available through Steam, they'd probably sell many copies because a lot of people see that Hatred is just a harmless game(and a symbol). And a lot of people can handle violence in video games. I should also point out that Hatred has already received tons of free advertisement from those who are trying to stop the spread of the game. And because the game has become so controversial, there are going to be people buying the game, just to experience something controversial.

Indies are the future... as soon as they make us more money than AAAs.

Not sure if Manhunt is closer or not, but they 10 and 7 years old respectively.

And then there's Postal, obviously. Still, originally released by an entirely different publishers, their controversy pretty much forgotten.

In Manhunt, you kill people considered "bad" by society so the game is very PC even though the violence in the game is too much for many people.
In Postal, they made it clear that the main character is insane. In Hatred, he seems very sane. Just without empathy, morals and full of hate. Hatred is the first of it's kind. Hatred is progress.... And unfortunately, whenever there is progress, religious fanatics try to stop it...

Well, I could name many bloodfest games, only accepted in the names of "survival horror" and "zombies games".

Killing zombies are just killing human people, the only difference is that they don't try to flee.

I don't think that's what Steam does here. They didn't pull the game, because they they thought it might be harmful (in a sense that it would turn people into killing machines) or politically incorrect. They probably pulled it, because they thought it would be bad PR to sell it and that it might seriously harm their business. It has nothing to do with censorship, it's a business decision.