Wait. I don't get it. Isn't pretty much every game where you kill lots of people (ie. most every FPS, TPS, etc) a "mass murder simulator"? What makes playing those ok and this not?
Some combination of being an easy target, and giving the murder simulation a slightly more depraved coat of paint than normal.
Even before Valve took this action, the game "Hatred" had become a political football of sorts. In the larger game development culture a set of social views have become fashionable that like to use social pressure to police the content of games.
The existing games do get heat, but I suspect there is a combination of both being grandfathered in, and that they are large properties/genres with publishers that can afford to weather the criticism. Also, it's a much bigger risk to Steam to de-list popular titles from publishers that have or would like to have competing digital distribution platforms.
Technically, yes, that's what they are. Tonally, though, "Hatred" is in a different category. From an Ars Technica article:
"This is the time for vengeance, and no life is worth saving, and I will put in the grave as many as I can," the protagonist says in the trailer. "It's time for me to kill, and it's time for me to die. My genocide crusade begins here."
Yes, other games -- particularly FPSes -- focus in on killing enemies as a driving mechanic. The difference here is the mechanics vs the focus: in many/most other FPS games, killing enemies is the (still very problematic) mechanic by which a story is told. It's the thing that makes the story into a game.
In "Hatred", the story is "you hate everyone, make them all die." The FPS mechanics here exist in service of the player acting as a genocidal psychopath, with zero condemnation of said genocidal psychopathy -- in fact, it seems to be condoned.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 22.9 ms ] threadSome combination of being an easy target, and giving the murder simulation a slightly more depraved coat of paint than normal.
Even before Valve took this action, the game "Hatred" had become a political football of sorts. In the larger game development culture a set of social views have become fashionable that like to use social pressure to police the content of games.
The existing games do get heat, but I suspect there is a combination of both being grandfathered in, and that they are large properties/genres with publishers that can afford to weather the criticism. Also, it's a much bigger risk to Steam to de-list popular titles from publishers that have or would like to have competing digital distribution platforms.
"This is the time for vengeance, and no life is worth saving, and I will put in the grave as many as I can," the protagonist says in the trailer. "It's time for me to kill, and it's time for me to die. My genocide crusade begins here."
(full article link here: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/12/controversial-shooter-...)
Yes, other games -- particularly FPSes -- focus in on killing enemies as a driving mechanic. The difference here is the mechanics vs the focus: in many/most other FPS games, killing enemies is the (still very problematic) mechanic by which a story is told. It's the thing that makes the story into a game.
In "Hatred", the story is "you hate everyone, make them all die." The FPS mechanics here exist in service of the player acting as a genocidal psychopath, with zero condemnation of said genocidal psychopathy -- in fact, it seems to be condoned.