Valve Software has decided it would rather not sell a game in which you blow a begging woman’s brains out the back of her head.
To be precise, Valve pulled Hatred from the Steam Greenlight program several hours after the game appeared on the service.
“Based on what we’ve seen on Greenlight we would not publish Hatred on Steam,” Valve’s Vice President of Marketing, Doug Lombardi said in a statement to the press. “As such we’ll be taking it down.”
It can take a while for Steam, one of the most popular game-downloading services in the world, to add a title to its collection once a developer submits it. Steam Greenlight allows users to vote on upcoming games and speed up the process by which they appear for sale. It is essentially a fast-track for titles that the community deems worthy.
The teaser trailer for Hatred was released on Oct. 17, 2014. It simulates the sort of mass shootings that have become common in the United States. The goal in Hatred is to kill as many innocent people as possible before the player is taken down by the police. This includes killing civilians, who are begging for their lives, at point-blank range, which the Polish developer behind Hatred referred to as a “pure gaming pleasure.”
The Hatred trailer drew an immediate, condemnatory reaction from several game developers. Jarosław Zieliński, the CEO of Destructive Creations and the man who animates the game, told the Daily Dot in November that he was pleased at the widespread attention because it was “a great marketing campaign.”
Despite Steam’s removal of Hatred, Destructive Creations remains undeterred.
“Even though games like Manhunt or Postal are still available on Steam we of course fully respect Valve’s decision, as they have the right to do so,” the studio said in a statement. “In the same time we want to assure you that this won’t in any way impact the game’s development, game’s vision or gameplay features we’re aiming for. The game is still to be released in Q2 2015 as planned.”
H/T Eurogamer | Screengrab via Destructive Creations/YouTube | Remix by Dennis Scimeca