LOVE

Just kidding, this topic is about HATRED.


Content Warnings: NSFW, NSFS (Not Safe For Sociopaths)
Trigger Warning: Mass Shootings.

Any thoughts on this tasteful pile of tastefulness?

Obviously, I find it to be...gross. At best. And I think that's generous. I would also fight probably very literally to the death to keep it from being directly or indirectly censored. because you know, free speech. (I just found out that that quote was misattributed to Voltaire but actually was a summary of Voltaire's position by Evelyn Beatrice Hall...so that's interesting!)

The other thing I think is interesting about it is its unquestionable artistic value...in spite of being, apparently, an intentional backlash against "games as art".

author=Gourd_Clae
It doesn't look like it's against games as art?

I didn't think so either, but this is from it's wikipedia page.

The developer described Hatred as a reaction to a trend of political correctness in video games, and sought to make a game that eschewed politeness, colorfulness, and games as art. In this way, they also sought to make a game that recalled the industry's history as " a rebellious medium" and surface-level entertainment with no insertion of "any fake philosophy".

author=Tau
Reminds me of that guy who made an Rm2k game about the Columbine Massacre.

You mean the most widely publicly known RPG Maker game of all time?

author=JosephSeraph
from what I have seen this game was created by some quirky extremists, nazis, socio-communists or whatever because I don't know those expressions at all. but anyway, created by weally sick people. and they mean it. ;w;
thaaaaat's what I heard anyway, but judging by the trailer it doesn't seem too far off

Can you provide evidence that the creators were commie-nazis or whatever? Because short of some outside information, that doesn't seem like a reasonable conclusion from the fact that they made a game in extremely poor taste. So yeah...where'd you hear this?

author=LouisCyphre
This is, like, middle school emo levels of 3edgy5me. Can we be certain this isn't some level of elaborate satire? Because that's what I want to believe, here.

It's obviously operating at like...substantially TRYHARD levels of "grimdark edginess", but I do think there's more to it, and not in the sense of satire, either.

The way I think of it is...a LOT of people play sandbox games like GTA, Saint's Row, et al essentially like this and really enjoy it, especially between missions to blow off steam. Or when you're just goofing off with friends in the room. But those games are very consciously "about" other things. They just happen to let you massacre hordes of innocent people. This game, though, is very self-consciously about letting you massacre hordes of innocent people. And I find that...fascinating.

(The POSTAL comparison is obvious but I actually don't know much about POSTAL 1, in my mind it was eclipsed by Postal 2 and its almost South Parkesque sick sense of humor. If there's...humor...intended here, it's a lot less obvious.)

Anyway, probably the most baffling critique I've seen leveled against this game-which people are ferociously campaigning to have stopped before it's even completed-is that it's somehow racist and/or sexist. Which seems nonsensical to me. Killy McTrenchcoat doesn't seem at all picky in that respect. He's an equal opportunity destroyer.

Yeah that is really, really, really disturbing...but also fascinating.

And is the kind of thing--particularly that they put effort into it and obviously thought about it a lot--that makes it undeniably art, even if it was made by people who fucking hate the idea of games as art. Because what I've always found to be the most important part of the most useful definition of art I've seen reasonable people be able to agree upon is that art makes you feel something.

And sometimes art isn't nice.

Other sandboxes offer herds of dull, lifeless lemmings that pill up in the grill of your car with ridiculous, comical ragdoll physics.

This is more true of Saints Row then the GTA games...people in the GTA games do definitely "react" to a massacre in quasi-realistic ways, but because the GTA games are set in a satirical version of America where everyone is the biggest, most egregious, most-deserving-to-be-shot-in-the-face asshole possible, their reactions are usually more comedic then...yeah...horrifying, as seen here.

/quibble

This game has caused the Social Justice Left to actually and literally valorize hypocrisy, so there's that, I guess. (Of course, context is everything. Still a very fascinating and relevant read.)

It really is the hypothetical videogame that Jack Thompson thought he was talking about back 10 years ago during his ignorant ranting when it didn't even fucking exist.

History, in its absurdity, has come full circle.