The Hatred Controversy

What is Hatred?

Hatred first came to my attention through a series of articles in the games media, the majority of which, to one degree or the other, condemned the game for literally being THE DEVIL. The trailer apparently demonstrated an extreme/unacceptable/uncomfortable (take your pick) level of violence based around an unpleasant premise – a murder-spree.

I was naturally intrigued. Could a game really be so shocking? We’ve seen such moral outrage many times throughout the history of this medium, but to see such condemnation from the games media itself was surprising.

So I watched the trailer. My response? I began to laugh. The trailer opens with a hilariously terrible monologue delivered by the growling, trench coat clad ‘antagonist’ (which is how the developer’s refer to the player character). I wasn’t sure if this was intended to be a joke or not, given how over the top and silly it was.

The trailer then transitions into gameplay footage, revealing an isometric twin stick shooter in a black and white world, where the only other colour you’ll see in abundance is the red of the blood of your victims. This isn’t the first game to employ such a stylised colour clash – MadWorld, released on the Wii of all platforms, had a strikingly similar aesthetic.

You are a spree-killer on a mission to kill as many people as possible before you die - ‘Only brutality and destruction can clear this land. Only the killing spree will make you die spectacularly and go to hell.’

Charming.

Before we continue, it should be noted that we only have a minute or so of spliced together gameplay footage to base our assumptions upon. Please keep that in mind. It’s amazing how much has been written about a game of which we still know so little.

Violence

Whilst the subject matter of Hatred may be described as ‘distasteful’ to say the least, I considered the actual violence on display in the trailer to be rather tame considering the media reaction. There have been many games released which are just as violent, graphic and brutal – if not more so! – than Hatred.

This year a game was released to exceptional critical acclaim – Shadow of Mordor. When I reviewed the title I described it as ‘Orc Murder Simulator 2014’. It’s a game primarily based around a combat system which allows you to kill your opponents in an increasingly brutal and violent manner. You dismember and decapitate your foes, the camera zooming in and switching to slow motion ‘execution’ scenes. Oh, and you can also make their heads explode.

You may argue that Mordor has a context that Hatred lacks. In Mordor you butcher (and enslave) orcs, not people! I’ll talk more about context later, but for now, I just want to make the point that the violence we’ve seen thus far in Hatred, on a purely mechanical level, is no worse than one of the top selling and critically received titles of the year. If anything, it’s tame by comparison.

Virtual Things

So why is such violence acceptable against orcs, but not people? This is purely my own personal take on the matter, but to me, I see no difference. I’m not slaughtering orcs or people. I’m slaughtering virtual things. They are not orcs, nor people, in the same way they are neither ‘good’ ‘bad’ or ‘innocent’ because a collection of polygons/pixels can be none of these.

If Hatred was another zombie shooter, there would be no controversy. Likewise, if you were fighting demons (in human form) or ‘terrorists’. I’m beginning to stray into the ‘context’ discussion so I’ll try to wrap this point up. On a core level (and this applies to many games) you are not shooting ‘innocent’ people in Hatred. You are not shooting ‘people’ at all. You are shooting virtual things. Yes, this is essentially the ‘it’s not real’ argument. But I think it’s a valid point to make.

The importance of context

From what I’ve seen, Hatred, on a mechanical level, is no more violent than many other games. But as many people have pointed out, Hatred apparently lacks a context for said violence. It doesn’t appear to be satirical in the same manner as GTA or Postal 2 (a game in which you can murder someone and piss on their corpse). And whilst you can embark on a murderous spree against unarmed civilians in those titles (as you may in many others, usually of the open world variety), it’s the player’s choice to do so.

Many games use combat as a way to test and challenge the player. Hatred claims it does the same - ‘You will also run, you will need to think, you will need to hide and fight back when armored forces will come to take you down.’ Because you’re not just killing unarmed civilians in Hatred. You, perhaps in a similar manner to a GTA spree, face off against the police and ‘stronger forces’ yet to be revealed.

Many games are violent. Some needlessly so. I criticised the Tomb Raider reboot for this very reason. It was a game which I felt strayed too far into silly, over the top (not to mention tedious) shoot-outs as Lara gunned down hundreds of dudes. But the game told us that these were ‘bad’ guys, so that made it okay, right?

When I played Watch_Dogs earlier this year, the game gave me the option of preventing criminal acts – a mugging, for example. It allowed me to chase and execute the mugger without penalty. The context, one may argue, is that the mugger was ‘bad’. But does that justify murder?

As I see it, the context for committing extreme violence in many games may be described as ‘flimsy’ at best. And Hatred is not the first game to offer little to no context to said violence. DEFCON comes to mind, a game in which you murder ‘innocent’ people by the MILLIONS and you are given no context for doing so.

‘A typical game will see civilian casualties numbering in the millions (megadeaths)’. ‘Players' scores are determined according to one of three schemes: Default (gain 2 points for 1 megadeath caused, lose 1 point for 1 megadeath suffered), Survivor (gain 1 point per million survivors in your territory) or Genocide (gain 1 point for each megadeath caused)’

Nice.

But here’s the thing, Hatred does provide a context. The developer describes it as a ‘Mad journey into the Antagonist's hateful mind.’ There is a context to the violence, whether you agree that context is acceptable or not.

An artistic medium

I see video games as an artistic medium, no different to literature or film. And in many ways, I’d argue that video games can illicit a far wider range of emotional reactions given their interactive nature. But if you accept the notion that games have artistic value (to a debatable degree depending on title) then I think it’s important to be willing to accept games like Hatred. Just as a film like Boyhood can be produced alongside The Human Centipede, Hatred has a right to exist alongside titles such as the recently announced Life Is Strange.

It may not have been the developer’s intention, (who have quite happily profited by such a wave of negative publicity) to explore any meaningful themes. They may not even see their own title as having any artistic value. However, the game has enabled a fascinating debate regarding violence and context in this medium. It’s an important debate to have, and it’s important for titles like Hatred to push these boundaries.

I want games to challenge, not just on a mechanical level. I want a variety of experiences which explore and enable emotional reactions both good and bad. Hatred may turn out to be no more than a mediocre ‘shock’ game designed to sell on controversy. But so what? We’ll quickly forget it, and move on.

I know people are worried about ‘outside’ perceptions when a game like Hatred appears. Just as literature, music, comics and film before it, video games are the scapegoat of choice for sensationalist media. And a game like Hatred is like dangling a juicy steak above them. But let’s face it, when even a game like Microsoft Flight Simulator can be accused of enabling terrorism who the f**k cares what they say or think? If it’s not Hatred, it would only be something else.

‘In Britain concerns about Microsoft Flight Simulator being used as a tool to teach terrorists caused two major retailers, Virgin Megastores and Woolworths, to remove the software from their shelves.’

(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-357006/The-flight-software-trains-terrorists.html)

Ha!

Grow up!

As I said at the start, the reaction of game media itself has surprised me. Perhaps it shouldn’t. I’ve avoided visiting such sites for many years now for various reasons I won’t go into here. Certainly people are entitled to their opinions, but some articles (written as ‘news’ pieces apparently) do little more than make snide, or flat out rude remarks about the Hatred development team or those who may wish to play the title. See this piece in particular - http://www.pcgamer.com/hatred-reinstated-on-steam-greenlight/

Is this really the direction we want for game media? To attack game developers because they disagree with their content? To deride their own audience? More disturbingly, it feels like there is a push for a smear campaign against the Hatred development team - http://www.polygon.com/2014/12/18/7417045/hatred-free-speech-and-one-developers-connections-with-polands-far

Would another developer come under such heavy scrutiny? Is it now considered acceptable to dig into the personal life of a developer? If I recall correctly, many game media sites condemned such a practice not so long ago and considered it a form of harassment.

But game media itself has come under a similar level of scrutiny recently, so perhaps this is simply the reaction. By lining up to condemn and belittle Hatred, those who developed it and those who would support it, these articles have only served to a create a situation whereby voting for Hatred on Steam Greenlight now appears to be more of a vote against such regressive attitudes as it does for the game itself.

You may accuse the game of being immature and abhorrent, but to print such tenuous connections between a developer and particular political views in an attempt to discredit them is even more so. Especially when Hatred does not seem to espouse any political viewpoint. Indeed, it revels in the fact that there is little point to it at all!

And that’s totally fine.

I don’t know if I’ll play Hatred. I will if I think it will be an interesting experience, just as I played Gone Home, The Stanley Parable, Papers, Please! or the upcoming Life Is Strange. I voted for Hatred because it’s important, whether the developers intended it to be or not. The last thing we need is a return to the ‘ban this sick filth!’ campaigns of the past, especially not one fuelled by game media itself.