nsfw [NSFW] Hatred (Video Game): Is This Too Far?

[Lamp0]

All games are like that. A skinhead does not appreciate a game where you kill skinheads.

 

Fair point.

 

 

You could say the same for every single game that portraits the US Army as a group of gods.

 

yea, that's very true.

[Andre S. Veteran]

Yeah, quite clearly this game is perverse and playing it and encouraging the developer is morally wrong. It's highly graphical mass murder of innocent people for its own sake and the morbid fascination with causing fear, suffering and death. People saying that it's "just a video game" or "just for fun" miss the point; the problem isn't that it's real - since of course it isn't - the problem is that the whole point of the game is to revel in its purely sadistic nature.

 

I certainly hope Steam and GOG don't publish it.

[The Evil Overlord]

Yeah, quite clearly this game is perverse and playing it and encouraging the developer is morally wrong. It's highly graphical mass murder of innocent people for its own sake and the morbid fascination with causing fear, suffering and death. People saying that it's "just a video game" or "just for fun" miss the point; the problem isn't that it's real - since of course it isn't - the problem is that the whole point of the game is to revel in its purely sadistic nature.

 

I certainly hope Steam and GOG don't publish it.

I understand your concern, and as a parent I even support it, but I see pixels, not people, Like I mentioned earlier, it gave me a 'Dead Nation' vibe, one could argue zombies are fictional, but it was still a type of mass murder game, hell Zombies Must Die was a comical take on the same game, I'm not 100% for this game, nor do I support it, but I must admit, I am curious....

[Andre S. Veteran]

I understand your concern, and as a parent I even support it, but I see pixels, not people

You really don't see people in this game? I understand that we're able to distinguish fiction from reality but at the same time there still is, inevitably, emotional engagement with what's depicted onscreen, and it seems to me that the only sane emotional reaction here would be horror and disgust. Not "hey this looks like fun!" How is it fun to realistically murder random innocents for no reason? I think you're supposed to have some level of human empathy that kicks in when you see this kind of thing, pixels or not.

[The Evil Overlord]

You really don't see people in this game? I understand that we're able to distinguish fiction from reality but at the same time there still is, inevitably, emotional engagement with what's depicted onscreen, and it seems to me that the only sane emotional reaction here would be horror and disgust. Not "hey this looks like fun!" How is it fun to realistically murder random innocents for no reason? I think you're supposed to have some level of human empathy that kicks in when you see this kind of thing, pixels or not.

Not to get into an argument, but with a twist to that logic, one could argue the same about nearly all shooter games, The Helghast are evil, we must totally obliterate their planet and kill as many as possible, the list goes one, I've seen real life horrors that would make a sane person claw out their own eyes, I won't go into more detail as there are soldiers the world over, that see worse daily, I guess it's a defence mechanism I've built (As I'm guessing many have) I just don't see real people in that particular game, Kinda like the song 'Kim' by 'Marshall Mathers' or people trying to see how long they can survive a maximum wanted level in GTA or Red Dead Redemption.

I enjoy and play Need for Speed games, but that doesn't make me a dangerous driver, nor have I ever tried to break the laws of physics by trying to take a hairpin corner at 160 mph on the roads.

 

I do however, understand that the 'line' as it were has been crossed, but only a fool would say 'I never saw this coming'

[Andre S. Veteran]

It's certainly not obvious where to draw the line but, my point is, I do think the line exists somewhere, blurry as it may be, and Hatred is on the wrong side of that. I mentioned several relevant traits: that it's realistic, that it's the very point of the game to do these horrible things, that there's no higher moral context for these actions, etc. Some mentioned things like Carmaggedon, well Carmaggedon isn't realistic at all. As far as I understand in GTA the point is not to kill innocents although you can do that. Need for Speed, well you're not really causing any harm; if it depicted realistic consequences like schoolbuses full of children crashing it would be another story. If you make careful distinctions you don't have to throw all games where you do violent or illegal things in the same basket.

[The Evil Overlord]

It's certainly not obvious where to draw the line but, my point is, I do think the line exists somewhere, blurry as it may be, and Hatred is on the wrong side of that. I mentioned several relevant traits: that it's realistic, that it's the very point of the game to do these horrible things, that there's no higher moral context for these actions, etc. Some mentioned things like Carmaggedon, well Carmaggedon isn't realistic at all. As far as I understand in GTA the point is not to kill innocents although you can do that. Need for Speed, well you're not really causing any harm; if it depicted realistic consequences like schoolbuses full of children crashing it would be another story. If you make careful distinctions you don't have to throw all games where you do violent or illegal things in the same basket.

Valid and fair points, (Y)