(Update 12/20/14): Hatred was returned to Steam Greenlight soon after it was taken down. Apparently Gabe Newell even apologized to the team behind the title, saying “Steam is about creating tools for content creators and customers.” So it seems Hatred is being given its fair shake. It may be an empty game that seems to be about little else than wanton murder, but I applaud this development. With some notable exceptions, Steam is the PC Gatekeeper of today, and this title has every right to exist. How well it does will now simply be up to the consumers. I for one will not be buying it. -Ray Grohosky
Hatred, the upcoming game from Polish studio Destructive Creations went up on Steam Greenlight today. After quickly shooting to number 7 in the Greenlight rankings, with a 93% “Yes” vote, Valve decided to step in and put the brakes on things. While games like Manhunt, Grand Theft Auto, and Postal remain up for sale on Steam, Valve has decreed that they would never sell a game like Hatred. As such, it was taken down off of Greenlight, leaving Destructive Creations to try and make it in the PC Wild West on their own. Shortly after the game was pulled, Destructive Creations issued a statement:
Dear Hatred fans,
As you know today we’ve launched our Steam Greenlight campaign for Hatred. Unfortunately after couple of hours Steam shut it down giving the below as reasons behind their decision:
“We wanted you guys to know that based on what we see on Greenlight we would not publish Hatred on Steam. As such we’ll be taking it down.”
Even though games like Manhunt or Postal are still available on Steam we of course fully respect Valve’s decision, as they have right to do so. In the same time we want to assure you that this won’t in any way impact the game development, game’s vision or gameplay features we’re aiming for. The game is still to be released in Q2 2015 as planned.
Moreover we don’t treat this as a failure because yet again this showed us a huge community support we’re totally overwhelmed with. After only a couple of hours Greenlight campaign being live, Hatred gathered 13,148 up votes and ended up on a #7 on top 100 list. This is the best proof for us that there are diehard Hatred fans out there waiting for this game to be released. And that we need to keep going to deliver them a game that offers exciting and challenging gameplay.
The whole situation only pushes us forward to go against any adversity and not to give up. It also makes us want to provide our fans Hatred pre-orders sooner, as many of you have asked for them.
Destructive Creations Team
While I had no intention of ever buying Hatred on any platform, I cannot help but view Valve’s choice to stop the game’s Greenlight process as bad. While yes, Valve is a private company, and can sell, or not sell anything they want, they should still be very careful in how they use that power. The PC used to be the go-to development platform for a lot of newer studios because of the fact it is to this day, kind of an open platform. Steam becoming as big as it has does nothing to help that along, as we, the consumer have created this great Gatekeeper in the name of convenience. I admit that before I got into Steam, I never really bothered with PC gaming, because there was no real centralized place to get games digitally. It was a hodgepodge of executables to buy and download, all taking up different spaces on my computer. Valve has really helped that process become easy to use for anyone, but we have lost a lot of what made the PC the PC in the first place. For the diehard PC people out there, they will find a game like Hatred no matter how many roadblocks companies like Valve put up.
However, most people are not that old guard of PC player, and go to places like Steam, or Humble Bundle, etc to find their PC games. By being denied access, despite the fact that people were voting “Yes” for it on the consumer-driven Greenlight platform, Steam is showing the sinister side to its muscle here. It is showing itself to be the kingmaker, the hands pulling the strings, determining what will be popular, what will make money. It’s honestly more than a bit gross in that regard, and I feel bad for Destructive Creations. While their title appears to be tasteless and crass in execution, juvenile in its message, it shouldn’t get such a raw deal from Valve. It seems Hatred’s only mistake here is being a tasteless violent video game not made by Rockstar.
Source: Destructive Creations
-Ray