Hatred Video Game Trailer
If You Love Video Games, Don't Play This New Insanely Violent Shooter
If you could stomach watching the entire trailer above, congratulations. Designed by 10 white men in their 30s, Hatred is a game about indiscriminate mass murder. Gamers will play as an unnamed avatar who appears angry about the world — in an unintentionally comical way — and has opted to go on a “genocide crusade.” Fun!
Destructive Creations' press release argues that their work is a long time coming, given that “these days, when a lot of games are heading to be polite, colorful, politically correct and trying to be some kind of higher art, rather than just an entertainment – we wanted to create something against trends.” What the hell does Destructive Creations have against video games that use color? Either way, there’s a lot to think about here.
Although the gameplay feels somewhat sketchy at this point, it appears the player will be given a selection of weapons to use on a population of civilians and the police officers who protect term. It is unclear what the obstacles or goals might be, but there will be wanton mayhem. Stabbing people’s heads off? Check. Shooting people’s head’s off? Check. Mowing down cops? Check. Ignoring people’s pleas for mercy? Big, blood-soaked check.
Change.org has a several open letters requesting the self-censorship of Hatred. One reads, “Not only is this game horrifyingly violent, but it's extremely offensive depicting the player character brutally executing people of colour and women in an aggravated manner”. In Canada, at least, hate speech is not protected and censorship is a valid legal tactic. Hate speech is centered on the concept of discrimination, which, at least based on the trailer, Hatred does not appear to do. Destructive Creations is precisely interested in the idea of indiscriminate murder, and does good work in reminding players that this is a world filled with people of different race, class and gender.
All that aside, I see two real problems in Hatred — its lack of self-reflexivity and the fact that we are wasting your time reading about it.
Destructive Creations’ logic goes something like this: Games are not art, and any philosophical claim you make with them is bullshit. Hatred is an “honest” game that accepts that games are about meditative unwinding after a long day’s work. Art is for critical thinkers — why bother thinking when we can have fun?
This isn’t the first time people have freaked out about violent video games, and it won’t be the last. The people who are concerned about these things worry that violent games make violent people. That this game might in fact be a murder simulator, allowing people to hone their tactics for going out and slaughtering innocent people. Let’s run through a brief history of moral panics that have struck the media with regards to violent video games. In 1976, the arcade game Death Race had players run over people in their cars. In 1983, we have Atari’s Chainsaw Massacre. In 1988, Splatterhouse made a splash and in the ‘90s there was outcry against Mortal Kombat. By 1998, the Postal series, which Destructive Creations refers to in interviews, had made its mass murder game, and Uwe Boll even made the movie version. In 2006, Super Columbine Massacre RPG was a finalist at the Slamdance film fest’s video games category, but the media frenzy and the furor of several detractors had the festival pull the game. In response, well over 50% of the other finalists pulled their games from the festival in solidarity. There was a case to be made SCMRPG was a meaningful artwork and that censoring it in order to uphold a taboo was and still is politically dangerous.
The truth is, there's no evidence worth citing that indicates violent video games create violent behavior. In the same way that slasher films don’t make slashers. There is evidence that being frustrated by any game makes you temporarily more violent in the game (but that'll be obvious to anyone who's waited too long for a level to load). You could just as easily, and with perhaps greater aplomb, state that Hatred could be a cathartic work that allows angry gamers to release pent-up frustrations and will thus actually protect society from those who are dangerous (I don’t believe that, either). At the very worst — and I will admit that this is bad — Hatred helps proliferate gun culture. In a society where people actually do go on murderous rampages, seeing this kind of thing explicitly mirrored and glorified in a game can be unsettling.