[Scotty]

Key word: suppression.  Steam isn't suppressing this game.

[NGTM-1R]

Thats a pretty strange definition. There is no need for censorship to be so consistent that ALL similar forms of idea or content are always removed. Even imperfectly applied censorship (censoring just one game and letting similar ones to be sold) is still censorship.

That is exactly the definition you have used, you simply don't understand that "imperfect suppression" in this case, means that your argument is fundamentally disjointed and unsupportable because no possible definition of censorship allows for the situation at hand. If it were being implemented incompetently, you might have an argument; but that is not the case.

You can't "suppress" speech by telling one person to be quiet and endorsing five other people who are expressing the same ideas. Steam already sells a whole collection of the ol' psychopathic ultraviolence simulators, and in fact pushes them pretty heavily via regular sales (they're all on sale right now in fact). They're called Grand Theft Auto. I'm sure others will occur to your thought if you bother to try; perhaps the variety of zombie shooters, since zombie shooters more or less exist to enable us to guiltlessly experience our more psychopathic fantasies of murdering our neighbors?

You have utterly failed to present evidence that Hatred was pulled from Greenlight for the ideas or speech it presented, because...

And there are lots of other pretty violent games on Steam.

...you admit that Steam actually endorses those ideas and speech that people find objectionable in Hatred. The only way you can sustain an accusation of censorship is by doublethink; by claiming that Steam is trying to censor forms of expression you have also claimed they openly support.

If this is the hill you want to die defending, by all means, die defending it. But don't be surprised that some of us decide you to need to sped on your way to that death because you've considered your choice of hill very poorly indeed.

[666maslo666]

Thats a pretty strange definition. There is no need for censorship to be so consistent that ALL similar forms of idea or content are always removed. Even imperfectly applied censorship (censoring just one game and letting similar ones to be sold) is still censorship.

You can't "suppress" speech by telling one person to be quiet and endorsing five other people who are expressing the same ideas.

Of course you can. You are supressing the speech of that one person. Again, inconsistently applied censorship it still censorship. This was not some official policy (as evidenced by Gabe reversing it), but probably a censoring action by some rogue concerned employers.

Besides, no game on Steam is really comparable in violence to Hatred, so you cant reall say they express "the same" ideas. One is far more intense than the other, you are presenting a false analogy.

Steam already sells a whole collection of the ol' psychopathic ultraviolence simulators, and in fact pushes them pretty heavily via regular sales (they're all on sale right now in fact). They're called Grand Theft Auto. I'm sure others will occur to your thought if you bother to try; perhaps the variety of zombie shooters, since zombie shooters more or less exist to enable us to guiltlessly experience our more psychopathic fantasies of murdering our neighbors?

See above. Are you really comparing GTA or zombie shooters in severity to Hatred? Thats a false analogy. Qualitatively they might be the same, quantitatively Hatred is far more extreme.

You have utterly failed to present evidence that Hatred was pulled from Greenlight for the ideas or speech it presented, because...

And there are lots of other pretty violent games on Steam.

...you admit that Steam actually endorses those ideas and speech that people find objectionable in Hatred. The only way you can sustain an accusation of censorship is by doublethink; by claiming that Steam is trying to censor forms of expression you have also claimed they openly support.

They support mildly violent games like GTA, but refuse to support extremely violent games like Hatred. Pulling a game because it crossed some perceived threshold of objectionable expression is the definition of censorship. Or do I have to link it for the third time?

[The E]

They support mildly violent games like GTA, but refuse to support extremely violent games like Hatred. Pulling a game because it crossed some perceived threshold of objectionable expression is the definition of censorship. Or do I have to link it for the third time?

It is also the right of any store owner to curate their selection of goods.

maslo, can you offer a good guideline as to when said right becomes censorship?

[666maslo666]

They support mildly violent games like GTA, but refuse to support extremely violent games like Hatred. Pulling a game because it crossed some perceived threshold of objectionable expression is the definition of censorship. Or do I have to link it for the third time?

It is also the right of any store owner to curate their selection of goods.

Of course, censorship by private institutions in places their own is legal, no one is suggesting that Steam should be forced to sell Hatred by law. But still can be considered immoral, especially if such institution has a lot of influence.

maslo, can you offer a good guideline as to when said right becomes censorship?

I think the Wiki definition I linked is pretty good as a guideline. Whats not clear about it?

[The E]

Of course, censorship by private institutions in places their own is legal, no one is suggesting that Steam should be forced to sell Hatred by law. But still can be considered immoral, especially if such institution has a lot of influence.

So a small store (like, say Humble) is absolutely free to curate their selection, but a large store (like Steam, GoG) is morally wrong to do so?

I think the Wiki definition I linked is pretty good as a guideline. Whats not clear about it?

It's not clear because any act of curation then becomes censorship, which is a uselessly broad definition.

[Flipside]

It's a consumer driven market, people should be allowed to have a choice.

My own personal feeling is that I don't want the game. The simple solution to this is to not buy it, I don't need companies telling me what I want to play and what I don't.

That said, Steam runs its own shop, and, like Nintendo before it (though, to a different degree) they are perfectly entitled to control what appears on their site because it will have a direct reflection on the reputation of the company.

Looking at the game itself, it kind of looks like what would happen if someone took games like GTA or Saints Row and then applied the 'Fun Hoover' and sucked everything out of the games that made them fun, i.e. firing an RPG in a street is not fun, firing an RPG having parachuted from a sports car that you lifted to the top of a skyscraper with a Helicopter and with armed Police in hot pursuit... now that's fun...

I can't say I've read the whole thread, but I will say that it's Steam's ballpark, and therefore their choice. If it's done for 'moralistic' reasons then it was probably done for the wrong reasons, but I won't be pining the game at all, because it looks like you would experience the sum total of the gameplay in the first 4 minutes of owning it.

[Luis Dias]

It's not clear because any act of curation then becomes censorship, which is a uselessly broad definition.

It's basically the same thing when the store you have has the kind of market share that Steam has. Just like Microsoft had certain obligations regarding what kind of software they bundled Windows with and allowed / disallowed certain apps, etc. because they had a monopoly over a market, Steam has certain perceived obligations, albeit not legal ones, when it comes to curation.

Everyone is entitled to their own curation. For instance, Apple Store censors porn apps. That's the correct word: censor. It's also pretty much an uncontroversial censoring, but it's still censorship. They will call it "curation", which is the neat word of today, but censorship is what it is.

Why are people denying the proper semantical usage of this word is something that baffles and concerns me. NGTM's argument is that the game was "bad" therefore it was merely curated out of Steam just like every other "bad" games. But there's little indication that this was the case, that the problem was "quality". It was most assuredly the game's "problematic content" that got them squirming. IOW, it was the social, political content of the game that caused it being out in the first place. I also have little evidence for it, because there was no official statement by Valve by then, just this little snippet:

"Based on what we've see on Greenlight we would not publish Hatred on Steam. As such we'll be taking it down," Valve's Doug Lombardi offered to Eurogamer.

The fact that Gabe reinstated the game himself is proof enough for me that the problem was never one of quality, but rather of content. And if the problem is content, then yes, it's censorship. The other argument where it cannot be censorship because the criteria (ultraviolence) failed to censor other games like GTA, etc., is just nonsense, flat out silly at its face, since no one has ever argued that it was a consistent, coherent decision. It was obviously an emotional decision from someone in Valve that was disgusted by that game and drew the line "No this **** won't do". Which seems like a human, pretty okay decision to be made, except Hitchens was glorious in his defense of free speech when he stated that it's precisely the most ghastly speech that needs the most protection, not the least. See my last youtube link for details on why this is the case.

[Dragon]

Any claims of "quality" being a requirement to get on Steam are humbug, I tell you. Check out any sale, and there will be a few games sold for a wish that have nearly all their reviews negative. "The game doesn't even run", "it crashes constantly", stuff like that. Steam has released unplayable games more than once (not even bad ones, at least presumably. Unplayable, as in, you can't run them). They also have an incredible selection of bad games that nonetheless got in there somehow (my father sometimes buys them, because they're almost free and can be farmed for cards surprisingly often, for some reason). Quality is not an issue for Steam.

[NGTM-1R]

Besides, no game on Steam is really comparable in violence to Hatred,

Bull****. If anything Hatred's small scale prevents it from being as truly violent as something like GTA. You're a lone crazy in Hatred; you're a lone crazy with access to a tank in GTA.

[Grizzly]

Besides, no game on Steam is really comparable in violence to Hatred,

Bull****. If anything Hatred's small scale prevents it from being as truly violent as something like GTA. You're a lone crazy in Hatred; you're a lone crazy with access to a tank in GTA.

In Saint's Row you are an entire gang of crazies with acces to prototype military hardware. Including Vtols with beam cannons.

[Luis Dias]

NG, That's not what he meant. By that criteria, DEFCON was the most violent game ever made. Violence can be the most gruesome and the killer count be really small. It's about the "gruesomeness" of it, not the body count.

[Grizzly]

Red Orchestra, Cod: World at War.

[NGTM-1R]

NG, That's not what he meant. By that criteria, DEFCON was the most violent game ever made. Violence can be the most gruesome and the killer count be really small. It's about the "gruesomeness" of it, not the body count.

GTA V is pretty gruesome in that regard then.

Hell, watch the way your characters look after a fight the original Dragon Age. The blood spatter level is complete madness and more than Hatred will ever offer. Not enough for you? Shogun 2 has an official blood mod so you can watch 1200 angry samurai go plowing into 1200 other angry samurai and every kill is gushing blood all over the place.

Could go on if you like? Killing Floor? Dead Space? Nation Red?

We're dealing with a game being published through Steam Greenlight, so the bottom floor for how "gruesome" it could possibly get is pretty low...

[Luis Dias]

So if it isn't quality nor "gruesomeness", what in your mind was it that ticked off some Valve employees?

I think you are absolutely wrong in here. Clearly it was the "bad taste" gut sense that was sparked off. Just look at the kinds of articles that were written about the Hatred trailer, in which the writers were all like "Well I now look at games like GTA in a different light because of Hatred, my god this is something". Clearly, this crossed a disgust barrier of some kind. If you insist otherwise, well then what can I say but agree to disagree?

[karajorma]

Since the censorship debate actually has **** all to do with this debate, next person to mention censorship is getting time off.

Feel free to continue the debate without the pointless semantic debate.

[Luis Dias]

Well if you say so who the **** am I to argue with you, mr Banhammer happy?

[Mr. Vega]

Since the censorship debate actually has **** all to do with this debate, next person to mention censorship is getting time off.

Feel free to continue the debate without the pointless semantic debate.

The discussion is about whether it's right for Steam to pull a game like Hatred for whatever reason it's coming up with. The possibility of censorship is smack dab in the center of this.

[Scotty]

He meant the argument over what fringe, minute, or on the opposite side uselessly broad and overgeneralized definitions of censorship are "right" in this case.

[Mr. Vega]

next person to mention censorship is getting time off.

That sure looks like he'll ban us for daring to mention it at all regardless of a debate over definition. I look forward to him threatening to ban the use of the term "free market" in a discussion about globalization.