The Kind of Video Game Violence That Disturbs Me

Hatred is a game about the wanton slaughter of people fueled by nothing but pure, well, hatred. Its trailer came out this week, and many people found it to be upsetting, even deplorable. Video games, however, frequently revel in over-the-top violence. So why is everybody talking about this game in particular?

First off, here's the trailer. Fair warning: it's exceedingly graphic and depicts the slaughter of horrified people who scream and plead for their lives. It's not pretty.

It has, of course, also gotten a crazy amount of attention, which makes sense given that its entire announcement campaign smacked of a thinly veiled grab at publicity. "Bring [the trailer] everywhere and let the haters hate! (And they will, oh they will...)," the developers wrote. They proudly trumpeted their alleged lack of "political correctness" or affiliation to art/any kind of message—despite, in doing so, making a very pointed political statement—and generally leaned on how different they thought they were being.

Thing is, they really weren't. This is just a footnote in a book with many, many chapters. The Postal series—which is about killing everybody, aka "going postal"—centers around this exact kind of scenario. Grand Theft Auto can be just like this if you choose to rampage around or merrily skip down the sidewalk except, you know, in your car. Blood snaking and pooling, innocents scattering and screaming until their lungs cave in. In some ways, it's even worse in GTA, if you think about it. In a world that offers you all sorts of other options—from stunt driving to tennis—you choose to treat (virtual) human lives like ants in a pesky anthill. Which is not to say I think playing that way is wrong. I'm just pointing out how it looks on paper.

http://kotaku.com/the-kind-of-video-game-violence-that-disturbs-me-1647874540

Saw the trailer. It is a bit over the top.