Zach Keosaian, a indie game developer and publicist, has launched a petition calling for the end of development on gaming’s latest poster child for violence, the top down shooter Hatred which is currently in development by Destructive Creations. The opening paragraph of the petition (which you can find in our source link) is as follows:
“This game project is a disgusting and unnecessary endeavor. The game features a disturbed white male copying the late Brandon Lee’s character outfit from The Crow, babbling a poorly written script like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold from the Columbine Tragedy preparing an unjustified massacre on the general public. 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.”
The accusations of racism and sexism have already been addressed in a news post from the 21st of October by the developer on their site where they state the following:
“(To those) accusing Hatred to be some kind of racist game. What the hell is wrong with you, people? The Antagonist is killing everyone equally, race doesn’t matter (it’s randomly generated for all NPC’s), sex doesn’t matter (it’s random too), so you can call it the most tolerant game, promoting equality. Here everybody dies.”
We queried both parties on this matter, Zack responded with the following:
“I’ve been discussing this game in a lot of places, and one of them was on an Unreal Developers group on linkedin which Marcin, the technical artist from Destructive Creations, participated. I realize that I stated the game was racist and sexist, however after extensive discussion, I see that the context of my allegations was a little mixed up. What I meant was that the game itself may not be sexist or racist, but the trailer was. I can’t speak for the developers, however I can say that they’re choice of NPC’s in the trailer that were shown in the close-up executions were mostly people of colour and women. That, to me, makes it look like the developer thinks that killing these types of people fuels the hatred for you and the player character, which is wrong. I’d also like to reiterate that I am not protesting the violence, just the fact that this game glorifies it and rewards you for committing heinous acts of random violence in a non-comical manner that suggests the game is intended for disturbed teenage white males.
I know there have been violent games in the past, and I have played many of them but my stake in this as a developer and gamer, is that we need to hold games under a different light. Development pipelines for video games from here on out should be approached with diversity and inclusion of all people and not make a spectacle of someone based on gender (if any) or ethnicity, whether in the trailer or in game.”
Jarosław Zieliński, the CEO of the Polish based developer commented on the petition, stating quite simply:
“We don’t care. :)”
Hatred is planned for release in April/June of 2015 for PC, although the developers are open to the possibility of console versions based on whether or not the game is a success.
Petition to stop Hatred sparks further controversy
Liam Crowter
Zach Keosaian, a indie game developer and publicist, has launched a petition calling for the end of development on gaming’s latest poster child for violence, the top down shooter Hatred which is currently in development by Destructive Creations. The opening paragraph of the petition (which you can find in our source link) is as follows: […]