he's saving the matrix, man. he did nothing wrong!
i hope you're only pretending to be retarded, because i've met people who actually think this way.

I'm assuming it's someone who spends a lot of time in the dumber sides of tumblr? Or maybe it's all tumblr users. The dumb ones do kinda screw it up for everyone else that IS sane and uses it, I guess.

Well I'm trying to find out if that was a typo or he actually used a slur. If he did that's fine, I believe in freedom, but I'd like to know so I can avoid him if need be,

Well, maybe it's a pet name for Dumbledore? ;)

That's odd. I called my high school principle Pecker Head and I thought that was the standard.

I try to put myself in the position of a shop owner, who sells books, or music, or movies, and who'd decide to not sell this or that one, because "it sucks". "It sucks" can mean many things, a huge range of flaws, ranging from ideological to technical, but with all sort of mix inbetween. Say I do not sell "twilight" or "50 shades of grey", considering that they are lame - what is my angle exactly, what aspect determines my opinion, is there always a way to dissociate these aspects ? When does my selective tastes (as a reseller who likes to sell stuff he likes) become "censorship" ? And what does "censorship" even mean, in that case. Sounds more like "censorship-lol" to me. "Censorship-lol" should be in the dictionary.

Because the issue with "censorship" is indeed this connotation. It's perceived as necessarily bad (it is used as an argument by itself, "it is CENSORSHIP = how do you DARE") because its archetype is the censorship of political opinions by oppressive regimes. And this implicit assimilation of slaughter-videogame-rejection to political-persecution is a completely obscene rhetorical device. That is being used on these forum with the full shameless force of the most unapologetic idiocy.

This usage alone should actually make us careful when using that conceptually slippery notion in some ridiculous contexts. But yeah, we lack terms for each level of the wide spectrum is technically covers. So, it's hard to avoid the manipulative instrumentalization of that word...

I know, just saying the people behind Hatred are decent people if you actually get to know them. They talk often on the Hatred forums and my BF is a mod over there, so he's gotten to know them really well.

Honestly these kinds of games sell themselves, I don't think they really had to do much except release that one trailer all the way back in October and all the news sites were on it like the apocalypse.

Then the Valve incident happened and that just blew it up ever further.

I'd also like to point out that the pure usage of the word 'censorship' on a single store which refuses to sell a product is ... Just stupid, really. I would understand the argument if someone said "GOG is censoring all porn games on their site" - fair enough, they sort of are as they refuse to release this particular kind of game, within the boundaries of their own store of course. I would also understand arguments of censorship if all major stores refused to sell Hatred - yeah, okay, I get it, you quite literally can't purchase the title. But there is no habit on GOG's part to have any basis to assume that this is a political decision, nor are there limited sources from which you may purchase Hatred, in fact the biggest PC game retailer out there is going to sell the game. In this context, using the word "Censorship" just completely strips it of any meaning.

Might be, nonetheless I find the way they have handled this entire thing extremely distasteful. It's clear that it has been their goal to raise controversy from the getgo - after all, they have admitted so themselves. But now they are raising a fuss over stores refusing to accept their game, something they should have fully expected in the first place - I mean, you reap what you sow. Nevertheless, they now seem to be upset about GOG refusing their game, in spite of not actually releasing any actual information on it, in spite of actively wanting to be hated, and are riling the internet to jump to their rescue. While that's certainly an efficient marketing plan, I don't think I need to explain why I'm not a huge fan of it.

Look what else I found on their Facebook page. GOG does not seem to mind violence and mayhem in the least, and if what the dev said is true, the game's quality wasn't an issue for them either. I don't understand why GOG wouldn't be selling the game especially when GOG already has an AO rated game on the store with Indigo Prophecy.

Well, as said in a previous post, I'm not really convinced by that argument. there is an ambiguity there. Maybe between the "act of censorship" and the "state of censorship".

See, by this logic, if all stores had chosen to not sell Hatred, then all stores would be exerting censorship. But if one store (or the biggest store, or half the stores) did sell Hatred, then the remaining stores (who refuse to sell it) would not be exerting censorship. Even though their act, motive, mindset, would be the same.

It would also imply that, if all the other stores were refusing to sell Hatred, then GOG's decision would be of a very different nature than now. They would be awful censors by acting as they do now, and they aren't now thanks to other shops. If no other shop sold Hatred, then GOG would be "morally forced" to sell it ? Their refusal to do it would suddenly turn all the other stores, and themselves, into censors ?

Again, the issue may simply be the ambiguous word and its slippery, easily shifting, meaning. But I am not at ease with this argument. I have no clear position towards it. And no analogy helps here : If you take "mobbing" as the act of collectively ganging up against a scapegoat, then is one person's hostility already "mobbing", or does it start when it becomes collective and consensual enough ? If you take "discrimination", then one person applying it is sufficient to accuse him of discriminatory behaviour, you don't need it to be collective. "Discrimination" and "mobbing" (as I used the word, maybe it's being used in a broader sense nowadays) define the required qantity of actors. But does "censorship" ?

Plus, even if "censorship" works like (my understanding of) "mobbing", would it imply a moral obligation of behaviour shift ? It happened to me : I used to dislike and express contempt towards a student in high school, and ceased to when too many started to do the same, scapegoating him collectively. It became nasty, and made me change my attitude towards him (not my opinion) as well as my attitude towards the others (I became sarcastic towards their sarcasms). In that situation, it's like the numbers, the attitude of unrelated others, changed the nature of my own attitude, and forced me to ditch it (there was no way, there, to "stay myself", the very meaning of "myself" was being redefined by the circumstances). So, does "censorship" function the same way, becoming a thing only past some threshold, when becoming a group thing ? Would the nature of GOG's decision change, and warrant a u-turn, depending on how many other shops act the same way ? Or is GOG's action just GOG's action no matter what's going on around, having to be judged only as GOG's action ?

In other words, would you define (and judge) GOG's refusal to sell Hatred differently, depending on whether they are chronologically the first ones or the last ones to decide that ?

I understand your argument (now anyway) and no, I would not change my opinion of GOG. All I was saying that if all stores refused to sell Hatred, it would be valid basis to construct speculations off, and that such arguments would actually make sense to an extent. However, this is an isolated incident - GOG sells both violent games and politically colored games, and GOG has, in the past, refused to sell games which are generally considered good. "GOG won't sell a game I want to play" is not something to base a "Censorship" argument on.

Yes, I'm a tad confused by the "GOG CENSORS VIOLENT GAMES : THE PROOF IS THAT THEY SELL POSTAL2 AND HOTLINE MIAMI AND CARMAGEDDON" argument.

Stop being patetic GOG and release this game.

Come on GOG, don't you want all the money this game will bring? I am not going to make accusations of censorship, but you guys should not cave in to peer pressure, if the reason for not selling this game is related to violence then you are making a big mistake. You are refusing to let the market decide, it is the customers who should decide what should be sold. Maybe you should release it and retire it if it does not sell well, that would be a wiser tactic.

Please stop. :P