Devs purport to have an email apology from Gabe
Earlier this month we received word that Polish developer Destructive Creations’ controversial title Hatred was removed from Steam Greenlight within hours of its launch. While some would say good riddance to the title a great deal were most likely upset by the decision. According to GamesIndustry.biz, the title had received 13,148 upvotes and ending up at number seven in the Greenlight charts before being pulled. That’s quite an impressive feat for such a divisive game.
While it’s unarguably Valve’s right to choose what software it distributes, many customers were confused as to why Hatred was being singled out for removal and games like Manhunt or Postal are still readily available on Steam.
In an interesting turn of events, it seems that Valve has had a change of heart in regards to the title; or, at least an alleged email apology from Gabe Newell states it has:
“Yesterday I heard that we were taking Hatred down from Greenlight,” the statement read. “Since I wasn’t up to speed, I asked around internally to find out why we had done that. In the email, the author notes “it turns out that it wasn’t a good decision, and we’ll be putting Hatred back up.” The alleged correspondence ends with an apology to the developers and wishes of good luck.
Whether the email is genuine or not, we may never know for sure. Two things are for certain, though: Destructive Creations’ title has been returned to Steam for Greenlight approval and there are way more people out there in the market for a game like this than I had previously anticipated.
What do you think, Destructoid? Given that Valve has the legal right to pick and choose what software it sells on the Steam platform; what titles, if any, do you think it should remove from the service? Where should Valve draw the line in regards to controversial content?
