what ya gonna do when the panic’s free?

Culling my email of all the unnecessary things that have been flooding in over the last few months, I had to stop and read, then reread, the title of one email.

STOP The Satanic Pornification Of Children

Wait, what?

Even better, it came with this banner:



First of all, the three puir wee bairns in that photograph? Those are Lucia Santos, Francisco Marto, and Jacinta Marto, who in 1917 first saw the Apparition of Mary at Fatima, Portugal. They wouldn't know a video game if you held it in front of them framed by a Switch.

Though I will say, they could not have picked an image with more perfect expressions. Here's the full image so you can revel in the lip curling:



I had to read on.

This is absolutely appalling.

Only if you're convinced that all video games are made solely for the under-thirteen set.

Steam video game distributors [have] made two pornographic themed video games available to children of all ages through the simple click of a button. Steam is a digital distribution platform developed by Valve Corporation.

Yes, it is, but I'm admittedly more curious about the 'available to children of all ages' line. So I did a simple search. Came into Steam as an unregistered user. I was instantly hit with a request to verify my age. Okay, gatekeeping systems do very little towards actual prevention of access, but there is an age barrier in place. So they're wrong about House Party at least.

This is from the game's description on Steam:

"In the game, you'll experience the usual debauchery found at these types of parties in the form of foul language, party games, nudity, fighting, sex, and more, and believe me, it doesn't pull any punches! Each character has their own personality, story and quests for the player. You can enjoy this alongside full immersive 3D gameplay, gorgeous models, and a very sarcastic and dry sense of humor. The AI is very robust, and the characters respond to a large number of stimuli and player choices. There are multiple story-paths and different outcomes based on your decisions."

Translation: it's a party simulator where you're trying to have sex with girls, play tricks on other girls, and either avoid or get into fights with drunken frat guys. Is it a game I'd play? Hells, no--there's a segment where the 'gag' is to spill a drink on someone, get her to take off her clothes for you to wash, then make her walk around in bra and panties the rest of the night. Oh, yeah, mass fun for all, I'm sure.

But they aren't done.

The video games Party House and Porno Studio Tycoon have serious graphic and suggestive content that is accessible to computer users of all ages.

Really? Are they really? Because I also checked Porno Studio Tycoon and ran into an age-check page. Granted, it's not the same level of age verification needed:



but we'll get into the why of that later. How'ver, this means neither game is being offered up to "innocent children" just looking for some cutesy Candyland knockoff.

This next was in bright red text in the original email:

WARNING: Read with caution; very disturbing

Sure, sure, I'm duly warned. Carry on with the deeply disturbing content.

According to press reports:

• "The House Party 'hook up' game is literally training its users in predatory tactics for sexual assault, and even sex trafficking...

• "The game includes disturbing features that allow users to increase their odds of 'having sex' with a woman in the game if they manipulate and coerce women into sex acts...

• "The sexual encounters are blatant animated pornography, featuring genitalia, ejaculation, and more."

All right, let's break this down, shall we? The best review I've found of the general tackiness level of House Party was posted on Rock Paper Shotgun (a great gaming blog if you haven't heard of it before). And I don't disagree with anything he says. It's not just a deeply misogynistic game, it's a badly coded game, badly textured game, written by a company apparently full of drunk college guys who lost track of sober five years ago. All of this seems to be true.

But a training manual for sexual assault? Only if the girl in question is very, very dim, and the assaulter in question is very, very lucky. The only way this will train anyone is in how to guess the most stupid responses on very short lists of stupid responses. So, I guess, it's a sub-par simulator for your standard high school or college party with jocks, maybe. Eminently forgettable, and by far not the worst game out there imaginable.

Then they take on the other 'Satanic' game:

And just as bad...

• "The game Porno Studio Tycoon centers on sexual themes where the user acts as the pornographer.

• "It includes sexual sounds, hypersexualized characters, and generic depictions of sex acts...

• "This game promotes and glamorizes the exploitative industry of pornography."

Really? Read this before you wrangle your local parents' group into complaining to Steam. This is a basic resource management game for the most part, with a little bit of lingerie thrown in to 'spice up' the dry mergers and acquisitions data tracks. There may be 'sexual sounds', but there's no actual depictions of sex acts. You'll definitely see more skin in Hunie Pop than you ever will in Porno Studio Tycoon.

Anything left to say, strange pleading piece of spam? Why yes:

Furthermore:

1. "Steam sells and promotes these games to users of all ages and requires only a simple click of a button to pass through a tepid warning that the material may not be suitable for all ages.

1. "These games are in direct violation of Steam's own policies against pornographic or patently offensive content."

Well, in point of fact, that's the one thing this bit of faux-ham has been right on: I'd say House Party (and Hunie Pop) do violate their policies (while Porno Studio Tycoon really doesn't), but you know what an easy way to get those off Steam would be? Flag them for offensive or inappropriate content. It's a built-in system that Steam will actually pay attention to, whereas they generally won't bother even looking at an email campaign or a petition.

There's a petition if you feel morally outraged, but...seriously, this is so hyperbolically overblown it's ludicrous.

but never is a promise, and you can't afford to lie

(Continued from part three.)

So, where were we? I think we were still on the comments from January 20th...right, where |FTG| Comte de la Fère fails utterly to grasp the concept:

Screw that, wouldn't it make more sense for the game developers to, you know, not make it rape? That crap offends people, just make a normal teen pregnancy game.

Barring the fact that I'm fairly sure you'd likely decry a "normal" teen pregnancy game as, oh, say, glorifying teen pregnancy, your problem is that rape is offensive, so rape shouldn't be mentioned? You do realize the world we live in, right? Where an upsetting percentage of men still believe that "if she hadn't dressed like that", or "if she hadn't flirted so much", or "if she hadn't gotten drunk", or "if she hadn't turned him down", she wouldn't have been raped? For once we have a game where--at least in the demo--there's no victim-blaming. She's relatively faceless, so outside of being a pretty understandable teenager, with pretty understandable teen motivations, the bulk of the dilemma is what to do now, not what happened then.

But you still think because it's not a "normal" teen pregnancy game, it shouldn't be offered as a Steam option? How narrow your worldview must be, Comte.

From Max Overload:

This isn't a game, it's a Powerpoint Hydra, and an ugly one at that.

I have no idea what you mean. What's a Powerpoint Hydra?

From spyke2009:

Not a game. No gameplay, it's a badly written choose your own path adventure book in E-Format. They have the right to exist, but they're not games. No, just no.

It belongs on newgrounds

Newgrounds still exists? But barring that, visual novels have every right to exist on Steam, and every right to be considered games. Granted, most of them are the equivalent of harem anime or dating sims, but there's a ton already on Steam and being sold on a daily basis. So how is this one, part of the same genre, then not a game?

From Batman on January 21st:

Downvoting this for 2 reasons
1. It doesn't look good. Graphics - if you want to make it a choose your own adventure - that's fine, but make the screens convey an emotion. Choose your visuals wisely - fonts, buttons, make sure it looks decent. It doesn't have to be expensive to look tasteful.

2. It doesn't look like it will have the maturity to tackle the subject well. This ties in with the previous point, as my main point of reference are the screenshots. The screenshots don't show anything resembling nuance in the game - which isn't to say there isn't going to be, but I sure as hell am not excited to play it.

You know you've failed to convey the emotion of a raped 14 year old when your game looks... silly. It looks too immature, and it's sad because I want games that explore dark parts of humanity... but you can't make it look like something a 12 year old will post on their facebook in an attempt at sounding deep or insightful.

So, because it doesn't feature the "dark parts of humanity", you're not interested? For the love of all things, make up your damned minds! It's not 'dark' enough, so it's not a good game. It's too dark, so it's not a good game. It focuses more on her being a teenager, then her being shattered and bleeding in an alley somewhere, so you're meh on the concept?

Really, what sort of striated, narrow definitions are y'all using here??

From The Knave of Hearts:

Promotes loli rape... Much glurge, do not want.

How does a game about the painful consequences of an unwanted and undesired act promote pedophilia in any way? I'm confused.

From Amon_Wraa:

Short Story Simulator 2015: Child Rape Edition

REALLY?!?

And finally (at least for now), user T-Wrecks:

Oh boy, Depression Quest 2 -_- No thanks, I like my games to actually qualify as games. Save the bland teen fiction for the middle school library.

Oh, for the love of--it's not Depression Quest 2. Grow the hell up.



Maybe it won't matter, in the end, because the voices against will outweigh the voices for. Still, if for no other reason than that it's not your typical fire-at-things-until-dead game, it deserves more consideration than just "ew lolicon not a gaem lol". At least, in my opinion.

we are not standing, we are falling

(Continued from part two.)

Still on January 19th, [GIRL] FireballNitro ♥ commented:

This piece of godlike work deserves to be glorified in front of Adolf Hitler.

I can't even respond to that. You have to be a troll.

Moving into the evening of January 19th, [TWC]Stradar said:

Wtf is this Shit sounds like Pro-Choice Garbage!! Please dont bring this shit into games!!

Isn't that the point of the game, though? It's not strictly 'pro-choice' or 'anti-woman' 'pro-life', because you are helping make the decisions on what this young girl is going to do. Now, if that's not something an individual gamer wants to do, that's perfectly understandable. But there are all sorts of games, for all sorts of people; as much as I despise Hatred as a game, and think the developers are wrong to put it out, as a game in and of itself that's all it is--a way to pass time, a way to entertain ourselves. Some of us like to be challenged, some of us just want the easy romp, some want to be scared, some want to harvest cute vegetables and raise fluffy pets. There are games for all of us.

From Sam:

You should totally add item drops like in cs:go. Play the game long enough and you can unlock different skins for your coat hanger.

And the misogyny on parade begins.

Commenter whathump (alienjh) keeps it succinct:

This game looks bad and you should feel bad.

Really? Considering it's essentially a visual novel, and the bulk of the art is one girl, standing by a fence (oh, metaphor), I suppose "looks bad" is your way of saying it doesn't have enough guns, or something. From an artistic standpoint, though, there is animation in each frame--subtle, but it is there. And there are moments of action, though I fully grant you, whathump, it's almost assuredly action you would fail to recognize in the least.

From Numquam on the 20th:

I will not support something coming on steam without given any gameplay examples. And if that video was a gameplay example, this clearly is a poorly done video game and not deserving of being released on Steam. Games need gameplay.

I have to assume that most people are just reading the title of the game, and ignoring everything else that the developers have said on the page. Because thee's a clearly given link to a playable demo; in point of fact, that entire line of writing says:

Try the demo right now at www.locomotivah.com/pregnancy

To me, that says I can click that to go download the demo, and OH WAIT I DID, because I'm not stupid.

From Bananoman:

Can my baby be an alien?

No. Because it's not your baby.

From Pyraax:

The day this gets accepted, the day I leave Steam. Please tell me this is just a troll attempt.

Why would it be? While games that are offered up on Greenlight are in various stages of completion, Pregnancy is one that is finished, so it's not a troll attempt, it's a completed game.

Moreover, you want to quit Steam, you can do that at any time. Doubt Steam--or Valve, the company behind Steam--would care either way.

From Sigurd on January 20th:

this is a joke?

Nope. Next?

An hour later, from the same commenter:

shut up we do not need a fake game.he has write a book about it not a game.

Who are you talking about, Sigurd? What fake game? What book?

From Tsubuyakj:

Anyone els suffering from extreme paranoiya and confusion trying to understand what this is? ...and if its legal?

It's "paranoia", it's pretty clear what it is, both by watching the video and by reading the blurb beneath it.

Assuming you can read, that is.

For the legality of it, sure, if we were shown graphic images of a living, actual fourteen-year-old girl being raped, then yes, it might very well be illegal, and in that case, Steam wouldn't be considering it for Greenlight. We are not shown that.



We are shown rape flashbacks, which are traumatizing for those of us who've suffered such, but are, on the face of those sections of the game alone, simply words on the screen, same as the rest of the game. Pregnancy is, at the end of the day, a text-based adventure start to finish. There are no scenes of violence, there are no real children being abused in a such a fashion; all depictions of Lilla's rape are descriptions, not pictorial representations.

From Asterette✿:

So she's 14 and got pregnant by a rapist/pedo... What decision she would make is obvious.

No so, Asterette. There are women who do not choose to abort, even after rape. I've known people who wouldn't be alive if their mothers had thought the situation was so cut and dried as you seem to think it is.

I'll be clear, here: I think abortion should be a basic reproductive right, until we grow into the kind of society that values all children, raises them responsibly, doesn't beat them, doesn't force sex on them. Since that may never happen, abortion is a necessary medical practice.

But that doesn't mean it's right and proper for everyone. We don't know Lilla's religion, and from the demo, we don't get a strong idea of her family, and the values they hold. She lives in Hungary; does that mean she's in a more conservative region, or not? She's fourteen and she's talking about music she likes and movies she likes, so I posit she's living in a larger city, or at least a suburb of a larger city, but even that doesn't mean much. And keep in mind, the whole point of pro-choice is not "an abortion in every home", but to give each woman who faces this decision the right to make this decision on their own.

Ultimately, taken out of game context, Lilla's situation should be hers and hers alone, but we are also social beings. She fears, at one point (in at least one chosen story path), telling her Aunt Panka the truth, because she's not sure how she will react. And that's honest.

In the most supportive family, in a family who holds a raped daughter, a raped niece, a raped granddaughter to be just as pure and beautiful as she was before the attack, in a family that would support her unconditionally no matter what she chose, it is still a decision. And while her family, her friends, her doctors can advise her on what to do, it's till ultimately her choice.

So no, Asterette, I don't think it's ever going to be that simple, for anyone who faces this decision, no matter who they are.

(Continued in part four.)

to tell it straight, I'm trying to build a wall

(Continued from part one.)

Picking up back on January 19th, here's dogui's decision on the game:

It's a great concept for a game. But there's a difference between commercial entertainment games and a contemplative deep art game with a message. Acclaimed games like Passage or The Company of Myself aren't on Steam or any store because they're just not games meant to make money. It's a matter of context, not quality in itself.

That's not entirely true, dogui. My Steam game collection, for example, contains a game called The Path (which, when it premiered in 2009, was also controversial because of its themes of child abuse and rape). And there are other games that have been dismissed as 'walking simulators' or, as you put it, 'just not games meant to make money'.

Here's the thing. All game designers want their games to sell, sure. But if your key criteria for approving games is, will this become a Triple-A title? You're using the wrong criteria for game criticism.



From Havok006 on the 19th:

What is wrong with you Indie developers. Call me old, but when I play games, I play games to escape harsh realities. Not live in it. I also notice you guys are obsessed with rape lately.

Yes people in real life get rape, and it is sad and a horrible thing.

But do we really need that crap for entertainment??

Call me old, but games are supposed to fun and play characters you care and root for to escape reality.

Even when you play a Female Protagonist, their supposed to usually be a bad ass that know one will dare get on thier bad side. Like Samus from metroid, and other famous heroines.
Where you have fun playing and even forget you are playing a female character cause you are having funning.

So, you don't mind playing female protagonists as long as they're active and "bad ass" and you can forget they're actually female? Because you're "having funning"?



So Bayonetta's not for you, then.

My other problem is that whole line about developers being "obsessed with rape". When did that happen? Yes, there are games that feature rape as a concept, for good or ill. It's definitely a choice for us as players as to whether we want to accept those themes. It doesn't mean they're bad games because they feature traumatic themes. If lack of trauma was a solid criteria in determining good, playable games, survival horror would never have caught on as a genre.

From THE SKELETON KING:

Do the right thing for your game. Abort it.

See, and here all Steam is asking is whether you are interested in the game, or not. The messages you leave go directly to the game developers, so was this really necessary? It's a game full of harsh moments, even genuinely gut-wrenching ones, and your total message back was "abortion is the right thing to do"? Really??

(Continued in part three.)

I was halfway there one frozen dawn when she appeared at the side of the road

I fully grant, there are always people willing to debate what makes a game a game, and in fact, if any particular game qualifies as a game in the first place. And I don't think that's a bad conversation to have; you can (in some places, at least) learn a lot along the way of deciding whether X is actually a "game", by the traditionally understood rules.

For the purposes of debate, an official definition, of sorts:

game (gām)
n.
1. An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime: party games; word games.
2.
a. A competitive activity or sport in which players contend with each other according to a set of rules: the game of basketball; the game of gin rummy.
b. A single instance of such an activity: We lost the first game.
c. games An organized athletic program or contest: track-and-field games; took part in the winter games.
d. A period of competition or challenge: It was too late in the game to change the schedule of the project.

(via the Free Dictionary)

game (ɡeɪm)

noun

• an amusement or pastime; diversion
• a contest with rules, the result being determined by skill, strength, or chance
• a single period of play in such a contest, sport, etc
• the score needed to win a contest
• a single contest in a series; match
• (plural; often capital) an event consisting of various sporting contests, esp in athletics ⇒ Olympic Games, Highland Games
• equipment needed for playing certain games
• short for computer game
• an activity undertaken in a spirit of levity; joke ⇒ marriage is just a game to him

(from the Collins English dictionary)

Okay. So there's that. Now to the point at hand: the Pregnancy game seeking support on Steam Greenlight. In brief, here's the setup of the game: you are playing as the invisible guide to 14-year-old Lilla Sandor, a young girl living in Hungary. She has been raped. You are there to understand her story, and to guide her towards either keeping her unborn daughter, or aborting her.



From Stupid_Username on January 19th:

will it have abortions?

Well, if you bothered to read the description, that may be the conclusion of the protagonist's dilemma, but I don't think that's quite what you're asking. I'm assuming you want to know whether or not it's going to actually show an abortion, and I'm pretty sure that's not going to be the case.

From Ch0lo on the same day:

Ladies and gentlemen, THIS is what game industry has turned into-*JonTron kind of voice on* A FUCKING PREGNANCY GAME. I MEAN, GOOD GOD, EVEN GODDAMN ROCK SIMULATOR HAS MUCH MORE SENCE THAN THIS THING. WHO WOULD FUCKING PLAY A GAME ABOUT SOME 14 YEAR OLD LOLY THAT THINKS ABOUT HER PREGNANCY? WHY WOULD SHE EVEN THINK ABOUT PREGNANCY IN SUCH AGE? EVEN A 18 YEARS OLD WOULD NEVER THINK ABOUT PREGNANCY UNTILL 23 OR SOMETHING. I DONT HAVE ANY WORDS LEFT, SO I'M JUST GONNA GO AND SHOOT MYSELF WITH A BIG FUCKING GUN. IT WAS JONTRON(or his clone...), SIGNING OFF!*JonTron voice off*.

Aside from all the cursing, and the grammatical errors, I'm not sure what your point was other than yelling. If you read the game's description, then you would understand why a fourteen-year-old girl is thinking about pregnancy. And, considering the thousands of young girls--some as young as ten, some up to sixteen--who get pregnant via rape, familial abuse, or actually having semi-consensual sex (I qualify, because at least according to US law, no person under eighteen can consent to sex, even if they're willing; our laws are strange), I understand entirely why a fourteen-year-old, an eighteen-year-old, a however-year-old would be thinking about pregnancy. Namely, because in the game, SHE'S PREGNANT.

Or did you miss that part?

From Ch0lo again, a few hours later:

I noticed that the website has some weird as shit name too. "Locomotivah". You mean "Locomotive"? I dont know how bad the dev's grammar is, but I think EVERYONE knows that locomotive is a termin to describe a rail vehicle(you know, the one that also is a subway, the one that hauls freights and stuff....). How in the merry Isiah of Popsicle Island the website name crosses any lines with this abomination?

You're seriously trying to break down the grammar on the game studio name? When we have established game studios with names like Fatshark, Artdink, Halfbrick, Clap Hanz, Mean Hamster Software, Foppy Omega, and Tantrumedia, just to name a few? It's the name of their studio, it's not some affront to the purity of language. And you're one to talk anyway, considering you can't spell.

(Continued in part two.)

our bruises seem to surface like mud beneath the snow

So, there's this game on Steam's Project Greenlight. Here's the game studio's own description of their game:

Hatred fills your whole body. You’re sick and tired of humanity’s worthless existence. The only thing that matters is your gun and pure Armageddon that you want to unleash.

You will go out for a hunt, you will clear the New York outskirts of the humans with a cold blood. You will shoot, you will hurt, you will kill, you will die. There are no rules, no compassion, no mercy, no point of going back. You are the lord of life and death now and you have the full control over lives of worthless human scum.

You will also run, you will need to think, you will need to hide and fight back when armored forces will come to take you down. You will have no mercy for them, because they dare to come in your way.

Only brutality and destruction can clear this land. Only the killing spree will make you die spectacularly and go to hell.

Features:

• Mad journey into the Antagonist's hateful mind.
• Isometric shooter with best features of its kind.
• 7 free-roam locations -starting from the outskirts of New York State and ending at...
• Fight against law enforcement (police and stronger forces).
• Gathering equipment off the dead and spreading Armageddon upon society.
• Destroying everything on your way, hunting and fighting back.
• Discovering the plot evolving in a non-linear way.
• Unreal Engine 4 PhysX system boundaries pushed to the limits

Now, first and foremost, while this sort of "everyone's scum they all need to die" game form isn't my cup of tea, and I'm fairly sure it doesn't contribute to the best community of players, in and of itself it's just another game. There are good games and bad games; games that enlighten, games that destabilize. As a survival horror fan, I can honestly say I've played games that have given me nightmares, so I have little ethical ground to stand on where the whole "psyche-injuring games" genre exists and is.

That having been said, the reason I know about this game at all is that some of the "fans" voting for it want to see female game designers (like Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu and others), as well as female game critics (like Anita Sarkeesian) as killable NPCs in the game.

Let me say that again, because it sounds vaguely important: supporters of Hatred, the game, want to see representations of real women as adversaries to hurt, mutilate and murder in the game.

There's a petition to keep the game off Steam, as well as a petition to keep the game ON Steam. People seem exceptionally polarized about this work. But that's not necessarily my main concern.

The next comments are presented without corrections.

From TequilaGundam:

Anythying that pisses off SJW is fine by me, gonna buy this as soon as it possible. (December 15)

From The Gentleman Spy:

Cant wait to fuck faggots up.
(December 15)

(December 15)From Shavot:

I CAN'T WAIT TO KILL INNOCENT PEOPLE! 
(December 15)

From jakey1995abc:

If we preorder do we get a free AR-15 in the mail? (December 15)

From Chakracat:

Dear God please let there be an Elliot Rodger skin. 
(December 15)

From goga777:

Excellent, I'll wait, moral fags are forested
(December 15, translated from Russian)

From KDolo:

Can there be a Sanita Aarkeesian skin?
(December 15)

From spacecat:

Looking forward to modding this so I can ice ppl I depise IRL
(December 15)

From Creepter:

Apparently this game is "problematic". Good. For every agressive progressive retard demanding this game to be pulled and censored, you get five up-votes.

Let the game come, and let the SJW's cry.
(December 15)

From MilkshakeMakerMilkshakeTaker:

Can I kill kids?
(December 15)

From demasa:

Do we get extra points for killing SJW? I want to drink more of their delicious tears.
(December 15)

From (null):

Feminist Convention DLC pls
(December 15)

From Dexter:

Will Pre-Order because you are standing against the SJW cancer infesting gaming. Thank you for your service.
(December 15)

From Fatal Pulse

I have saved up all my internalized racism/misogyny for this!
(December 15)

From Le Robo Pope:

Children NPCs? Office shooter DLC? Elliot Rodger skin for pre-ordering? When?
(December 15)

From Buck ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ:

Voted yes, needs children though.
(December 15)

And then, there was Club_Shrimp:

1. This game is so laughably juvenile and emotionally stunted. It just reeks of attention-seeking, cynical shock-shlock, and the worldview / philosophy of the whole thing is pathetically shallow and childish. The description reads like something some metalhead teenager who think's he's superior to everyone else would write. The appearance of the main character almost confirms this. Aw yeah, trenchcoat and long hair, I'm so cool and above it all. Nobody understands me, and no has it all figured out like me. Horseshit. Why do you all want to support this garbage? Why is THIS garbage the figurehead of so many gamers' demands for freedom of speech? Seriously, get some taste.

Comment two:

2. It's easy to tell that the quality of the game doesn't matter to most of you who are greenlighting it. All you care about is revenge against "SJWs." With such a misguided mindset, I can guarantee you that a great many awful, juvenile games will inundate the gaming world just because of your tantrum-politics. Actually look at this game - it's clearly trash. It's funny because most anti-sjws claim to care only about the quality of games and not their political content - something which their attitudes toward this game directly contradict. This game is a political vehicle for anti-sjws - quality is finally irrelevant to them.

Comment three:

3. That said, this game promotes toxic ideological ideas. The creators have said they are against "totalitarian ideology," but what's more totalitarian than going on a killing spree? Killing and murder are FUNDAMENTALLY authoritarian - the eclipsing of the will of other people with your own absolutist will. See the description: "You are the lord of life and death" - a classically totalitarian, authoritarian sentiment. This whole game is a puerile, intellectual mess. Quality control was made for garbage like this game.

Comment four:

4. Should freedom of speech allow the promotion of ideological ideas that are fundamentally anti-freedom? Because that's what this game does - it glorifies them. If you claim that everyone is free to do and say what they wish, what about people who enslave and kill? Does your concept of freedom allow such behaviors? Is that not contradictory? Allowing such things brings about UNfreedom to a great many people, and suddenly, people AREN'T free to do as they please. There must be limits to such freedoms lest freedom turn into it's absolute opposite. If you value freedom so much, you shouldn't be allowing people to promote behaviors and ideologies that are fundamentally about the absolute negation or annihilation of freedom.

There's a very problematic phrase in there, "limits to such freedoms". Is there a limit to freedom? Well, yes, in many ways, both in theory and in practical application, but as it applies to this game?

How'ver, such ethical wrangling aside, there's a lot of truth in this, and in the pages and pages of comments I'm not quoting, simply because it would take too much time out of my life to read through them all. The bulk of the supporters of this game really seem to want it greenlit for two reasons, neither of them based on the quality or playability of the game:

• That it will irritate non-GamerGaters, and thus, provide the GamerGaters supporting Hatred the opportunity to enforce their misogynistic beliefs; and
• that it will either be moddable, or the game will actually choose to code in NPCs to kill based on SJWs, feminist activists, and other chosen targets of GamerGate.

Naïve question of the day alert: when did Project Greenlight become more about political activism and less about the actual games being voted on?