Hatred - The most controversial video game of 2015

Hatred, a video game developed by Destructive Creations, is probably the most controversial video game to enter the market in 2015. Hatred is heavily criticized due to the context of the game. It is incredibly violent which is not so unlike most games. A lot of games are very violent. This has led to the game to receiving an Adult Only rating by the ESRB. The reason why this is a unique case in comparison to other violent games is because of the context of which Hatred is set in.

In Hatred, you are what is known as a Spree Killer, game-play consists of killing everyone and everything. Including civilians and police officers, in brutal ways such as stabbing, shooting and punching/kicking. In detail, this mean you shoot your victims in the mouth, stab them repeatedly in various areas, all while they are begging for mercy. This as a result has led the ESRB to give it an Adults Only rating, which creates problems in terms of selling the game. Steam has historically not stocked Adults Only games, during the game's green light phase it was taken off, only to be reinstated by Gabe Newell himself, who is the managing director of Valve Corporation, which in turn owns Steam.

But now that the game has received an Adults Only rating, it is unclear whether or not the game will be stocked on Steam, which could heavily affect sales of the game. There will be other retailers that will stock it, and of course the developers can sell it from their own website. However, this will heavily affect the game's exposure as well as the fact that such a rating means that the game cannot go onto consoles. 

The developer's would prefer to get a standard M+ rating because with Adults Only they will have problems getting it on consoles.

In regards to Steam, the question is how far is Steam willing to go? Will they allow it to be sold on Steam? 

The only reason why the developer would go for the option of getting an ESRB rating, is so they can stock it for consoles. Console games require an ESRB rating to be sold for the console, however Steam does not require such a rating. I think it would be great for them to drop the ESRB rating and just get it out on Steam, rather than trying to get it across all platforms. Where is the line drawn in regards to what Steam stocks?

The game was green lit incredibly quickly by the community, will Steam respect the community's wants? Or will they consider the rating?

Valve does not look too much at the games that are Green Lit, so perhaps they will give Hatred special treatment. The end result will be very interesting to see, will it be sold on Steam or will it be rejected?

We will have to see.