Mass shooter game Hatred hits Steam Greenlight, gets pulled by Valve (update)

Hatred, the grim, ultra-violent mass shooter from Polish studio Destructive Creations, hit Steam Greenlight earlier today with the hope that potential fans would vote for the game's inclusion on Steam. But Valve, the company who controls Steam, quickly dashed Destructive Creations' Greenlight hopes and pulled the title from its platform.

"Based on what we've seen on Greenlight we would not publish Hatred on Steam," Valve's Doug Lombardi said in an email to Polygon. "As such we'll be taking it down."

Hatred was unveiled in October as a playable "genocide crusade" in which the player character slaughters innocent civilians and law enforcement in an effort to "spread Armageddon." Developer Epic Games, whose Unreal Engine powers the title, quickly distanced itself from Hatred and requested that its logos be removed from the game's trailer.

Destructive Creations creative director Jarosław Zieliński attempted to rally gamers interested in seeing Hatred on Steam in an announcement this morning, saying, "If you are a diehard Hatred fan then this is one of the most important news for you this year! Now YOU can vote and decide to bring the game to one of the most popular gaming platforms! Don't just wait until it happens. Tell your friends about it and let their friends tell their friends, so the news will spread everywhere!"

The developer also released a new teaser trailer, featuring more of the game's unrepentant and ugly violence, to support its Greenlight campaign.

Valve removed another game from Steam in October when a developer threatened company co-founder Gabe Newell on Twitter. The developer of Paranautical Activity, Mike Maulbeck, said the decision to remove the game from Steam hurt it sales of the title, saying "It's just not possible to make a living in this industry without steam."

Update: Destructive Creations issued the following statement on Hatred's removal from Steam Greenlight.

Dear Hatred Fans,

As you know today we've launched our Steam Greenlight campaign for Hatred. Unfortunately after couple of hours Steam shut it down giving the below as reasons behind their decision:

"We wanted you guys to know that based on what we see on Greenlight we would not publish Hatred on Steam. As such we'll be taking it down."

Even though games like Manhunt or Postal are still available on Steam we of course fully respect Valve's decision, as they have the right to do so. In the same time we want to assure you that this won't in any way impact the game's development, game's vision or gameplay features we're aiming for. The game is still to be released in Q2 2015 as planned.

Moreover we don't treat this as a failure because yet again this showed us a huge community support we're totally overwhelmed with. After only a couple of hours Greenlight campaign being live, Hatred gathered 13,148 up votes and ended up on a #7 on Top 100 list.

This is the best proof for us that there are diehard Hatred fans out there, waiting for this game to be released. And that we need to keep going to deliver them a game that offers exciting and challenging gameplay.

The whole situation only pushes us forward to go against any adversity and not to give up. It also makes us want to provide our fans Hatred pre-orders sooner, as many of you have asked for them.

At the end of the day you, gamers will judge if we were able to do a game that's simply fun to play.

Destructive Creations Team