Obviously, all the trigger warnings for this post.
“Fag down.”
“Transgender kill.”
“You killed that faggot.”
“Straight pride.”
“AIDS carrier eliminated.”
These are just some of the gems from the game Kill the F*ggot, which was removed from Steam Greenlight earlier today. This is the short trailer for the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEi2lLMCGXU
Even redditors and some GGers are saying this game goes too far, and they support Valve removing it from Steam. Of course, there are the typical cries for free speech here and there, but most all agree that this terrible-looking game is ridiculous, offensive, and has no merit. It has raised some interesting questions, however.
Is a game that depicts violence also advocating for it?
This seems to be a common question when examining this game and others like it. Just because a game depicts violence, doesn’t mean that it’s saying that violence is ok, right? Well on the surface, this seems like a reasonable argument. Destiny isn’t making me feel morally obligated to kill aliens. Mario Bros doesn’t make me feel morally obligated to kill gumbas. Red Dead Redemption skirts the line between depicting violence against Native Americans in a historical and critical way and glorifying it. This can be gauged through the level of prominence given to the occurrence and the level of complexity with which it is presented. You are part Native American in RDD, and the narrative complicates the killings. The way a prostitute is getting raped on the periphery of the game, with the gentleman saying “Shut up, Bitch, before I cut you a new whole,” is presented as natural, uncritical, and part of everyday life.
Does a game always advocate for the violence it depicts, no. Does Kill the F*aggot? Obviously yes. The entire purpose of the game is to eliminate gay and transgendered people, who are visible only through stereotypical language and clothing. The game literally rewards you for killing gay people while your narrator says homophobic things. I think we can stay away from the philosophical debate with this particular game, because it’s pretty obvious. Is this going to lead games like GTA to be banned because it depicts and thus advocates killing prostitutes? I doubt KTF has that much power. Plus it, along with lots of games, have been banned. So it’s not like this is a new post-GG thing.
Are bloggers gatekeeping game content through outrage?
Again, when you make a controversial game, people are going to respond in many ways to it. When you violate the terms of service, you may get kicked out of Calgary Expo or get your game removed by Valve. That’s the other side of the “freedom of speech” thing that GGers seem to forget. Free speech is a pretty particular thing that keeps you from being persecuted by the government. That does not mean you get make a game called Kill the F*ggots and Valve has to keep it on their company site. Dems the rub. Bloggers get to write bad reviews, demand games be removed, and be outraged. Companies may not listen, and they will face the consequences. Or they will listen, and they will face a different set of consequences.
But let’s be clear: This shit is disgusting. It’s not a some zombie game or cartoon with aliens. Gay people are continually harassed, murdered, and incarcerated all over the world. It’s not a fucking joke, nor is it a game. This is not free speech, nor is it even veiled hate speech. This depicts are ridicules a very real violence being done to very real human beings. This incites and advocates for very real violence being done to very real human beings.
Most responses to this pathetic excuse for a “game” seem to be in agreement with the previous points. I doubt the removal of Kill the F*ggots from Steam will be the new rallying cry against censorship for GGers. A game, an incident, or a person will be the new rallying cry, though. This will likely be just as offensive, but much more veiled and systemic. It’s easy to dismiss this game but turn a blind eye to sexism and homophobia that is hidden within the games we love. Let’s all agree this shit should be burned and buried, but let’s not forget that there are many games pushing this same message exist, and those are the discussions we need to have.
4 thoughts on “Kill the F*ggot removed from Steam Greenlight (TRIGGERS)”
I don’t even know what to say about shit like this. That anyone at all could be advocating for it anywhere… we went wrong somewhere. We all did.
I haven’t read all the various comment threads about this, because I can only make it so far, but I’m sure someone out there is saying LOL IT’S JUST A JOKE HAHA OF COURSE IT’S NOT SERIOUS, but the thing is, it is serious. It’s serious and heart-rending and awful and what kind of person even spends their time on this garbage?
I hadn’t even heard about this. Wow, our gaming community has some really vile members in it who would support or even cry over this game being banned.
But you raised two interesting examples about violence in games. Definitely nothing about this particular game is good. It not only causes hateful behavior but advocates violence towards very specific, targeted minorities. There’s no game that comes to mind which does this or even close.
But does Destiny and Mario Bros advocate violence? Perhaps not, but they do normalize violence against Others and I think this is why violence in games is such a difficult conversation to have. We all know something isn’t quite right about the way we use it, and yet we also know it’s effects aren’t causative. Othering in games is a stand-in for “automatically bad, always safe to kill/abuse/ridicule/harass” characters, which is bad enough. Every gamer gets to insert their own bogeyman and for sure there are those among us imagining stomping transsexuals, women and people of color. They are reinforcing the kinds of ideas that make cops feel justified in shooting kids on the street. The reasoning is precisely the same and that’s a problem for games.
I’ve always felt games were a safe environment for us all to be able to experiment with these sort of ideas, but people don’t play games to learn something. They play them to act out fantasies or be amused and that’s why violence in games will always be counter-productive to the social conversation.
I type none of this in disagreement with any points here. But I think the examples resurrect an important conversation on their own. I feel your outrage and honestly I think most of us do.
No offense intended, so please don’t feel defensive, which I understand is common when discussing sensitive topics. I have a tendency to be defensive so I’m just trying to be mindful of my words.
Have you read the creator’s post about this game? You need a direct link: http://skaldicgames.com/statement.html
He basically states that this is intended to be a bad looking game, it’s intended to be a game within a game ( the larger of which he is currently working on), and that he intentionally created the game to be like this to showcase how sensitive people are and how they waste their time talking about games like the one he created and plans to include in their own game.
“I made this game just to piss off those people that are way too overly sensitive, which includes straight people. These people that think if you are even remotely homophobic, you are “hateful” and a “bigot”, and do everything they can to destroy you in every vicious way possible.. So I decided to go down a path that most developers are afraid to go down: to piss these people off by making the most overly offensive game possible to these idiots to prove a point. The point being that a crappy made video game would offend people so much. I mean so offended that people will waste all their time posting on forums, redit, etc of how disgusted they are, offended, how much everyone involved in the game should die, and even getting into large debates over it of how worthless and evil we are, etc.”
So they decided to do this just to piss people off in order to show them how much time they are wasting talking about a game. So he doesn’t want people to talk about games and debate the merits that the media has?
I just don’t understand the logic, but I am happy with the community’s repsonse that lead to Valve adding a $100 fee for Greenlight games and removing said game.
No need for all the disclaimers. Thanks for the link — interesting to see this person’s explanation, but frankly, anytime someone defends a shit action with some variation of, “I just wanted to start a conversation,” no matter the logic behind it, it seems disingenuous to me, and particularly so here. People are “easily offended” when it comes to LGBT issues, so let’s make the most offensive, horrific thing I possibly can to… what, prove that people will get mad? Ridiculous. Just as senseless as the work itself.