Maybe the Christmas Spirit moved them, or maybe they thought it should be up to the community – but whatever the reason – Valve has decided to reinstate Creative Destruction's controversial game Hatred on Steam Greenlight.
If you haven't been paying attention to the situation, Valve removed the game (which its developers describe as a mass shooting action game where you gun down people for no particular reason) from Steam Greenlight a few hours after the project went live on the service, with Valve's Doug Lombardi saying the game wasn't a good fit for Steam.
The developers were gracious about it even in the face of harsh rejection from the platform, pointing out that games like Postal and Manhunt – two very violent mature-rated games – were available on Steam already.
But last night Valve seemed to have a change of heart and decided to reinstate the game's Steam Greenlight status. We don't know why, but it's probably not a bad thing. Greenlight is supposed to be about the community picking and choosing what games get approved – not Valve.
Or maybe it wasn't the Christmas Spirit at all. It turns out that Valve's founder Gabe Newell stepped in. In a direct apology to Creative Destruction, Gabe Newell explained the situation:
"Yesterday I heard that we were taking Hatred down from Greenlight. Since I wasn’t up to speed, I asked around internally to find out why we had done that. It turns out that it wasn’t a good decision, and we’ll be putting Hatred back up. My apologies to you and your team. Steam is about creating tools for content creators and customers."
Those interested in visiting the Steam Greenlight page for the game can find it here.
