Hatred returns to Steam, allegedly with the help of Gabe Newell

Just a day after being yanked from the service, Hatred is back on Steam Greenlight.

Perhaps more surprising however is that the developer of the controversial shooter says that it was Valve boss Gabe Newell himself who sought to overturn its removal.

Yesterday I heard that we were taking Hatred down from Greenlight,” the apparent email from Newell to Destructive Creations creative director Jaros?aw Zieli?ski said. 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. Good luck with your game.”

The game went live on Steam Greenlight yesterday but was quickly pulled, with Steam allegedly telling the developers: "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."

Critics of its removal cried loudly of censorship, while those who remain unsettled by Hatred argued that a retailer choosing not to sell a product is not censorship. A government preventing its sale would be, of course, but that hasn’t happened.

But with Hatred virtually guaranteed to kick off a mainstream media storm at some point, Valve’s decision is a surprise. A shot in the arm for creative freedom? Or a demonstration that sales will always outrank morality?

The user response to Hatred on Greenlight was positive, alarmingly, with the game gaining 13,148 up-votes and ranking seventh in Greenlight’s Top 100.