According to a report at Forbes 'Hotline Miami 2' Developer To Australian Gamers: 'Just Pirate It':
Earlier this week we learned that Hotline Miami 2 wouldn’t receive classification from the Australian Classification Board due to a controversial scene that depicts a fictional rape.
No classification means no sale of Hotline Miami 2 down under, making it a tiny bit harder for gamers to their hands on a copy. Harder, but not impossible.
As Hotline Miami 2 developer Jonatan Söderström wrote to a fan in an email:
If it ends up not being release in Australia, just pirate it after release.
No need to send us any money, just enjoy the game!
I find this to be an interesting intersection of, on the one hand, a society's desire to assess content based on local norms, and on the other, a developer's desire to produce an uncompromised item of art.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by gnuman on Monday January 19 2015, @03:24PM
So, private email is made public and the programmer gets in trouble? Is that the news?
Unless he speaks for the company that pays him, and this is just a marketing gimmick, at very least his name should have been kept private.
(Score: 4, Informative) by gman003 on Monday January 19 2015, @03:30PM
Uh, Dennaton Games is a much smaller company than you seem to think. Jonaton Soderstrom is literally half of the company, and the bigger half to boot. He literally does speak for the company that pays him.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by FatPhil on Monday January 19 2015, @03:48PM
TR: ... and now my record label all round the world hates me. I called them out for being greedy fucking assholes.
TR: I didn't get a chance to check - has the price come down at all?
Crowd: [lots of NO!s]
TR: I see a no, a no, a no, a no. Has anyone seen the price come down?
Crowd: [lots of NO!s]
TR: OK. Well you know what that means? [pause] Steal it.
Crows: [roars]
TR: Steal away. Steal and steal and steal some more, and give it away to all your friends, and keep on stealing.
I've never been a huge NIN fan (don't dislike their music, just not a fan), but I am certainly a fan of Trent's attitude to his art (which he wants to see propagated), his fans (which he wants to have access to his art), and his record label (Universal - who are apparently greedy fucking assholes)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday January 19 2015, @06:25PM
That's kinda redundant.
I don't like his music but, like you, I am a fan of the attitude to his art.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 19 2015, @07:00PM
What's up with the "@" in assholes?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 19 2015, @07:29PM
It looks like an asshole.
(Score: 3, Funny) by tibman on Monday January 19 2015, @10:33PM
Vonnegut says you should use an asterisk: *
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by arashi no garou on Monday January 19 2015, @08:48PM
I do like his music (though not the more recent stuff as much); I was a teenager when he released his first album and grew up listening to industrial and gothic music, mostly thanks to NIN. One of his early singles ("Head like a Hole") called out his record label for screwing him and his fans over way back then. It's nice to know he carried that attitude into the new century and still sees it as art and not dollar signs.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 19 2015, @08:30PM
$22/disc looks cheap to me - in New Zealand, CDs are around $33-$35 each.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday January 20 2015, @09:33PM
You got to be kidding me.......
That is an extortionate price and most likely has "unintended consequences".
(Score: 1) by gawdonblue on Monday January 19 2015, @08:06PM
I don't know art, but I know what I DON'T like.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 19 2015, @08:31PM
If the artwork was literally "raping someone" I would agree.
However if it's depicting a rape. Like, for instance, in a book, movie or perhaps even computergame. That's a different thing altogether. Hotline Miami 1 was extremely violent, but way more thought provoking than most FPSes, where the killing is just routine.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday January 19 2015, @10:58PM
Hotline Miami 1 was extremely violent, but way more thought provoking than most FPSes
Infinitesimally more is way more than zero. Or was this satire?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 20 2015, @12:04AM
The game might have been over your head, but the entire freaking thing is satire. The developers even Mary Sue'd themselves into it so they could lecture the player about video game violence and then let the player kill them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 19 2015, @11:45PM
No one is forcing you to look at it, let alone purchase it yourself.
Do you believe it's appropriate for a government agency to decide what its adult citizens are allowed to hear or see?
Do you believe it's appropriate for a government to decide what its citizens are allowed to say or think?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 20 2015, @12:11AM
The comment is related to taste, not censorship. I can defend your right to perpetrate rape culture and still criticise you for perpetrating rape culture without contradiction.
(Score: 2) by TGV on Monday January 19 2015, @09:13PM
You can say all you want about being distasteful should or should not be a reason for banning, but calling it an uncompromised work of art is the same rhetoric BS as calling money speech.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 20 2015, @10:18AM
Fucking cunts.