Wouldn't it be better if they finally made the 18+ section. This is just stupid of Valve. And many games have sexual content in them.
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err...
it's a fact that Steam Parental Control is as useless as their judgement to VN games
oh well, even 5 years old kid know how to trick the "Please enter your day of birth" blockade
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Tomorrow they may decide Blue Estate the game, which you won here, is sexist, and remove it from your account
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No. It will be removed from the store only. Steam will never remove ANY game from your account if you "own it".
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They will remove from the store then. Do you agree with that?
Pd: Amazon removed one book from the kindle
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Sex is a real thing and is important, it is something intimate between two lovers which should remain away from public eye. Depicting it in a tasteless, abusive fashion is done to set a behavioral trend amongst masses, a way to force something wrong to be widely accepted.
You will more than likely go out and violate a woman in some way, driven by an egoistical urge without any sort of real understanding (which is indeed corrupted by games/movies like these). On the other hand I really doubt you have the guts to go out and murder someone, though. Everyone has sex in their lifetime. But not everyone goes as far as killing people, right?
Girls/Women should be portrayed in good light, not as whores. They are the ones who will be the mothers of the next generations. These games are aimed at children who will lose their innocence before they have gotten to know the world around them and lose sight of what is valuable in life. Without true love nothing worthwhile on this Earth can prosper. If "they" violate and twist the meaning of love, "they" have partially won control over the population, a population that will never be able to see the real world problems around them because their sights will be set on meaningless things.
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If you want sex or porn you can always google it, you don't have to bring that stuff into games. Add some simple tetris or candycrush theme, hentai clothed pics and price tag of 20USD, that is by my definition, one of those crappiest games on Steam. I 100% support removal of all crap games from Steam.
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I think there's a serious double-standard in which men who have lots of sex are studs and women who have lots of sex are whores. It's wrong either way. It's perfectly fine for people of any sex to enjoy sex with others without commitment, or to want to have commitment before having sex.
I don't see a serious problem with simple nudity (like what pavepode describes) or dating simulators (which far as I understand normally require the guy to behave nicely towards the girl in order to get to a sex scene). I do have problems with the likes of 'monster girl' games where the player has to beat the girls in order to make them supplicant, or any other case where sex comes as a result of violence or involved violence or isn't consensual.
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Probably some feminist with a cactus up her yahoo got offended...
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Triggered! Lol I honestly can't stand the duplicitous nature of the feminist movement. It started with a good idea, I applaud that women should get better treatment, but it all went way too far. It's also full of contradictions, and a lot of what I hear just makes me feel sick to my stomach. And men aren't chauvinists just because they don't want to be trodden over with hate and stereotyped by a movement that claims they're for equal rights for everyone.
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Oh no, hentai gone. Well, luckily you can always google same shit.
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First they came for... and all that.
The issue isn't lewd anime games, but what the future ramifications of this will be. Today it's some small indie developers, tomorrow it's more "serious" games, until finally they turn Steam into a hugbox for small children.
Also, yes, you can google said games, but how many of them are going to be made in the future when they can't be sold on a popular platform such as Steam? And keep in mind that they'll eventually come after a game, franchise or genre of games that you care about, and if they manage to create a precedent for removing "offensive" content there won't be anyone around to stop them.
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i can tell with confidence that this will never happen, no sane business would do that
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Serious games won't get affected because they are generating great profit for both, Steam and the developers. Don't forget that Steam takes, if I'm not mistaken, 30% of the sales, so in the end they'll lose money for deleting these games.
However, why I don't feel sad, is because I consider these games cancer of gaming platform. It is basically an old flash game turned into computer version and tagged with 20 dollars price tag. For me, these games go to the same category with achievement spammers and trading card free-of-charge-giveaway games that make profit for selling masses or targeting a specific audience i.e. game collectors/badge collectors/hentai lovers.
Ask yourself, if it wasn't for the hentai-style pics (if you're into it) or trading card, or just +1, would you really buy this game? I know for a fact I wouldn't. I might be "mainstream" but I really like AA and AAA-games that require a long time to develop and make, because you feel the developers have put something really impressive into it. I feel confident in saying that these games with the same idea of tetris/candy crush in each level and different picture can be easily made in less than a week.
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the developer of HuniePop does not believe that Valve would remove a game people have already paid for.
Stupid developer -.- The game will not removed out of the library, only the shop site disappear. O.o
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That's... exactly what the developer said.
I am 100% sure that steam is not going to take games out of your library that you already paid for.
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I dunno. HuniePop is a pretty damn good match-3 game regardless of 18+ content.
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I think the argument saying 'other big games have sex' is pretty flawed. Games is another form of entertainment, and as such subject to the same restrictions in other forms of entertainment. An example could be made comparing games to movies, in that a lot of mainstream movies can have nudity and even full on depictions of sex in them without being considered porn. 'Game of thrones' is full of sex, but it's not considered porn. But if the focus of the whole movie is sex and contains a lot of gratuitous depictions of it, then it would earn a 'porn' rating and be restricted accordingly. It's happened to a lot of movies over the years that people might not consider 'porn', but the ratings agencies are the ones who makes the rules.
Similarly, in games, when the subject matter is mostly about sex and the goal of the game is ultimately to unlock scenes of what is essentially soft porn, then the line will get drawn. Many of the 'sex scenes' in the 'AAA games with sex' are even completely optional. And then you consider the themes of many of the adult vns are very mature in nature, incest, rape, paedophilia etc. All things which make ratings agencies balk.
So yeah it's not really fair to blame Valve in this case. Restrictions like this apply to other forms of entertainment. Netflix can't have porn, but they can have titties and dongs aplenty in 'Altered carbon'. It was only a matter of time before the guardians of children's minds took notice of the influx of 'adult' content on steam. No doubt valve could apply for a licence to have the content, much in the same way porn sites are allowed to exist, but the knock this would have to their consumer base, versus the slight revenue increase the anime porn fans bring makes it a zero-sum game to them. Of course they will kick those games out before going full on 'porn site'.
I don't understand why it's hard for people to see the difference. And I don't get why it's another 'burn valve' crusade. There are a million places you could go to get badly drawn cat girls acting out your weird fantasies, so why is it terrible to keep it off a site where kids do actually go?
Incidentally I also don't even known why people buy these games on steam in the first place, it would be like hitting the 'share' button on a porn site
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I think that when tits are the ony reason to buy that particular game is enough to warrant a removal. Most of the time these so called "adult" games are pretty shitty anyway.
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Yeah I think that sums up the line between 'mature' and 'porn' pretty well. If you took out the sex and people still wanted the game, then it's not a porn game. And yeah, it doesn't help arguments claiming that these games are 'art' when the writing and drawing are more cringeworthy than fan fiction.
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it does not have to be "art", it's fine as smut, that is still a valid product and perfectly ok to be marketed to adults. With this move Valve is only hurting themselves and the plat form. Do I think adult games are the best thing in the world? No. But are they actually harming me? Not in the least. On the other hand all this garbage that Valve allow on steam on a daily basis, is harming me. I would like their time and effort directed at fixing actual issues, not this puritan non sense.
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Can you give me an example on how the garbage valve allows on steam is actually harming you? And if you can, then please do us all a favour and sue them. Broken games and asset flips have no direct impact on you, whereas there have been studies done that show exposing kids to sexual content is detrimental to their psychological health. Which is what the lawmakers will be using to back themselves up. Now whether or not that's true, is irrelevant, as in order to operate as a business valve needs to abide by those rules, and exposing children to pornographic content, especially when said content is potentially involving rape and paedophilia, will get them shut down. Because that is something that is actually harmful to people, not just being butthurt over crappy games.
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Pedophilic and sex crime glorifying content should not be allowed anywhere, on Steam/youtube/reddit. And if you come across any criminal content where you feel someone could be in harms way, I encourage you to report it. I have reported a group on steam in the past, it really worried me. And it turned out it was a sort of fan page of a murderer, so I'm glad I called it in. Criminal content shouldn't be allowed, and to keep track of it there needs to be clear safety policies in place.
That said, the safety of children and the policing of content they are exposed to should be the parents' responsibility. If the parents do not want their kids to see girls in bikinis, they have tools to shield them from that. Huniepop is not criminal material, it is entertainment. But I fully understand a parent not wanting their child playing that. I'm sure others find gorey shooters disturbing, also up to the parents to keep track of that. If someone's kids are buying Huniepop on steam behind their parent's backs when they do not want them buying it, that is the parent's fault not anyone else's. And if they think the child's mere knowledge that Huniepop exists is harming them, then 1) they need to get a grip and understand how to better communicate with their child. 2) they have no clue how the internet works and if this scares them, wait till they get hit with reality one of these days.
As for how garbage affects me personally, well that may be a little difficult to follow but here goes. It basically boils down to this: there's a limited amount of effective exposure a game can get, games need that exposure to survive, if the games do not survive developers can go under. When good indie games have to share the "shelf" with shovelware, and trash no one wants or needs. that hurts the real games. Which in turn hurts the customers. The trash is not something we need to see, or if it were up to me needs to even exist on steam, you can think of is as censorship or filtering or w/e you like. But the only people who benefit from that trash are the asshats who spent all of 5 minutes putting it together and uploading it on steam. Everyone else is hurt by it. Developers no longer want to publish on steam, customers no longer trust steam and have to actively look for the products they like, and can often lose sight of something they would want to buy because of the rancid cesspool Valve makes it swim in. Good developers are leaving steam behind and going to other platforms. If you do not see how that hurts me, you, the developers and everyone else who is not a degenerate shovelware pusher then I can't do anything more for you. This single issue is the biggest threat to Steam. Good Luck
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Ok and yet some of the games on valve certainly do delve into the realms of forced sex and even those that don't still fall into the definition of 'pornography'. It is illegal in many countries to make pornography available on a platform where children are allowed to participate. Yes, parents should be keeping track of that, but speaking as a parent, I certainly don't spend every waking minute of my life watching my child. I am a gamer and so I do know about the content of games and am certainly better qualified to say what's good for my children, but I know a lot of parents who don't know much about games and just presume that because it has animated characters that look similar to the other pokemon and dragon ball cartoons that the child watches, it's probably safe.
It's a lame duck argument to blame the parents solely, because there should be protections in place for areas where kids may be active. Not that they take the place of parents, but you should have at least some assurance that the site which sells things the kids may be interested in are not also offering easy access to pornographic content. And I mean honestly, this stupid argument comes out every time and I don't think people remember what they themselves were like as kids. Did I have rules? Yes. Did my parents check up on me and try keep me safe? Yes. Were they good parents? Yes. Did I still do stupid things? Absolutely. So that is why it's a legal responsibility of a company like valve to provide some form of token protection. Valve never does anything unless it's going to affect their bottom line, so you better believe the only reason they would remove games like this is because they don't want to be sued. There's nothing more to it than this. I know it sounds incredibly stupid, but most law seems to be there to protect people from their own stupidity, so it's not surprising surely?
And again the argument against valve's free market is a bit dumb. If it is indeed 'trash that no one wants to see', it will be buried, and pop up in an indiegala bundle, not really hurting anyone. It's not taking away sales from a real game. The real reason why these 'good' games aren't profitable is a lot more complex than that.
For one, there's huge competition with other 'good' games. I don't know of anyone that chooses to buy trash when they have the money to buy something they'll enjoy more. (And if they buy trash, maybe that's because it's what they like to play?) So the question then becomes, when they have the money to buy a better game, do they buy game X for full price, or game Y and Z which are on sale. The trash hasn't affected that transaction, the other good games have and the higher price of a newer game.
Secondly, games just cost more to make nowadays. So yes in a way a bundle trash game is going to appear more successful because it's one guy with gamemaker churning out a dozen a day. So even though he only makes $1000 per game, it's still profit. Whereas a mid level studio is going to need to spend a lot of development time to meet the demands of gamers wanting 4k textures and good animation. So if the game comes out and lots of the gamers choose to wait for a sale, or the game has bad reviews, the game will fail.
Thirdly, it is just a sad fact that in a free market some games are not going to get the attention they deserve. Maybe bad marketing, maybe a bad launch or maybe something stupid the devs did. A developer can do everything right and still fail because gamers didn't catch the vision of their masterpiece. It's not because they were so busy buying trashy games, it's just something that happens and has happened for as long as games have been made. It's certainly harder for a game to become a breakout success in a saturated market, but to blame $1 spam games for lack of sales on a $20+ game is not really logical.
So yes, I get what you're trying to say, and I also don't like the trash games, but it's only an annoyance. I have no problem finding plenty of good games to play, and if anything the problem is that there are just too many good games, even without the trash games that would still be the main problem for me. Valve has taken sufficient steps with the curators and discovery queues that I can find good games very easily. The only time I get spammed with crap, is when some idiot on my friends list is unlocking 20 000 achievements in achievement hunter 4000.
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you can think it is dumb, but it is a fact that this environment is killing indie developers. Many of them - and I know this both from anecdotal evidence from talking to devs I know, and from stats and numbers you can freely look up online - are leaving Steam behind and looking for other places to publish their games. You may think it's an annoyance but you are only thinking from your own perspective, if you do some digging and look at the big picture you'll realize just how bad this problem really is. It is a bit like Global Warming, we can think on a personal level "I do not mind 1 degree more average temp" but this is affecting more than just you or me, on a bigger scale this will change the entire ecosystem.
And I understand your opinions and where you are coming from with the points you are trying to make, but you need to consider actual fact and evidence available when you look at this issue. Our opinions are not going to mean much whether is be about game costs or anything else when the facts show that developers can no longer sell their games on steam. And it isn't because of a simple direct reason like "I'll buy these 1$ games instead of the 20$ game". Games like Darkest Dungeon will sell, no matter the environment, they are standout cases. But a game for 5$ created by a single dad working his ass off coding, animating and composing a soundtrack will never be seen because in the same hour he publishes it on steam 60 more asset flips are thrown in, and he get buried. Those developers are losing their habitat, fast. You are forgetting the little guy, games are not broken into AAA - Enter the Gungeon and trash asset flips, there are other games which are worth noticing, and those get drowned in the sewage. Technically bigger games such as Gungeon or w/e else also do get harmed by the flips though not as directly or severely. You see, everyday a user opens steam and finds themselves facing a trash-heap of a front page they are jaded, and less attached to the platform. Overtime consumer confidence drops and that drags down sales for everything on steam, regardless of genre or quality. In fact most asset flips and trash do not even make money through direct steam sales, they make the money through roundabout ways that are legal but morally questionable. Real games do not make any money through those dirty channels, they are harmed and the trash is not affected because they never even expected to sell on the store front.
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I've read some interviews with developers on this topic, and they don't blame trash games particularly, so much as just the sheer number of games. So I agree it is harder to get noticed, but I don't know that the blame lies with games of low quality, because those don't really take away attention from big releases, indie or big name publisher.
Speaking as a consumer, my problem is not that $1 bundle trash is taking attention from better games, it's simply that there are a lot of 'better' games coming out all the time and I simply don't have enough money to spend getting them all, or enough free time to play them. So if valve stepped in and removed all these trash games, it still wouldn't fix the problem. I would still ignore a lot of very good games just because of logistics. The way I look at it, is that steam is like spotify or any other big company selling things. I don't have a problem finding music I like, and I don't mind that they have some music I think is absolutely crap. And I certainly don't blame spotify. If it's a free market platform, then the onus is on the consumer to find what they like. If something good is being ignored, it's not really fair to blame the platform for that failure. It shouldn't be their job to decide what's good and what's trash, because if trash is selling, someone's buying it, which indicates there's a market for it. And if they did start doing that, where would they draw the line?
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When you consider individual interviews you need to take into account who those people are and what they are producing, the people hurt the most are developers that are not even likely to get interviews. I'm not worried about Devolver Digital. And like I mentioned before Big Releases will be fine. You misunderstood the point I was trying to make.
No one expects every steam user to buy every good game that comes out. Some do but those are outliers, like you I do not buy everything, or feel a need to. And for a healthy platform and market that isn't required. But removing the trash games would actually fix a lot of problems, it won't fix the world, solve world hunger or give us universal peace, but it is the one and only step in the right direction available right now. All other paths lead to ruin.
And sure, if a game is good and doesn't sell, blaming Steam won't make it better, but what could and is happening, is that developer will go elsewhere next time (provided they don't go bankrupt). And what happens overtime is that what remains on steam is AAA games, big names, and asset flips. That's the effect of that erosion. There will no longer be smaller indies on steam, Valve was once their champion - it no longer is.
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Yeah I don't really see an indie game apocalypse happening any time soon. But you're welcome to keep worrying about that if you want. Honestly, you seem to think that it's a bad thing that games are going to other platforms. They can exist on more than one platform at a time you know and competition is actually a good way to get a company like valve to make some positive changes. If these games move to a new platform and find success there, then how is that a problem? If they don't find success, well... maybe valve wasn't to blame in the first place? Just a thought.
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I've read some interviews with developers on this topic, and they don't blame trash games particularly
I have seen discussion here where OP wanted to show his game. First comment was something like: "Please, not another RPGmaker crap". And it's quite similar with other people who wanted to promote their games here. And there are users who care only to be first with their negative comment without even checking games page.
I think that valve's lack of control over what's entering their shop is harming small devs. Some people encountered couple of bad asset-flips and other garbage and now refuse to even look at anything made in rpg maker or unity xD
Actually - problem with valve is much bigger. They became greedy corporation that won't do anything unless there is risk of financial loses. Why they noticed problem with h-patches now? Not 3 or 4 years ago? Why they won't implement some working method of age verification? They apparently got some attention from people protecting from porn. They won't cut 12 years old from buying gore-shooters unless somebody will make fuss about it.
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This is exactly the problem. They have gone from being a small company made up of people who were gamers themselves and who generally did cool things for other gamers, to a big company that is making a lot of money. As such the only time they will act is if there's a legal reason. Which, going back to the topic at hand, is why it's pointless to even be angry with them or demand that they deal with other problems first. If the other problems became a legal issue, they would deal with it. Otherwise they are quite happy for gamers and developers to do what they want. As long as they keep getting money and aren't going to get sued or fined, they don't really care.
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tl:dr:
they don't really care
Valve in a nutshell. I'm a little bit disappointed that they don't fix other issues but they can do whatever they want with their shop.
Also as somebody who actually plays VN (including those with uncensored content) - I don't understand how anybody can be surprised with valve actions. Problem was visible for a long time. Only strange thing is that they did it now - not years ago :)
There is a good thing in this whole "valve being valve" situation. People were too obsessed with steam and some even refused to buy games if they were not on steam. Latest valve decisions force people to start thinking and search for alternatives. This supports competition and that's a good thing :)
You won't be able to buy the best available mach-3 game on steam? You can still buy it on GOG. Also cheaper. And without DRM.
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Yeah that's a great point. People aren't seeing the upswing.If valve screws up, they'll create a gap for competition. Competition is good. Even if you personally still stick with steam, the fact other people use other platforms means valve will need to fix things, or lose market share. It's basic economics that monopolies of any kind are not healthy.
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Apparently I was right :3
These guys targeted valve and all that removal is valves response xD Fun fact - witcher 3 was also their target xD
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Never underestimate the power of legal lobbying. And the problem is that even though they are overreaching in some of their examples, there is still a legal point in there somewhere regarding the distribution of pornographic material. So I guess it's obvious why valve is acting.
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The issue is where you draw the line. Who decides whether a game is worth playing because of the game, or because of the nudity? A lot of people love playing HuniePop for the match-3 aspect alone. There are a lot of VNs with sex and nudity as the natural culmination of 20 hour stories.
If sex and nudity aren't okay in a match-3 game or a visual novel, then that gives critics the ammunition to go after RPGs like The Witcher. And before you say, "That would never happen," it already has. A decade ago, conservative media launched an attack against Mass Effect because of the brief, optional sex scene at the end of a relationship built over 30 hours, where you could see some butt and side-boob. And yet they created such an uproar that future Bioware games were censored as a result, and all the characters in Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2 had sex with their underwear on.
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not fair to blame Valve? why not? whom do we blame then?
Valve has been making bad choices one after the other lately, when's the last time they made a good one?
and game of thrones is porn -.-
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Yeah I think game of thrones is porn too, but I don't make the rules, and neither does valve. Blame the regulators and lawmakers.
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I do blame them, every single day. But we're the ones electing them, it's up to us to be smarter and stop falling for their tricks.
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Ok but being as the removal of adult content from steam would most likely be out of legal concerns, why do you blame valve for it?
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you're assuming it is out of legal concerns, is it?
I do not see them being transparent about it with us the consumers
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Trust me. Valve only acts out of concern for their bottom line. So if they are removing anything it's because they don't want to lose money, one way or another. It's not out of any concern for the wellbeing of their clients, it's because in many countries, the sale of what is essentially pornography carries a whole heap of regulations and will shut them off to a large part of their client base. I'd be willing to bet that this is the reason.
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The issue of where you draw the line is the whole point. Who decides what is porn and what is not? The Witcher has sex and nudity, but it isn't considered porn. And yet 99% of HuniePop is a match-3 game, considered by many to be the best match-3 game that people are happy to play, and yet it's apparently being characterized as porn?
If we're looking at entertainment, why is showing full frontal nudity in Altered Carbon okay, while cartoon nudity in a game is not? There are a lot more under 18 kids watching Netflix, where they don't need a credit card to buy the show, than there are kids buying their own games on Steam, so the "site where kids do actually go" argument falls apart.
There are VNs that are primarily for titillation, like a late night Cinemax special, but there are also VNs with sex scenes where the sex scene is 10 minutes out of a 30 hour game - it's part of the story.
And mature themes are not limited to VNs, nor should they be. These are real things that exist in life, and deserve to be explored in games as much as in any other form of entertainment.
It seems like you're taking the approach of, "Well, this just gets rid of sex games, and I don't play sex games, so it doesn't effect me. Good riddance." But the issue is that censorship is never that clear cut, and who decides what is and isn't okay is a huge issue. There was uproar a decade ago about Mass Effect because there was an optional sex scene that showed some butt and a little side-boob - a 5 minute scene acting as the culmination of a relationship built over 30 hours - and yet people were labeling it smut and calling for its removal. And as a result of that, Bioware's subsequent games, like Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2, had sex scenes where the people kept their underwear on. Censorship is a slippery slope, and if one thing can be censored then that just gives them ammunition to go after another.
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Yeah I don't claim to know how much sex makes the line between porn and not, but the fact is someone does, and it's not valve. Just about every country has committees who decide such things. (Nice job for perverts I guess?) So for legal reasons Valve have to walk the fine line, and most companies seem to err on the side of caution when it comes to such things, because the risk of being sued is always there.
And as for the line, I think I did try and explain it there as best I can, but here's a recap. The goal of hunie pop is to get sexy pictures, even if the actions taken to get there have nothing to do with sex. Therefore because the reward is of a sexual nature, it could be considered 'porn'. To take away this aspect would be to remove a big selling point of the game. Without that, it's just another match 3 game, and there are plenty of those. The Witcher 3 includes sex as a small part of a long story. The sex is not the reward, and the game could exist just fine without it. It is not porn therefore but rather 'mature', in the same way that 'game of thrones' is allowed to exist.
And I'm not taking that approach of 'it doesn't affect me so whatever', I do actually not want sex games on steam thanks. Not because I don't play them, but because I don't think steam is the place for them. Regardless of a parent's responsibility, it is a place that's marketed to gamers of any age, and as such there needs to be better measures in place to protect the dumb and innocent. There are many other places you can get porn, so why does steam also need to be such a place?
And as far as netflix goes, they do have a 'kids' mode. Yes it's easy to get out of it, but netflix has taken steps to help parents, and you can know that if you ensure your child is using kids mode, they're not going to see naked body parts. AND more importantly, none of what they have on there is considered porn by the powers that be. So they've covered their backs, something valve hasn't really done beyond a lame 'age gate'. Many countries legal powers would consider these adults VNs to be 'soft porn' and that's the only consideration valve needs to make. Do they want to champion the cause of weabos and risk massive fines, or do they just quietly kill them off and carry on?
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You're right that every country, and even every part of each country, has people deciding what is appropriate content and what is not. What's available in one country may be banned in another. But those decisions are also influenced by the people, and previously banned entertainment becomes allowed. Sometimes it's the result of public pressure, sometimes it's the result of legal battles - such as those waged by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
The problem is that it's all a matter of perception. You say that you want sex games off Steam, but what one person views as a normal game another views as a sex game. You believe the goal of HuniePop is sexy pictures, but another person can view the goal of HuniePop as to succeed at match-3 puzzles. You could take the sexy pictures out, and it would still be a really good match-3 game, and fans of the genre would play it.
I brought up Mass Effect because 10 years ago there was a big fight over Mass Effect, with people labeling it as a sex game that needed to be removed. Now, you and I may know that Mass Effect is far from a sex game, but others saw it as a game where the goal and reward was the sex scenes.
You support removing sex games from Steam, so HuniePop should go because you view it as a sex game. And since someone else views Mass Effect as a sex game, then it should go as well. As should The Witcher - a game where you have sex with women and collect sex cards is clearly a sex game. Skyrim can be modded with all sorts of sex stuff, so that's gone. Tomb Raider has a rape scene, so clearly that's inappropriate and should be removed. Where do you draw the line?
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Again, to repeat myself. It's irrelevant what I think and it's pointless to shout at valve. They are doing this for legal reasons and the lawmakers decide where the line is. Yes, it's my opinion that I don't want sex games on steam and in this case it so happens my opinion lines up with the action they are taking. But if they were changing things based on my opinion you'd have been welcome to quote all the bleeding heart op ed pieces and examples you can think of, and you'd actually have a point. But they aren't, they are doing it because those with the power to shut them down or fine them may find cause to label a game that puts you in a school of underage girls with lewd pictures of them as 'pornographic' in nature, (or whatever other messed up stories some of these games may tell). And whilst I'm sure huniepop is a 'very good match 3 game', it does have those pictures and must be judged accordingly. Take those out and sell a clean version of the game then, no problems.
In fact your mass effect example is perfect to illustrate my point. People made lots of noise about mass effect, but because there was no legal reason for them to take it down, it's still being sold today. Because, quite rightly, the content in it was not pornographic in nature. If one day the law changes and sex with aliens becomes illegal, it will get taken down. Not because people cried, but because the law said so. Through the years there have been protests about many, many games, and none of them have been removed unless there's a legal reason. Valve have shown enough times that they don't care about peoples opinions and only change what's necessary to protect their bottom line, so why is it assumed that the removal of these games would be any different? It's really not that hard to understand surely?
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The games sold on Steam already have all of the lewd pictures removed.
And you fail to see the issue with Mass Effect. The problem is that not the game was banned, the problem is that every subsequent game was censored as a result.
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But if you read the article, hunie pop still has the files included in it's download and people also keep using valve's forums to link to the nude patches for some of the others, which could legally mean they are using steam to distribute porn, which is why valve is raising the issue. Even those that don't do that explicitly may still have instructions on their own websites on how to do that, which still makes valve an accessory. They may be acting over cautious, but the root of the issue is still legal reasons.
And you're right I fail to see the issue with Mass effect as it's completely irrelevant to this conversation. Valve didn't threaten to remove the game, there was no legal reason for them to do it, and all the mass effect games are still being sold in the same way they were released. The only bearing it may have on this conversation is that another big corporation, EA, (self-)censored something to avoid hurting their bottom line.
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Probably these guys are responsible for what's happening :) They targeted Witcher 3 and mass effect andromeda as well.
https://endsexualexploitation.org/videogames/
Funny thing to read. These guys are from outer space.
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Oh, that is just... so misguided. /facepalm.
Who is being sexually exploited, fictional video game characters? And there is absolutely no link between between playing sexual video games and committing sexual assault. Just like there's no link between playing violent video games and committing violence. If anything, evidence seems to point that the opposite is true - that the widespread availability of pornography on the internet has led to a decrease of rapes in the US.
Don't get me wrong, I think games could do a hell of a lot better in regard to their treatment of women and minorities. But campaigning against the sexual exploitation of fictional characters is ridiculous, and trying to pin sexual assaults on video games, is ridiculous.
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Don't be afraid. I get it :)
Those guys care about morality just like PETA cares about animals xD
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I really like Neil Gaiman's Why defend freedom of icky speech? as to why I think that even icky sex games that you'd never want to play still deserve to be on Steam.
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It's probably just a take-down on games that wouldn't be remotely interesting if they had no pornography related content
So, the games that contain parts of mature/adult content are safe, mainly because there's no way they are going to take The Witcher 3 off of Steam!
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"It's probably just a take-down on games that wouldn't be remotely interesting if they had no pornography related content"
Proven false by being applied to HuniePop.
Try again.
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Dating sim, Anime, Nudity, Mature + lolis everywhere in the Steam page screenshot preview
What do you mean?
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It's one of the, if not the best, match-3 on the Steam Storefront.
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How so? a match-3 game is a match-3 game.
Except when you're talking about the "rewards" which aren't part of the match-3 game
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If you think all Match-3 are alike you probably haven't played any Match-3 games... ever.
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You could've answered "How so?" before jumping to salty passiveness.
Besides, match-3 games are like saying chess-games, there's very little amount of possible variability before it loses the tag match-3/chess-game/etc and be considered a different game altogether
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Could say the same for FPS... "There's very little variability before it loses the tag".
So you can say CoD/Battlefield is equal to Serious Sam/Painkiller is equal to Unity asset-flips.
Right?
Cause you're doing the same here.
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I mean there's a point but a really weak one, since the tag FPS is much more general than match-3, therefore the variability in FPS is much higher, a more general tag for Huniepop would be Puzzle.
Here's an easier question, what's the difference between Candy Crush, Bejeweled and Huniepop?
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At least those games aren't asset flips. Steam should deal with asset flipping first.
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well since some of these games may be removed, I might as well grab some before they do. Does anyone have coupons for such games? like Dragon Knight, Hell Girls, w/e else? thanks :p
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full sex scenes in AAA game like Witcher 3 - fine.
Anime girl in bikini - BANBANBAN!!!!
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Anime girls have ambiguous age, and potentially underage fictitious characters need to be protected from sexual exploitation so that they don't grow up to become psychologically damaged fictitious adult characters.
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Japanese stuff is weird, Polish stuff is hot. The difference. 8)
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Theres so many sad thing about it and "less boobs on steam" is't even worst part.
First of all: this is another change that is made for Valves convenience while it's super inconvinient for users - and I'm pretty sure that Valve will still try to push it through as "for users good".
Secondary - this is part of bigger problem: "censuring internet/world" for kids".
Instead of demending to censure media parents should supervise their kids and teach them how to deal with problematic topics.
Ya, I know it's harder than putting kid in front of tv/pc and then complaining that tv/games are bad... but you wanted to have kids, so do your freaking job and actually rise them.
Sure, we should think about childrens sake, but discrimination of adults isn't a solution.
And yes, if you would want to make steam really "famly-friendly" all those big, popular, profit-making games, with lots and lots of violece, should be reamoved before small boobie-puzzle.
And here we comes to maybe most horrifying part: media manipullation.
Steam is the biggest digital game distribution platform. Often players won't even consider checking up game thatr aren't available on Steam. For many game-deves being on Steam or not is like "to be or not to be", sooo... devs "must change their games" to be on Steam.
Since we alredy know that Valve is't fair with their own rules... it all comes down to Valve pointing finger on game they don't like and blurting out any excuse.
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I don't have a child, and I assume you don't have a child. I can tell you my friend, who has two children under age of 10, is spending a lot time on parenting and working and other stuff. So having to censor anything on the Internet/games/TV just because government and some gaming platform can't do their job, is not exactly what he'd like.
I think you are speaking for yourself when you say gamers don't check other platforms. Sure, a game that has zero market investment won't ever be found, but this will limit the developers on making proper games, not some crappy achievement hunters or wannabe-candycrushes.
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Im not saying all parents are bad, thers the point - your friend is soending a lot of time with his kids and rising them and probably is reasonable person. But thers always bunch of loonies screaming that internet/games/tv are bad, because its comfy explanation why their kids arent perfect.
As to steam - once again im not saying that that "all" players will ignore other platforms, but you cant deny that steam is rather dominating the market when it comes to pc gaming . Most shops sell steam keys. You could have humble bundle games for a cent and play them without problems, but people still will pay that 1$.
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it is perfectly fine showing a brain getting punched out a head in slowmotion but you better not dare to show a single nipple -__-
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Could somebody please tell America that nudity is not pornography, and breasts are not genitals.
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what is exactly the problem? naked body pictures or renditions are reserved to an adult public or are fully prohibited? and why?
in my country afaik that type of content is not prohibited at all and in some cases it is not even actively restricted to an adult public (example, naked body can be and is on air on clear broadcast tv channels).
i wonder if this issue comes from Valve being an USA based company or even having more restrictive policies of the ones enforced by USA laws.
anyway, since the platform supports region locks, the stores could and should tailor the products sold to the local market, restricting only where necessary, how they already do with violent content.
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idk why valve want to remove them,at least they are better than those of the trash game on steam
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to some extent government needs to be involved in some things. Not all regulation is bad, I for one am glad some governments are cracking down on loot boxes for example. AAA 80$ games that require the customer to continue spending hundreds on loot boxes are a toxic existence.
Net Neutrality is a necessary regulation as well, it is there to protect consumers from exploitation. If all regulations were dropped right now, nothing will stop manufacturers from pulling a China on us, in all sorts of products. There's no proper food regulation there, and that's how some douche bags get away with things like shoving melamine in baby formula. We do not want that.
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Lot of good that did. People were constantly being exploited under NN, but at least you can bribe government regulators to get them off your back and go after your competition.
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It wasn't perfect, and can be improved significantly, just like any system. But removing completely causes more harm than good. It is a bit like healthcare systems, they all need fixing all the time. But if you completely remove them then it's everyone for himself and a lot of people fall through the cracks.
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Government has been doing more harm than good. So big that people are falling through the bloat.
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Valve does need to clarify their sexual content policies.
They would be best off creating an 18+ restricted area of the store and putting all games rated mature behind an age verification gate.
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Are you over 18? Yes [X] No [ ]
Hard to bypass that restriction.
I think they should make Henteam for horny child-like weebs with a need of playing half-naked underaged girls games.
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This seem pretty serious censoring. I still can't believe that sex is still a thing. And not even sex in this case. Only boobs and innuendo.
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How many women have shown their boobs to you in your lifetime? If you're married how would you feel if your wife showed her boobs to someone? Just normal day? Only boobs become only problems. People are not permissive.
If innuendo is done by old grandma or a woman clearly over 18 it's considered okay, but when it's some loli-type innuendo it's not okay and even if it's not a real underaged girls, one day it might become reality with some mental person.
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Totally agree, that is the big trouble with steam righ now, and these trash games also helped to destroy the card market aswell.
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Gotta admit i LOVE my personal achievement! But one game that does it really would´ve been enough.
Then again, you open the flood gates and start wondering why your feet are getting wet ... Volvo!
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https://techraptor.net/content/huniepop-other-adult-games-facing-removal-steam-store
This is going to be big. What are your thoughts?
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