HuniePop and other adult games may be removed from the Steam store by Valve

This is very troubling. I just finished playing one of the games talked about in the article, Kindred Spirits on the Roof, and while I was a little surprised to see nsfw CGs (more explicit than just breasts), the intimate scenes came at the very end of everyone's relationship arcs and were on the whole very sweet and tasteful.

I really agree with the feeling of being unfairly targeted, and of treating sex as being worse than extreme violence. I dislike how Valve is handling this very much.

I don't really feel the need to defend lewd anime games despite enjoying a few of them, but punishing and threatening them after allowing them on your platform is absolutely stupid and could become a dangerous trend. Why would they stop at anime games? Or at nudity? Another post already listed all AAA games with nudity and sex scenes, but why stop there? If the human body in its unharmed state is offensive, what isn't?

You don't want to have any game banned, no matter how much you hate them, because this will lead to more games being banned.

Lol, huniepop was selected in steam award.....

I don't get it, pornographic content isn't allowed on steam.
Then why are they selling the witcher?

Personally I'm not into these kind of games, but it's still troubling. I think steam is going downhill, but it'll have to go a lot farther and a new platform with deep pockets will have to come along to replace it. Any new platform will have to have similar features to what Steam already has, plus more. Obviously they'll need buy-in from some big game developers, and some popular indie ones. I think one of the biggest thing they could do differently though is require games to be 'good' in order to be allowed on. It would facilitate more community engagement, and it could mean more money since people will be less wary of buying games they haven't heard of. To the point of this thread though, they could also move into the 21st century and allow more adult-oriented games on. They don't necessarily need to allow sex games, but I don't think there's a valid reason to have such stringent requirements beyond pandering to people who disagree with the particular category being 'appropriate'.

Gon stick with other stores now. If enough people boycott steam, guess that’ll give them a warning.

It's bad news. In steam a lot of games where +18 content - Witcher, Farenheit, Outlast (espectialy O2 were we can see burned toddlers), Conan, Kingdome comes))). Better add screenshot of ID-data for steam what can say about real age of user.
And as for me anime-games very good for Market because has pretty backgrounds and rich cards what give additional income for steam (little but its good)

I'm really disappointed by this censorship. Games already struggle for acceptance as art and entertainment, and this just gives their more ammunition. Right now Valve's going after match-3 and VN games, but who's to say that this won't lead to further censorship - such as the uproar over Mass Effect and Grand Theft Auto previously.

Whenever I see such talk of censorship, and of people saying, "Well, it's crap anyway, so good riddance?", I think of this great post by Neil Gaiman titled Why defend freedom of icky speech?

I still cant get why people are so hostile against sex in videogames, while in a game like gta you plan heists with multiple casualties from pedestrians or policemen. From a parents point of view i would try and protect my kid from violence and sex as long as possible so he/she can be a kid for a litle more. But truth is you can shelter your kids forever and there comes an age where they are better of being aware rather than living in a fantasy world and that age depends on the parent i guess.
Sex in games are made for adults and should be enjoyed from adults and they should stay where they are , let us have our freedom . Also seeing how much traffic has a porn site and how big the industry really is and we cant just blame it on teenagers, again i believe its hypocrisy to attack games with a litle nudity

Well, that is surely terrible news.
Steam was best thing that ever happened in game industry, but lately, it just buries himself.
I can't understand why are they doing it.

Fu&¨$#!( politically correct society! Pure hypocrisy.

Neil Gaiman wrote this in response to why comic books and graphic novels are more at risk of being banned or removed from libraries, and why people disapprove of those genres in particular, but I think it's equally applicable to games and VNs:

"Because they have pictures and because pictures are easy to ban; pictures can be devoid of context. It’s hard to upset people with just prose these days because you actually have to read it and you have to think about it and you have to understand it. It’s slightly easier to upset people with movies. But it’s really easy to upset them with comics and graphic novels because - just because there are pictures.

Partly, I think people automatically equate pictures with things for children and partly you get the kind of nonsense that happened this week, when a student at Duke University declined publicly and noisily to read Fun Home by Alison Bechdal - and he said he probably would have been able to read it if it was a novel - but the pornographic drawings would incite lust in his heart and thus he would be sent to hell. And you’re going, “well actually, if you read the book, there is no porn in this and it’s not what you think it is and if you read it, you would learn and you would be challenged and you would go to new places and I hope that maybe you’ll read a bunch of prose and grow up a bit. Grow up enough to be allowed to read comics”."

I saw people speculating that this might be because of state of Washington's laws on pornography distribution and lack of proper age checking mechanism, which somehow flew under Steam's radar until now. I can understand Valve wanting to cover their asses if that's true, but this again shows the biggest problem with Valve, which is them not wanting to put in any more effort than they absolutely have to.

Huniepop is a game I genuinely enjoyed, and not even for the boobs believe it or not. It'd be a shame if that game and others like it were removed from the store.

I'm not liking this. Maybe it's time to see what GoG has to offer

Huniepop? Get it on GOG and keep with you forever! I did :)
*edit: totally agree^^ with Breadman and TheChack.

For fuck's sake, Valve. Why not have some quality control over shitty broken games and scummy developers for once? Absolutely nobody cares about nudity.

I had to send Valve tax information when I started selling a lot of cards on the Market. Why can't they just have a game section called "18+" and require proof before purchasing a product in that section? Of course they would need to make a system that actually works and is hard to circumvent but it's done on other websites so they can figure out something too.

👏👏👏

"Although I cannot refer to any specific decision or any particular title, I can say for certain that - much like the GTA “hot coffee” scandal - if the hardcore content is actually delivered over Steam as part of the game data and just “unlocked” by the patch file, that would be a pretty big violation of the Steam distribution agreement."

It's just about assets being included, even if they aren't used without unlocker. (At least for Huniepop)

I personally never got into those kinda games (Except Roger Ramrod during the 90's but I was a teenager then).

But personally I don't think they should be removed, they are tame compared to the major stuff they have now. Most of them don't compare to Leisure Suit Larry let alone some of the mini-games they have in newer stuff.

The question is is Valve doing this or is it their payment processors who are. If it is the payment people, I would say Valve has enough to actually make their own and remove that issue. If it is Valve themselves, why? Just throw in an adult section in steam and be done with it.

If I can blow someones head off or watch them fall realistically if I shoot them in the dick in games, if I have mini-games where I am getting laid like in God of War, if I can rent movies where they have sex, what is the problem with these things? And I am betting Steam has some movies and videos I can see that has sex in them. Heck, I know I can watch Kick-Ass there and it has a scene where the main guy has sex and they are still in high school.

Some other considerations.

First, Maidens of Micheal has had a troll curator commenting on how they messaged Valve that it was considered Child Porn as the characters are in high school. People had responded to him, pointing out many of these games now getting hit. The conversation is getting pruned, but he has provided screenshots of his communications with valve. Last night, he posted he sent 20+ in last week, but that comment is gone now.

Secondly, recently there was a bill passed that had some potential problems in other markets. This has affected Amazon, notably, which changed kindle books to be listed as 'Romance" rather then "BDSM" or other titles.

"The FOSTA Bill is ostensibly about preventing online sex trafficking and has already caused Craigslist to shut down its online personals. However, it can also be construed as a bill that prevents sexual material of all kinds from receiving ready distribution online, a fact that is giving some big content providers pause." (Quote from article)

half of the game in Steam will be removed then