I've never played any of these games, but if Valve's being so aggressive about censoring them, I'm curious to see what the outrage is all about.
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"I'm curious to see what the outrage is all about."
Americans think tiddies are dangerous.
Meanwhile guns are holy. Nothing bad ever happens due to guns.
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The main problem is that they are specific with what games they want removed, a lot of VN games will be removed and lets say Witcher 3 with a lot of sex scenes compared to those VN wont. If you ask me that is the main reason people are complaining here
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Is there a petition to let Valve know we do not like them removing those games?
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I really don't like this, many games like Kindred Spirits On The Roof are being hit. Like others have said games with extreme violence are still fine and yet.
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How is a child able to buy a lewd game? Why is Steam allowing them to?
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But how would a child even be able to buy an adult game without their parents knowing? From what I read, it seems that you have to be at least 18 years old to get a credit card in the US (where Valve is based). For a child savvy enough to obtain an adult game by other means (trading, giveaways, etc), Valve's censorship is not gonna be an obstacle, so I fail to see the point of it.
Happy cakeday btw.
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Gift cards, they can easily go to any local store that has them and buy I'm pretty sure you can find steam cards nearly everywhere that has gaming stores and steam does accept other type of gift cards too.
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The parents (or guardian) will be the ones paying for said gift card. so they know to inquire about what games the child's bought using it.
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They should definitely know what their kids do with the money, too bad parenting is not something a lot of people know how to do in recent years and if anything parents would buy the games without even knowing what the game is about
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Happy Cake Day!
Kids are like that, I was like that when I was a kid too got my hands on everything I found and I never showed anything to my parents, I would collect my daily allowance instead of buying breakfast at school like other kids and then buy myself something expensive once I get enough money and again, never show my parents what I got I would either lose it or break it before I get the chance anyway :D
I do agree that Valve should take a different approach, I don't mind kids (as long as they are not too young) having access to gift cards but maybe have some kind of account limitation thing which hides certain games unless the account has used a payment method only available to adults so you won't be able to use gift cards to buy the games and some extra parental control on steam for cases where parents bought something for their kids. That way the blame can go mainly to the parent for not looking at what the kid is doing with his/her card or for not looking at what game they are buying, it won't stop people complaining but should at least lower their numbers.
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As I suggested in another post, Valve should separate the adult and standard games completely. Have adult.steampowered.com and a different client. Could also have gift cards for Steam not working on the adult site and client.
I think that putting everything under one umbrella with just an age check is problematic. Having a real distinction would give parents real control and better understanding of what is available.
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My opinion: two clients seems excesive (and could be a potential death-sentence for some games) but a different store with its own url would be a nice separation. And make the adult content an option when installing the game, like how you can disable DLCs or chose languages, so people have the choice to see the risque stuff or not (basically how the patches are working right now but straight from the client).
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The problem is that the client is the store, and it will be hard to distinguish between stores there.
The idea of a separate client is simply something more than an option or verification. An adult would simply install the adult store, and be able to access everything from there. The only point of the distinction is to make it clearer what a user has access to, so if a parent installs the kid client, it will be impossible to buy or install adult titles from there.
And sure, kids could always find ways to circumvent this if they really want, but making it a distinct executable and store would help make it clearer they're doing it.
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Oh, so you mean a client for adults with access to everything and a "kids" version with limited access, right?
That sounds much better that what I understood at first, I thought you meant putting the adult games in a separate client that only had those games. Yeah, I'd be ok with your proposed set-up, it could solve the problem of having this vague limit that nobody outside valve is quite sure of where it stands.
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I think this needs to be monitored by parents because Valve short of becoming Big Brother cannot actually control it. And I do not want them to. If a child is spending money on Games their parents do not want them buying and the parents can't even keep track of that, then they aught to retake the parent exams -.-
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Exactly. I'm not questioning that being a parent is a massive responsibility, but I think it's unreasonable to expect Valve or anyone else to do your job for you.
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it is on the other hand reasonable to expect Valve to have the right priorities in what to remove from their store. When we have trash that doesn't even work. "games" that took less than 15 minutes to put together taking exposure time from products that took months and years to complete, trash submitted by immoral toxic exploitative a holes is still showing up on my front page. But no, "we need to protect you from girls in bikinis! Now go murder someone in a MP horror game, rip out their guts and smear their blood all over the walls, wontchu? atta boy"
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How could a child get one of those games? Hmm, good question. If only there was a website where you can win those on some kind of lottery, how should we call it SteamWin? SteamPresents?
Also, cards can be sold for a hefty value and are sufficient to buy an indie game once in a while.
Let's face it, there's no real parental control on steam.
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"For a child savvy enough to obtain an adult game by other means (trading, giveaways, etc), Valve's censorship is not gonna be an obstacle, so I fail to see the point of it."
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I agree with you premise: it's easy for a child to get those games. But I disagree with your conclusion. If I'm not mistaken, yours is "let kids have their way". Mine is "give parents some tools to control what their kid do ."
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If a child knows how to buy an adult game, they'll still be able to do so despite Valve's censorship.
You want Steam to have more tools for parents to control what their kids do? Ok, why not improve age verification so that it's tied to the account, and the age can only be set by a verified adult? There's better non-intrusive solutions out there than censorship.
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Looks like I get a second parent: How many of these do I really need once I am "of age".
Where is the freedom in life each of us deserve (okay, nobody deserves it, or has true freedom anyway)! I'm amazed anyone can do anything anymore at the rate of degradation society is taking...
People, including any making a decision, are desensitized to one form of what to some would be "morally incorrect", in this case meaning everything besides adult theme/sexual content games.... Maybe instead of focusing on "morality", or whatever term is coined, whether said games break whatever terms they have (and some of the "breakers" are pretty light in my opinion, out of what I played so far), make Valve completely minor-friendly and stick lots of colored alphabets and a big yellow crayon smiling sun there too while we are at it.
There is the whole problem in a nutshell. Priorities are all wrong here. If you are going to remove good stuff, remove it all! All 18+ content should go. Why stop aPeople should be as free to grab one 18+ as any other. It's really all the same as far as I'm concerned - I know what I am getting myself into when I purchase something. Aside from the fact that seeing fake boobs+ in a game (or in real life) are more natural than watching a human or otherwise human-like head explode, in all honesty. Most people who are paying for stuff are probably using their own personal methods of payment - and all the banning of this in the entire world won't solve the problem of....
The "internet"!
They will try to stop it, but it'll be found other places anyway... wasting valuable resources, time and energy on things to not help Steam/Valve. It's trivial and stupid, and only makes people angry. Nothing else gained here - only losses. Banning affects everyone. Being an ass and trying to get stuff banned because you don't like it is just simply stirring drama pots up because we are ... maybe uncomfortable in our own skin or something? Why does something bother somebody if they can just simply block it out if they don't want to see it. I can easily remove tags like VR, MMO, etc. Just ignore it. I wish we could ban these idiots instead!
BTW: I got here thanks to that sexual stuff they're trying to ban! So did they, right? Am I missing something big here? Are they aliens like I suspected, using asexual forms of reproduction? Must be it...
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i mean, someone should stop all that SakuraGame's porn game....
shame for VNs and other decent game though...
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I would have been happier if they enforced proper translations. Rather than banning everything.
Fairly true for every single other game before being able to claim to support "English".
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Ignoring the issue of whether these games should be on Steam and in what form, I see a serious problem with how the issue of porn is handled.
There was the recent case of Google Drive deleting porn workers' own data, impacting their livelihood, and now there's the case of long time Steam games having to adapt their games within 2 weeks or be removed.
We need much clearer guidelines of what is permitted and what isn't, and reasonable warning, allowing content creators to adapt. This can't be something that changes every so often and springs out of the blue on creators.
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Valve is only reacting again. As long as nobody raises a complaint about a game, nearly everything gets listed. But due to DMCA claims, user reports, curator feedback or media/lobby reports they all of a sudden see the issues. Now while they're at it, they could notice the huge pile of junk they're promoting in their storefront, but ..nope.
Even on days with many releases a team of 10 people should be enough to check on these games. But that would cost money. And less games on Steam would mean even lesser ca$h. Greenlight had a lot of flaws and "we" as voting users were partially responsible for that. But Direct opened the floodgate and Valve described it as quality control. In this comparison we were doing a better job.
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Censoring or refusing to allow pervy/porn games on Steam is just downright moronic, there is no reasonable argument to be made against not allowing them to be on Steam when extreme violence and cash grabs exist on the same platform. It may not be Steam's fault at heart since it's just the general twisted relationship the general public has with porn vs violence where one is scandalous but the other is okay. I feel sympathy for the people who like those types of games and I gotta salute the developers who provide restoration patches for their censored work so their clients can have the game in the form it was intended to be. But the fact that these developers are forced to do these things and even make special "Steam All Ages" versions just so they won't get booted will never be anything but idiotic.
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I have to wonder if something strange is afoot as this is a strange thing, especially given the lack of specific standards and such. Like someone doing a personal vendetta on company time. (the article did state the e-mail didn't come from a rep one of the companies worked with). sort of absurd out of all the "questionable" areas to take a swing at, they're doing Hish VNs as opposed to half-assed games.
I also wonder about SJW/Think of the children groups at work as most of the companes affected are pretty big targets so to speak. (with Huniepop/etc being a really big one with how they made a camwhore game and all)
Though I have to take that article with a wary eye due to how the site seems to have a partnership with Nutaku (one part seems to be plug for it).
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I avoid those kinds of games, but at the same time I'm very much against censorship in media and the arts.
I wish valve cared as much about dealing with all the trash that's on Steam.
Will be interesting to see if this affects Agony considering they were touting a patch for decensoring the game on PC.
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First they came for the adult games, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a player of adult games.
Then they came for the violent games, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a player of violent games.
Then they came for the puzzles, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a player of puzzles.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
(^:
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Joule, game critic Jim Sterling has posted a video reporting that Morality in Media is taking credit for the removal of these games.
It sounds as though they (the pro-censorship group) plan to try to take down the Witcher series and Mass Effect, which others have cited as having nudity/sexuality that in some cases is more extreme than the titles whose developers received emails. Sterling's "good luck with that!" sounds right, but at the same time, the approach of consuming smaller fish and working their way up to increasingly larger titles has worrying effects:
- It removes as many titles from Steam as the pro-censorship group can get removed before they encounter resistance they can't overcome.
- It gives the pro-censorship group a portfolio of removed/censored games from which they can say "well you've already removed X, and it's no worse than Y, so why aren't you removing Y?" That's unlikely to get the Witcher series removed, but will give them ammunition against smaller titles.
- It reinforces that there are unspoken classes on Steam. While first-class games are untouchable, indie developers may receive a take-down threat by a Valve representative in response to a bulk email claiming a game has pornographic content, even if it doesn't.
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I strongly recommend to start sending email. It worked with the paid mods debacle. They only listen when they start losing money
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I recently sent a message via that method, and got a reply that the e-mail address is no longer being monitored and I should contact Steam support.
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I got the following:
Thank you for contacting Valve. This email address is no longer monitored.
If you need customer service or technical support for Valve games or Steam, please go to the Valve Support Site at http://support.steampowered.com and submit a support incident.
-VALVe
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From reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/8kh1df/so_it_looks_like_the_ncose_morality_in_media_a/
Looks like the mystery might have been solved. It looks like the NCOSE previously known as "Morality In Media" , a right wing puritan lobbying group is behind the banning of Steam games. Don't let their name fool you, they are pretty much an authoritarian puritan morality organization.
Here they are admitting to the campaign.
I dont know how much contact they had with Steam but they orchestrated this whole thing.
Some quotes
We thank Steam for their leadership in working to change our #MeToo culture in which sexual violence in rampant and normalized. Your corporate leadership is a major step in creating a world free from sexual exploitation.
And another quote.
We thank the many grassroots activists and leaders who have spoken up to demand a change to Steams policies and enforcement practices with us these past two years. We especially thank you for your help in our most recent grassroots campaign, which started May 10! Your voices have been heard.
They also included Steam in their yearly "Worst of" along with HBO for the sin of airing Game Of Thrones.
https://endsexualexploitation.org/hbo/
The wackos also went after EBSCO Information Services, the company the archives scholar articles on science.
https://endsexualexploitation.org/ebsco/
Last year they even after the American Library Association.
https://endsexualexploitation.org/ala/
EBSCO didn't listen to them, the ALA didn't listen to them, HBO didn't listen.
So it looks like with all the issues Steam has they will NOT listen to their customers. But the people they listen to are pro censorship authoritarian lobbying groups.
Edit: They also planning to go after The Witcher and Mass Effect and try to get them censored too.
https://endsexualexploitation.org/videogames/
Mass Effect: Andromeda, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, and more are normalizing sexually explicit and exploitive themes in mainstream gaming.
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What about, I don't know... If you are a worried parent, just, maybe... DON'T LET your kid play this games and let the rest of the world enjoy Witcher 3. I know, crazy idea.
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Being a good parent? Nahhhh. Too complicated. Better to screw with everybody else.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/8kjyiw/reminder_on_valves_new_censorship_rules_one/
I already sent an email to valve.
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They also included Steam in their yearly "Worst of" along with HBO for the sin of airing Game Of Thrones.
Face-palmed hard when I read that.
With something like this (them going after games like they are), you give an inch and they'll take a mile. 10-15 years ago, they were blaming video-games for outbreaks of violence. Next year, they'll be blaming video-games for rape and molestation.
OK, I just facepalmed again. -_-
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I dont know how much contact they had with Steam but they orchestrated this whole thing.
Well, they claim to - just as I don't trust Al Queda when they claim to be behind every shooting and bombing against Americans, I don't trust MIM when they say they're responsible for every social media campaign that gets a company to issue a statement or pull a product.
According to developer comments from the TechRaptor article, the communication regarding take-down threats came from a Valve employee who wasn't their regular contact with the company. Valve has an exceptionally flat hierarchy and job role fluidity, which can let people take a lot of initiative - at least within the company - on their own projects. It's only been a day, and it often takes Valve a lot longer to react to things blowing up. At this stage, I believe it's possible it's one Valve employee who doesn't normally work with these developers taking it on themselves to react to what they are told is a clear violation of Steam's policies, and as decisive as the take-down threats seem to be, that is often the form such notifications take, even if the solution is simply to talk to a more senior and more relevant person.
According to the TechRaptor article, in at least one case, the developer had gone through a code and asset walk-through with Valve to demonstrate there was no pornographic content lurking in their product that could be revealed with a patch. It sounds as though whoever is jumping in at MIM's urging is taking MIM at their word before issuing the request, ignoring the working relationship that the developers have with Valve. To me, that sounds like they just happened to reach the right (wrong) person in the company, maybe as a result of cold-calling numbers / email addresses in hopes of getting someone like this.
- Okay, I just refreshed before posting to make sure I wasn't ninja'd again by a faster reply, and it looks like I'm right: see windofmemory's link to a Tweet from HuniePot saying Valve's retracting and apologizing for this.
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Toward the bottom of this page they have examples of games they find particularly objectionable. I did not find the review for the one said to include a rape scene on Steam itself, but after a few searches based on the (misspelled) character name and other reviews, it appears to be The Men of Yoshiwara: Ohgiya.
A little clarification, given the domain name: "EndSexualExploitation.org" is really Morality in Media (still the group's legal name on their tax returns), a Christian anti-pornography campaign that has taken on a secular veneer and talks about human trafficking, but whose real focus is on stopping the distribution of sexually explicit material. They hailed Walmart removing Cosmopolitan magazine from their stores and press and social media coverage of it as a victory of their activism - not to mention attempting to claim responsibility for the success of the #MeToo movement.
According to their tax filing from 2016, NCOSE, as it's also known, had 16 employees, only one of which worked more than one hour a week, and it paid out over $300,000 in wages and compensation (information via CharityNavigator).
Please do not take my objections to Morality in Media as condemnation of Christian organizations that combat child abuse or slavery. To the contrary, there are many charities that could use your help if you are considering donating - some religious, some not - that would be better choices for not diverting money toward attacking legal, non-pornographic entertainment or enriching their CEO. I hate to say don't donate to a charity without providing better alternative, but I would likewise hate to direct people to another group just using scare tactics to get your donations. I'll continue looking into this (currently reviewing The Polaris Project / CharityNavigator, who operate the Human Trafficking Hotline). Perhaps other commenters may have recommendations in the meantime.
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And for once, Valve checked some contents. But not those asset flip trash games
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Nope. Seems like they just sent boilerplate notices to everyone on the list they got from the christian anti-pornography group people are talking about above.
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Oh god, Valve is just doing way, way worse things than I expected. SakuraGame(and Winged Cloud as well as other no effort makers)may be one of so called "black" operations people due to their shady history and practices, but this takes the whole cake...Jim Sterling made a discussion about it, and it's going to be something...Expect Sakura poorly censored Mirror, UNLIKE Huniepop, which I liked, because their game contains necrophilia, golden shower, gore, anal porn, while Huniepop is censored(unless you get the patch of course)enough to be enjoyable w/o porn content. Mirror is porn bait, unlike HuniePop, but before this major takedown, we had A Kiss In The Petals removed, again, thanks to people who said "it's porn".
Itch.io also has adult games, and it's good on their part, but...Steam? You already let floodgates to open thanks to no quality control, and you effectively became a worse version of it that is more profitable in the long run, but also lets "indie devs" who can't take better to become infamous enough to shame your name because of it. This is only going to get worse.
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They got scared with the fan reaction.
Just in case, to be absolutely sure:
https://www.change.org/p/valve-software-do-not-remove-huniepop-and-other-sexual-content-games-from-steam if you are interested, this is the biggest petition
https://www.valvesoftware.com/en/contact?contact-person=Gabe%20Newell if you want to send a polite email to Gabe Newell
https://www.valvesoftware.com/en/contact?contact-person=Doug%20Lombardi or to Doug Lombardi. Maybe both
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UPDATE: Valve is telling developers to disregard the notices and they will be re-reviewing the games in question.
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Is there a list for e can get them before there removed from steam???
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Probably the usual: SJWs.
Everything they touch turns to cancer.
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It was driven by a conservative christian group. They were formally called Morality In Media. They also condemn shows like Game of Thrones.
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Would you happen to have a source for that?
It would actually be refreshing to see this not stemming from the usual pancakes (I still doubt it though).
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To be fair, that neither does sound like conservatives, nor does it sound like any conservative a had much pull in this.
Anyone siding with the "me too" BS, is most certainly not a conservative.
I figure, that it's complicated though but the underlying nonsense seems to be as I've stated; SJWs.
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What's your point?
I've, literally, not seen a single conservative appreciating the me too nonsense.
It's actual BS, for the most part.
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Not in my experience & not if you look closer than the surface.
I can agree that some people are extreme but in general, I would say that "thee who shall not be named" are much worse than Christians & have far worse values.
Anyway, probably going too far already, because reasons.
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For a conservative group, they sure act like lefties. Must be one of those cuckservatives under new management, that is getting thrown around these days.
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Ah the good old "concerned" people, don't you love how they act?
Now I'm offended!
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It's troubling & it's spreading through media, politics & hobbies.
Fake-outrage needs to be dealt with, in the real world.
Sadly, those clowns are free to broadcast their nonsense without any retributions.
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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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