-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Valve censoring some games (NSFW example images)
- Thread starter Dunki
- Start date
- Status
GrimDarkDarrel
Member
On one hand, this is pretty lame because steam could just cover their asses by asking people's ages like they already did so it feels unnecessary. But on the other hand, as a big fan of VN's, I'm kind of okay with people on my friends list not seeing me playing Prison Battleship 2 for four days.
Then again, now that I think about it, I don't think I'd care very much.
Pearl clutching puritans. When the science is in and they can cite published studies, then I'll listen.
Then again, now that I think about it, I don't think I'd care very much.
Pearl clutching puritans. When the science is in and they can cite published studies, then I'll listen.
Honestly, Steam can do whatever they like, as much as I hate it. These games being cheap and easy through Steam led me to purchasing a few, so it will be interesting to see if they will still be available to download and play if they go through with the purge.
I feel like they should just implement some proper age gating. I would be perfectly willing to scan my ID and prove my age to access the full store.
I feel like they should just implement some proper age gating. I would be perfectly willing to scan my ID and prove my age to access the full store.
MrSaltyPringles
Member
Im hoping this gets resolved
Battlechili
Banned
The Kindred Spirits thing being threatened is especially ridiculous.
Mangagamer actively had a discussion with Valve regarding that game's specific content years ago, with the end results being Valve okaying the game.
What Valve is basically doing is backing on their own word and changing their mind. How can a storefront be professional if it can't retain any sort of consistent standards?
Kindred Spirits isn't even that explicit. Put it next to Witcher 3 and Witcher 3 is far more explicit with its sexual content.
https://www.valvesoftware.com/en/contact
Mangagamer actively had a discussion with Valve regarding that game's specific content years ago, with the end results being Valve okaying the game.
What Valve is basically doing is backing on their own word and changing their mind. How can a storefront be professional if it can't retain any sort of consistent standards?
Kindred Spirits isn't even that explicit. Put it next to Witcher 3 and Witcher 3 is far more explicit with its sexual content.
There's this
https://www.valvesoftware.com/en/contact
Last edited:
Scopa
The Tribe Has Spoken
I’m not into VNs, but this and another Valve maneuver from the past month is giving me a bad feeling. They’ve definitley made a pivot and it doesn’t bode well. Is there a new manager in charge at Valve or something? (Under Gabe, of course). Maybe he’s going more hands off?
brap
Banned
lifa-cobex
Member
Reminds me of when they pulled Hatred off the store.
Gaben descended from the clouds to return what was lost.
Gaben descended from the clouds to return what was lost.
Strife In a Teacup
Member
So will they be pulling all Bethesda games off for all the related sexual mods? Just asking. You know, like the Lovers Lab variety.
Do Make Say Think
Banned
I thought Valve was mainly targeting games where characters could be seen as minors due to the ambiguity of their design ie: the character is an adult but looks 12 years old?
Which makes sense if you look at it from a business perspective. Minors and sex do not mix under any circumstance, even it is just the perception. It may be ok in Japan but Japan is not the world.
Which makes sense if you look at it from a business perspective. Minors and sex do not mix under any circumstance, even it is just the perception. It may be ok in Japan but Japan is not the world.
Last edited:
Koala Driving a Ferrari
Member
I don't consume the genre of gaming content that is getting pulled but I am completely against this in principle. I'll be suspening all purchases made on Steam going forwards until this is resolved. I have no interest in supporting businesses that bend over backwards to appease pearl-clutching, radical minorities.
Last edited:
Alexander DeLarge
Member
I'm hoping this is just some overzealous renegade employee. People keep blaming the payment processors but I find it incredibly difficult to believe that Valve wouldn't be able to get on the phone with important PayPal people within moments of being threatened a denial of service unless they remove these games.
Slightly off topic but PayPal's sex negative stance is pretty dumb. I have a couple cam girl friends that have been banned from PayPal for life and had their balance held for 180 days.... All because they get naked on the internet and get paid for it? More power to them imo.
infinitys_7th
Member
I get the feeling that the sorts that ran this internet justice flagging operation are the kind of people who would defend deported MS-13 members from Trump's "vicious assault" while proudly proclaiming their protection of fictional characters from "exploitation" as if an accomplishment.
This is a hell of a year :/
This is a hell of a year :/
Kadayi
Banned
Well, they have just had some notorious prudes join the firm, so you could be onto something there.
Hey, women can only be empowered when it's from the approved list of professions as decreed by other women. It is known.
burnside13
Member
Surely people know what theyre getting into when they purchase these strange games
Compared to other art form, games have very little sex in them. Steam's position against sex and their monopoly of the market will set back developers who do want to explore this subject. Prudishness rules yet again.
All developers should add fig leaves op top of nipples. Only these fig leaves should show the face of Gaben.
All developers should add fig leaves op top of nipples. Only these fig leaves should show the face of Gaben.
Last edited:
Strife In a Teacup
Member
I'd argue it's quite on topic in fact. The broad preference of HARDCORE violence with tons of gore rated M that is sold, marketed, advertised, and praised. But some sexual stuff, OH NO.
It's ridiculous and shameful. Especially knowing how popular pornography is in the world. Everyone likes to keep it nice and hidden and pretend it's not there when it's only a click away.
Sex is most definitely a part of art, hiding it does no one any good.
It should be more of a part of games as it's a part of every day life for mature people that would be playing these games. If parents are buying these games for their kids, that's another topic entirely. Perhaps these Puritanical radicals should exercise some financial restraint of their children's credit card use instead of trying to dictate to mature adults what they may or may not consume.
This isn't the Church in the 14th century.
Last edited:
Minister of the Dog
Member
These people know they'll never take down games like GTA V or Witcher 3, going by the examples on the OP, so instead they target small developers of lesser known games. What a shame.
Toraneko78
Neo Member
Already signed.
Nikodemos
Member
So from what I could gather (from reddit, 4chan, statements etc.), things go like this:
Valve have a "hot coffee" policy in place. Meaning that a game is forbidden from having dormant assets of a nature that would contravene their ToS, which could be unlocked by a simple 'relinker' patch.
Valve also forbid both devs and users from advertising patches that could cause Steam games to contravene their ToS in their Steam Community pages.
Now, of course, everybody knows Valve are a bunch of lazy layabouts whom somebody would charitably call "highly spotty" when it comes to enforcing their own rules.
There is a possibility some devs played loose with the "hot coffee" rule. There's also a possibility that many games had threads detailing the location of the uncensor patches.
This went ignored for a while, mainly because LOL VALVE TIME.
What seems to have happened, is that a conservative group (shown above) has decided to latch on to the MeToo movement (like a remora clings to a shark) in order to further their own goals. These individuals, it would seem, have report-bombed Valve regarding the content of some of the games hosted on their marketplace. No doubt, they weren't the only ones. There's a sizeable amount of 4chan's community which have turned 'ironically' conservative and have decided to morality police online content.
Moreover, there have been a number of laws (FOSTA-SESTA) adopted by Congress which enforce several rules upon providers of explicit content.
It is quite likely that Valve didn't weigh each case individually, given their general aversion to actual effort, and instead issued a blanket warning to all the targeted devs. Now, in theory, this shouldn't cause fundamental breakages, except in the case of devs which did indeed try to fly under the radar and violate the "no dormant assets" rule (they would have to re-code the game). This would make patching more difficult, since external content (not part of Steam's Mod Workshop framework) gets automatically overwritten whenever there's an update, and has to be manually reapplied afterwards.
HOWEVER.
There's a more insidious bit regarding content policing. Namely, the question of off-site uncensor patches.
Principially, a dev which submits a game fully expunged of explicit content, creates an uncensor modpack (since it would no longer be a patch, given its size and breadth of changes), which however is not accessible in any form or function from Valve's services, should not be liable to any punitive actions from the part of Valve. However, there are rumblings that Valve are deeply unhappy with devs who create uncensor patches for the Steam versions, and want to crack down on that. In this case, it would be an overt abuse of Valve's position as digital market leader, and a clear sign of overreach.
Valve have a "hot coffee" policy in place. Meaning that a game is forbidden from having dormant assets of a nature that would contravene their ToS, which could be unlocked by a simple 'relinker' patch.
Valve also forbid both devs and users from advertising patches that could cause Steam games to contravene their ToS in their Steam Community pages.
Now, of course, everybody knows Valve are a bunch of lazy layabouts whom somebody would charitably call "highly spotty" when it comes to enforcing their own rules.
There is a possibility some devs played loose with the "hot coffee" rule. There's also a possibility that many games had threads detailing the location of the uncensor patches.
This went ignored for a while, mainly because LOL VALVE TIME.
What seems to have happened, is that a conservative group (shown above) has decided to latch on to the MeToo movement (like a remora clings to a shark) in order to further their own goals. These individuals, it would seem, have report-bombed Valve regarding the content of some of the games hosted on their marketplace. No doubt, they weren't the only ones. There's a sizeable amount of 4chan's community which have turned 'ironically' conservative and have decided to morality police online content.
Moreover, there have been a number of laws (FOSTA-SESTA) adopted by Congress which enforce several rules upon providers of explicit content.
It is quite likely that Valve didn't weigh each case individually, given their general aversion to actual effort, and instead issued a blanket warning to all the targeted devs. Now, in theory, this shouldn't cause fundamental breakages, except in the case of devs which did indeed try to fly under the radar and violate the "no dormant assets" rule (they would have to re-code the game). This would make patching more difficult, since external content (not part of Steam's Mod Workshop framework) gets automatically overwritten whenever there's an update, and has to be manually reapplied afterwards.
HOWEVER.
There's a more insidious bit regarding content policing. Namely, the question of off-site uncensor patches.
Principially, a dev which submits a game fully expunged of explicit content, creates an uncensor modpack (since it would no longer be a patch, given its size and breadth of changes), which however is not accessible in any form or function from Valve's services, should not be liable to any punitive actions from the part of Valve. However, there are rumblings that Valve are deeply unhappy with devs who create uncensor patches for the Steam versions, and want to crack down on that. In this case, it would be an overt abuse of Valve's position as digital market leader, and a clear sign of overreach.
Last edited:
Shotgun Anaconda
Member
I mean the post has a point but this
is just stupid lmao. VN games are made for porn, witcher has boobs for "lulz". Anything else is a straight up lie.
is just stupid lmao. VN games are made for porn, witcher has boobs for "lulz". Anything else is a straight up lie.
Mathrin
Member
Just no.
No they are not. Yes some of them are. But most the stuff that comes from Japan and gets translated is not like that at all. Best Example the already mentioned grisaia. These are Visual novels which have sex scenes to create a deeper relationship and there are like 3-4 scenes per route(girl) in a 50+ hour game. If you want to believe it or not. There are a lot of people who play these for the story
Last edited:
DeliciousDoc
Member
Where would Skyrim and other elder scroll game fall? Its not made by the creator so its ok?
There is no way they would ban the sale of one of their biggest bread winner so I am looking forward to the "explanation".
Last edited:
Nikodemos
Member
While Skyrim has a bunch of mods that
WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT AND WHY DOES IT HAVE BOTH CAT EARS AND TENTACLES
Monster Girl Quest: come for the lewds (although Part 3 is 100% pure body-horror), stay for the story.
Last edited:
E.T. Waifu
Member
Steam... Baby. Just stop.
Zog
Banned
The busybodies always have a crusade.
Nikodemos
Member
Jim pointed out a very interesting connection: Valve being pressured by Paypal, who in turn were/are pressured by MoralityInMedia (which rebranded themselves as EndSexualExploitation seen above).
PayPal's turboshit stance regarding digital content with erotic aspects is very well known.
PayPal's turboshit stance regarding digital content with erotic aspects is very well known.
Last edited:
Nikodemos
Member
GOG refuses to publish any sort of VN by default. So extremely unlikely.
RainblowDash
Gold Member
Now I have a few of these games on question and most are crap, but the fact that they're being censored for the content instead of the quality is highly disturbing.
Fuck the groups that are for this.
Fuck the groups that are for this.
Nikodemos
Member
I think Conan Exiles is already censored for US Steam users.
brap
Banned
Yeah dude it's always conservatives looking to censor things.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center
Strife In a Teacup
Member
No, US Steam Conan Exiles has full nudity with the sliders for male/female.
PS4/Xbox US Conan Exiles is half-censored and only shows females bare chested(no No-Bottoms options for males with the accompanying slider). On Xbox you can change your region to EU and download the Full nudity DLC and then change your region back to have it in the US. Although I haven't tested this yet myself.
I have it on PC and Xbox 1 X, for reference.
Last edited:
manfestival
Member
thank you for this post. it was pretty insightful. the problem is valve and these companies are caving to ridiculous requests
Nikodemos
Member
Indeed. The fact that there's no discernible pattern is a clue itself.
iconmaster
Banned
They came for the naked anime schoolgirls and I said nothing.
I forgot the rest.
I forgot the rest.
Makariel
Member
I see, you are seemingly the sole authority and can pass the final judgement when it comes to VN? Hence I wonder: just how many have you actually played to make such sweeping generalizations, you internationally known expert in this genre?
edit:
p.s. the group claiming responsibility has stated on their website The Witcher and Mass Effect are some of their next targets, will you also be so quick to point out that RPG as being made for porn?
Last edited:
Scopa
The Tribe Has Spoken
Isn’t Hunie Pop on GoG?
Nikodemos
Member
Huniepop isn't a VN. It's a match 3 puzzle game.
Scopa
The Tribe Has Spoken
But, it has VN-like story elements between puzzles, right? (I haven’t played it, but I got that impression).
- Status