Looks Like Valve keeps on wanting the visual novel money while being hostile to them featuring queer characters . | See the GoL article in the OP

PC-tan · Jun 14, 2019

As other have mentioned Valve basically flips a coin and depending on how deep the rabbit whole you want to go... (I won't get too much into it), you will see that at times they let "tame" games on the store front but yet GOG bans them or Valve just bans the game all together. Valve will flip flop and say the game is okay and then say it's banned only to later allow it after the devs changed an image. The only part that Valve does seem to be consistent on is games that Nintendo and Sony have allowed so if Nintendo and Sony of Japan have let their games be a certain ways in those region but yet the western Sony or Nintendo branches want it censored, Valve will allow it to remain in it's original form, but since a lot of these VNs don't have console releases then Valve basically flips a coin.

There is the whole school girl thing as well which Valve always gives very vague comments about and that is usually associated with VNs

CenturionNami · Jun 21, 2019

Steam caved in. Justice.

ramoisdead · Jun 21, 2019

CenturionNami said:
Steam caved in. Justice.

lololololololololololol caved in. Sure.

Pretty sure this was a misunderstanding between the two as it was delayed indefinitely until now, not banned. I will say that Valve has to be a bit more transparent about this issue...you're either all for it (except the ones that would make you truly cringe) or all against it.

Hailinel · Jun 21, 2019

ramoisdead said:
lololololololololololol caved in. Sure.

Pretty sure this was a misunderstanding between the two as it was delayed indefinitely until now, not banned. I will say that Valve has to be a bit more transparent about this issue...you're either all for it (except the ones that would make you truly cringe) or all against it.

That Valve is this clumsy with handling VNs in the first place is just headache-inducing.

SaberVS7 · Jun 21, 2019

Hailinel said:
That Valve is this clumsy with handling VNs in the first place is just headache-inducing.

The problem is, every time they lax rules, they start getting slammed by Moral Watchdogs of every variety - Be it Puritans or the CuRaTiOn!!!11!!1! Sterlingites. That's the whole reason that Valve is shaky about Indie VNs in the first place, because some Catholic lobby-group tried to PizzaGate them over the presence of NSFW VNs on Steam - And Valve doesn't want to have to deal with that shit again any time soon.

A VN that's able to get a Thumbs-Up for release on a Console with much stricter content standards than Valve normally has, however, is at least shouldn't be a controversy-magnet for Valve to let on Steam, and if it does generate Bad PR, Valve isn't solely at the epicenter of it all since Nintendo and/or Sony approved it too first.

And in the era of shit like EGS, Valve really does not want to take any PR hits they can avoid - Especially when outlets like PCGamer and RPS get an erection at the sight of anything they can spin against Valve.

Candescence · Jun 21, 2019

Valve explicitly changed content rules to allow lewd material explicitly because a bunch of VNs got flagged despite being fine previously, so Valve decided if people want their wank material, that's fine. But they are drawing the line on lewd material involving minors, even if the actual enforcement is rather touch and go.

In this example, it seems there's some sketchy stuff in there.

SaberVS7 said:
The problem is, every time they lax rules, they start getting slammed by Moral Watchdogs of every variety - Be it Puritans or the CuRaTiOn!!!11!!1! Sterlingites. That's the whole reason that Valve is shaky about Indie VNs in the first place, because some Catholic lobby-group tried to PizzaGate them over the presence of NSFW VNs on Steam - And Valve doesn't want to have to deal with that shit again any time soon.

I think I vaguely remember this but I'm not sure about the specifics. Any particular thread or link I can use to revise my knowledge on this one?

ZKenir · Jun 22, 2019

crossposting from the Vn thread since people are talking about it

Sukesparo's The Expression Amrilato is now available on Steam!

We want to thank all of you who lent us your support over the past few days! After hearing about the recent news, we were approached by Valve and they expressed their interest in carrying The Expression Amrilato on Steam! Even better, we were able to work with them to ensure that The Expression Amrilato is being released on Steam without any changes to the content.

We're very happy to be able to bring this wonderful, heartwarming, and educational tale of the power of communication to Steam in its full, intended form in two language versions—both English and Japanese—with more to come, too! This is a great day for all of us here at MangaGamer and for visual novels as a whole! Fans buying the game on Steam today and in the future will be receiving the exact same product sold on our website and other stores.

If you haven't already tried out The Expression Amrilato, we hope you'll take advantage of this offer soon! And we hope you'll continue sharing your support for amazing titles like this in days to come as well!

To celebrate the occasion, the Steam release will include a launch discount and we'll be extending the promotional discount on our store for another week to match! We hope you all enjoy The Expression Amrilato, and continue to support visual novels wherever they're sold.

SaberVS7 · Jun 22, 2019

Candescence said:
I think I vaguely remember this but I'm not sure about the specifics. Any particular thread or link I can use to revise my knowledge on this one?

I unfortunately can't remember the name of the group that started the drama, and my Google-fu is turning up the wrong results. And of course combing through every thread with the words Valve or Steam in their title to find it manually would take too long.

Anyone else have a better memory here? The only detail I can remember from the time is that someone from Sekai Project and/or some other small VN publisher (MangaGamer, possibly) said (in a thread on this forum) that the situation basically put all their releases that were supposed to be mere hours from release in Limbo because Valve put all upcoming VN releases on a Freeze in order to manually review them all and codify Content Rules.

CaptainUnderpants · Jun 22, 2019

SaberVS7 said:
I unfortunately can't remember the name of the group that started the drama, and my Google-fu is turning up the wrong results. And of course combing through every thread with the words Valve or Steam in their title to find it manually would take too long.

Anyone else have a better memory here? The only detail I can remember from the time is that someone from Sekai Project and/or some other small VN publisher (MangaGamer, possibly) said (in a thread on this forum) that the situation basically put all their releases that were supposed to be mere hours from release in Limbo because Valve put all upcoming VN releases on a Freeze in order to manually review them all and codify Content Rules.

I think I may have found an article about the events you're describing:
https://www.destructoid.com/-update...al-novels-for-removal-from-steam-503730.phtml

I kinda sorta remember this because Mutiny!! by Lupiesoft had caught my attention and then suddenly this whole fiasco with Steam happened.

CenturionNami · Jul 24, 2019

Someone on /u/ found this hidden message in the files from one of the translators :(

Looks Like Valve keeps on wanting the visual novel money while being hostile to them featuring queer characters . | See the GoL article in the OP

PC-tan

CenturionNami

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account

ramoisdead

Hailinel

Shamed a mod for a tag

SaberVS7

Candescence

ZKenir

SaberVS7

CaptainUnderpants

CenturionNami

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account