That's true I guess.
Good source of gaming news.
Needlessly bashing Kotaku and us every chance they get though.
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Rape Day removed from Steam
- Thread starter Chairmanchuck (另一个我)
- Start date
Good source of gaming news.
Needlessly bashing Kotaku and us every chance they get though.
I doubt it's a development team. Probably just one guy who wanted to make money off his sociopathic likes.
I'm not sure if you follow Valve at all but they aren't exactly the fastest moving company in the world.
Welcome to bizarro 2019 my friend. Someone, somewhere divided by 0 and we were sent to the worst timeline ever.
I agree. RDR2 has a rape scene and nobody knew, so nobody cared.
"Rape Day' poses unknown costs and risks"
What a shitty statement to explain why a rape game is not allowed on the store.
What a shitty statement to explain why a rape game is not allowed on the store.
I blame the Large Hadron Collider. We thought the LHC would create a black hole or open a portal to hell, but what it actually did was far worse...
That place has been like that since a long time ago, any large sub that serves general purpose always attracts the worst kind of people in internet. It's not hard to find someone using freedom of speech to defend semi-porn stuff, not to mention rantsona blog getting posted regularly. Thankfully the mods there generally do a good job filtering them out.
I'm gonna go against the zeitgeist here and say I'm OK with Valve's response to this. It's not amazing, but I don't see the huge issue with it.
At the end of the day, it was a troll game with no artistic merit and Valve responded to it as such.
I think wording this kind of statement is hard since you have to walk a fine line of not making life hard for art-games or other kind of interesting games, where depicting or discussing rape might have value (i.e games where the subject is handled with respect, without glorification or attention-seeking.)
At the end of the day, it was a troll game with no artistic merit and Valve responded to it as such.
I think wording this kind of statement is hard since you have to walk a fine line of not making life hard for art-games or other kind of interesting games, where depicting or discussing rape might have value (i.e games where the subject is handled with respect, without glorification or attention-seeking.)
You could also just go with the old "we don't want fucked up trash on our store so we took it down. Boom, sorted"
As it turns out, things like this are actually really damn easy to sort out if you want to.
I think they could've handled the "we're not thwarting artistic freedom" thing better, though. This is a game that clearly didn't deserve the benefit of the doubt and it felt like they went too easy on it. It didn't become, in their statement, abundantly clear that stuff like this is unacceptable.
I think this is the problem people have with it too.
Imagine needing an excuse to not sell a game that intends to normalise rape in gaming
Is it that different from working on hentai or something? A job's a job.
This is an example of wording that would have made me a bit ticked - Because it wouldn't have been clear what is trash about it, and what does that mean. I don't get people who want that kind of simplistic statement.
Yeah, this is why they basically said "This game is a troll game, the risks of running it is just not worth anyone's time." Basically, the way I read Valve's statement is - We'll be glad to take risks and help you publish games dealing with controversial issues, as long as you're not a troll wanting to stir controversy. That is the correct way to deal with this issue IMO.
Also, I think having a reactionary policy regarding content is better than the alternative. This is how itch.io works as well, and this is why both Steam and itch.io are the go to places for publishing indie and garage games.
Their whole statement is a disgrace. It reads like they are totally fine with this game but it poses "unknown costs and risks" so those are the only reasons they pull it. It is incredible and they should get much more flag for this.
They would have released it because they didn't want to take five fucking minutes to read the description of the game if it wasn't the backlash.
Y'all can be as outraged as you want but if they keep getting your money they won't give a fuck.
Y'all can be as outraged as you want but if they keep getting your money they won't give a fuck.
Could someone break down the timeline for me. From what I gather it sounds like the systems worked as intended? As I understand it, the game never actually hot the Steam store, there was just a Steam page made for it, that got reported and was removed shortly thereafter. Was/is there actually even a game or is this all a big troll from the creator?
You're assuming this sick fuck has friends and a spouse.... I doubt he does :P
Someone please do correct me if I'm wrong but from what I gathered:
- A page for the game was created roughly 3 weeks ago, with screenshots and other promotional assets;
- Anyone paying a $100 fee can create such a page (without a game uploaded yet) without Valve getting involved at this point;
- Such pages may basically fly under the radar unless they are explicitly reported;
- Steam only verifies the games themselves once they are uploaded (which they must before it's up for sale, to check for viruses etc.);
- Articles about the game started coming up in the past few days;
- All of the above might partially explain the delay, though 3 weeks is still rather long as I'm sure someone must have reported it earlier than the articles;
- The game itself was uploaded only one or two days ago, which may be what finally prompted Valve to respond;
- Valve takes down the game and releases the statement yesterday.
IMO there are two major things Valve needs to do to handle these cases better:
- Have an automated system that checks for some keywords and flags pages with matches on those keywords, so that such pages don't sit there unmoderated for weeks;
- Don't release such pitiful statements that basically amount to saying "We're sorry we can't sell this game, but we're too afraid of the financial backlash, toodles" when you do take down games like this. Take a goddamn stand.
Regarding 1, I'm neutral to it - As long as it's just flagging it for someone on Valve to check. I just don't think it makes that much of a difference - People reported a game that clearly has no place on Steam, the media picked up on it, Valve didn't allow it on Steam. This is the system working as intended as far as I can see. This is how it works on itch.io as well (actually, on itch.io you can just upload the game straight away), which is the closest to Steam in terms of how open the store is.
Regarding 2, I see Valve's response differently as I stated above. I would have liked them to be more precise in their statement, but I don't find it insulting or pitiful. I get that people want Valve to moderate games more, but IMO so many people here are very much downplaying the fine line they have to walk in order to preserve openness.
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Pretty much this. There's some timing involved like having to wait 30 days from developer registration and two weeks from when store page goes up. (which ever is later). Adult Only games like this also generally take much longer to review.
Also I don't think Valve checks reports, only flagging after certain number of reports.
Or whoever checks, you doesn't care.
Using keywords to flag would do a lot. (especially on Adult Only games). Seems like no brainer.
My guess is that flags of unreleased games are given low priority (as there shouldnt be anything to complain about).
OP
OP
The problem with the answer is that it means "This happened, but we wont change anything. Anyone can do it again".
I can just pay the 100% to make a propaganda page for a game about killing jews and link to an alt-right website while it will stay online for half a month, divert traffic to it and profit when it got so big like Rape Day got that it was even features in major european newspapers.
Whole idea of having store page up early was to give users to raise issues with games before they are released.
My problem with it is that the creator explicitly said "I want to normalize rape" which is so far beyond the pale that it warrants a harsh "Oh fuck no, not ever" stance. That kind of bullshit is above and beyond "trolling".
Whole idea of having a store up early is to allow devs to promote their games.
I don't think that's the point of having a page for an unreleased game.
There's little to be confused about. Valve is an amoral beast made of money and lawyers. They will only ever react when either of those two inputs are activated. They do not take a proactive stance to anything because they don't care and don't see a reason to care.
Was pretty sure I game page was for promotion and creating an online footprint. But, there you go, I guess. Thanks for the quote.
"Rape Day' poses unknown costs and risks"
"I do not condone pedophile and white supremacy"
Really a.....great time for the video game industry right now, eh?
"I do not condone pedophile and white supremacy"
Really a.....great time for the video game industry right now, eh?
Facepalms and pinches nose bridge ...
I fucking told you so accepting adult themes without curation is gonna get you in trouble ...
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-03-07-rape-day-prompts-call-for-uk-government-review
I fucking told you so accepting adult themes without curation is gonna get you in trouble ...
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-03-07-rape-day-prompts-call-for-uk-government-review
Love they wrote this in the article: Valve yesterday caved to pressure and removed the title, saying its policy to such material should be "reactionary."
They are right, though. Doubt Valve cares what is in their store. If it wasn't because people complained, you can be damn sure Newell would let abominations like this be sold.
But... they do want fucked up trash on their store and have fucked up trash on their store. There's a sizable fanbase for it with very little risk provided it doesn't go TOO far over the line (and even that may have a sizable fanbase too, it's not really well tested). Moderate gains for minimal risk.
The thing is no there isn't ONLY fucked up shit buuuuut Valve utterly refuses to touch Visual Novels and Dating Sims with anything and just cash in the money.
Despite a lot of fairly reasonable fans being fed up to have to buy then refund when they find out that this one wasn't a safe one ...
Heck we even reached out with emails providing a list of things that we were happy with , and explaining also why certain story bit although maybe disturbing for a straight audience do make sense for a non straight one ...
Etc etc etc ...
Let's face it and call a cat a cat until Valve will finally take the time to treat VN / Dating Sim the same way the cinema industry treats porn (in other words as a separate entity with its own set of rules and regulations ) then this kind of shit will keep happenning .
I wasn't even talking about VNs...
I mean things like Hatred and other lesser known edgelord stuff.
Must be reactionary? Must be? How hard is it to be proactive about this? The game had "rape" in the title. That can't be red flagged automatically? Before the game is published?
Pretending they couldn't possibly have caught this in advance is ridiculous.
Sorry but as much as I don't like Hatred as a game it is still competently done and it also is a bunch of polish metal head taking the negative stereotypes about metal heads constantly thrown at their face cranked up to eleven to show how ludicrous the very idea is ...
And it actually did its job christian radicals in Poland finaly leave metal heads of Poland the fuck alone ...
Soooo we can both dislike it all we want it DID have the cultural impact it was suppose to have ...
What I am saying is that Hatred is another can of worms altogether ... And all of the other trollish games is a THIRD can of worms.
And this thread is about Rape Day and therefore it's very much about what we do and do not accept when it comes to the sexual content within our games , and also it paraded as a VN so what do we and do we not accept out of VNs ...
Is this the best company on PC? Aint got shit to say on rape or white supremacy?
What fucking trash.
What fucking trash.
Sums up my thoughts pretty well
How hard is it to just come out and say "this is abhorrent"
They did the right thing in removing it but it's hard to have much respect for Valve when they act like this