Not only is it not gone, it's on the front page.
Which is just Steam's discoverability efforts coming back to haunt them.
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So... Steam is now ok with rape simulator ?
- Thread starter Kaah
- Start date
Which is just Steam's discoverability efforts coming back to haunt them.
Is this even against their rules anymore? Serious question, because there are plenty of such games on Steam. Like a few games down on that trending list is Ravager, a porn game where you play a dragon going around raping/kidnapping/killing women
and they've got nothing on itch.io since I think steam at least draws the line at kids
and they've got nothing on itch.io since I think steam at least draws the line at kids
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There is absolutely a review process for content on Steam. I have spoken at length to a friend that publishes VN's on steam about this.
What is just as bad if not worse is the amount of positive reviews on the product itself. When I went to report it curiosity got the best of me and I read a few of them and uh.. all I can say is people need more therapy or something.
Im sure this game is pure trash, but to say that you can't have any depiction of sexual violence in the medium whatsoever is pretty far reaching. Life is strange has rape in it.
OP's description could go for that game as well, except those characters are underage even.
I think custers revenge like games should be banned, but sexual violence as a theme should absolutely be allowed. We have games about depression, all sorts of highly sensitive subjects, this should be discussable too.
They said rape games, not all games that have rape moments in them. There's a clear distinction between Life Is Strange and a game where you as the player are engaging in the rape.
Where did I say you can't have any depiction of sexual violence in the medium whatsoever? Also, what scene in any Life is Strange game shows rape? As far as I remember, it deals with the subject, but it doesn't show it. We're talking about a game here that shows rape and the player is the rapist. Can you see the difference?
I wouldn't classify depression in the same category as rape. One is a illness and the other a criminal action.
While not trying to comment directly on this game, there plenty of games and contain criminal actions.
Devs are free to make those games
and when those games are being sold on Steam, they can be reported by people who can recognise the difference between games involving this subject matter in their stories, and games that turn encourage players to simulate it. If you can't make that distinction, that's fine—those who can will report those in your stead.
There's worse out there, too. There's a lot of stuff produced which is essentially just misogyny presented as pornography.
"Obvious children" isn't a weird boundary IMO.
Which games are those?
Because the only things I remember that were straight blocked were games that featured minors ("all characters over the age of 1,000" declarations notwithstanding) or minor-adjacent imagery (like high school settings) with sexual content.
Was googling to see if I can get more information on the barriers to LGBTQIA+ games being released thing, and ended up running into an article about a homophobic game that was published on Steam. This paragraph jumps out at me:
www.vice.com
How Valve's Hands-Off Approach Allowed the Homophobic 'Gay World' on Steam
You can publish basically anything on Steam these days, meaning all sorts of games are slipping through the cracks.
www.vice.com
Steam used to be curated and everyone complained because games wouldn't get put on the service, so they opened it up to everyone. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Steam has been ok with trash H-Games for like the last two years this is not that surprising. Steam puts them on their platform and then people go into the community hub to post the H-patch for each game. The truth is if you do your steam queue without age restriction or a filter you will be bombarded with a lot of gross porn games.
I feel like 90% of the adult games that you'd find on Steam have some degree of sexual assault - that's how the pornographic game industry is. Which is why I'm still a little baffled their solution to the "grey area" of games with sexual content was "just let 'em all in, sure, whatever." I guess they'll let anything on the platform as long as it doesn't get them blacklisted somewhere.
Yeah developers & Users alive were arguing that Steam's curation platform was too stringent and that it was very difficult to release more "Adult" titles onto the platform, so after pushback Valve decided to just stop curating titles and just verify games aren't literal viruses or bitcoin miners.
Nowadays almost everyone I know has the Adult content filter enabled on steam and no on really sees those games unless you specifically search for them. But from my cursory glance at the adult category on steam the majority of titles seem to be something similar to the game in the OP.
Yeah, that's a notorious troll dev who pumped out an endless supply of bullshit "games" (even before Valve opened up the store to pretty much everything).
I don't know how they survived as long as they did (are they even still on Steam)?
Valve is no different than any other libertarian tech-bro wonderland company where their only responsibility is to not have liability for content distributed through their platform; everything else is A-OK.
It wasn't just adult titles not being put on the platform; but smaller indie games from legitimate developers or people trying to break into the industry were getting denied. So then they created Steam Greenlight where the community voted on whether they'd play a particular game, and if it got enough votes it was allowed on the platform. Euro Truck Simulator 2 came through Greenlight. Then that still wasn't good enough so they just opened it up to everyone.
I'd rather it be open to all and they remove games as they come up than a curated store.
Yeah I didn't remember if it was just random titles being denied post-greenlight or if it was exclusively titles with adult content so I didn't want to mention indies just in case.
I do prefer this current method of curation as it opens up the gates for smaller developers that normally would not be able to get their titles out on steam.
You can read a bit about it here:
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/11463359/acastro_180601_2624_0001.jpg)
Steam’s capricious pornography rules hurt small game creators the most
Creators are feeling more uncertain than ever
www.theverge.com
While some try to abuse the system with games featuring minors (or like this rape simulator) and are correctly banned, LGBTQIA+ creators often have their games incorrectly labeled as porn, and they often can't appeal to that decision. Some are lucky to be able to get in touch with Valve (and MAYBE convince them, which doesn't always happen), but most can't. This type of issue, which hasn't been properly dealt with yet, has resulted in these devs publishing their games on itch.io and other smaller stores, which obviously doesn't have the same impact as Steam.
If you're seeing porn games on the front page it's because you either actively allowed them to be seen, or accidentally opted in to see In R18 content releases
People just looking at porn games isn't much of an issue. Sometimes people look at porn.
I get some good laughs outta it. Some ridiculous shit that hits the top sellers.
I have no issues with people looking at porn and porn games. Some folks in here seem confused they're on the front page and think that's the default view or something.
So, I think the cases in that report specifically are again about underage or underage-looking characters with sexual content (even if just textual). That's a huge no-no, and it's true that there's no concrete way to know in advance if your young-looking character art is going to get flagged by somebody at Valve, but... well, that's sort of the chance you take when you decide you're going to make a visual novel with sexual content that includes characters that can be interpreted as children.
(And of course trying to get non-offending VN content onto Steam before they opened up the store was a real problem, but isn't really relevant anymore.)
So you think rape games are OK because they're in an opt-in category?
Because I think the problem most people have is that this sort of thing is on Steam, not that somebody may have found it on the landing page.
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Sensitive subjects should be handled by sensitive people, not edgelords.
Looks like this developer's next game is similar. Pretty fucking weird, and you're pretty fucking weird if you get off on anime rape porn.
Hope this developer's "visual novels" or whatever get removed.
Hope this developer's "visual novels" or whatever get removed.
Not all of them. You have cases where Ladykiller in a Bind where it was VERY hard for the developer to get onto Steam. On the other hand, we have cases like The Witcher 3 that never had the same challenge. Like I said, the problem hasn't been fully addressed and nothing that I'm aware of indicates that it will be anytime soon.
I don't care about hentai games on steam, that's not the point. But even porn site like Pornhub don't allow rape fantasy scene (just type rape in the search bar : 0 result), so why is Steam ok with that ? the game isn't even trying to hide its content, it's in the presentation.
No I don't think it's okay, but my morality is irrelevant. I take issue with Steam and Valve creating a system where games like this and other more harmful games can easily pass while more sex positive games have a hard time releasing or being tagged as porn.
Pornhub recently removed all non-verified uploads though, it used to be the wild west. Even then, just because Pornhub decided to clean house (because the banks forced them) doesn't mean the other huge porn sites removed them.
Ladykiller in a Bind, a game I've played in full, is a really poor example for this -- and the only one named in that article. It wasn't rejected by Valve; the author didn't want to bother with greenlight due to their unclear policies and risk of being removed later. When she was eventually able to talk to a human at valve, they approved it. I'd also add that, at the time, it featured explicit (straight) sex, while Witcher 3 has nudity and only implied sex as you'd see in an R-rated film. That scene was removed after the game was on steam because players were uncomfortable with it (rape, but not like this game where that is the goal or glorified. MC was the victim). The remaining content is more borderline as far as softcore/hardcore. In short, their troubles never had anything to do with the queer story or even the content of the game at all -- just Valve's inability to communicate.
An Uncensored Sex Game's Difficult Journey To Steam
Ladykiller In A Bind—which Heather found to be a bold exploration of sexual experiences and perspectives—is finally coming to Steam on January 9. It’ll be fully uncensored, despite the way Valve usually handles these things. For creator Christine Love, reaching this point wasn’t easy.
kotaku.com
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sometimes when I am in a dark mood I go to steam and see dark things that make me feel good about myself.
Exactly! Valve's inability to communicate has led to many issues, especially for LGBTQIA+ creators who explore intimacy.Ladykiller in a Bind, a game I've played in full, is a really poor example for this -- and the only one named in that article. It wasn't rejected by Valve; the author didn't want to bother with greenlight due to their unclear policies and risk of being removed later. When she was eventually able to talk to a human at valve, they approved it. I'd also add that, at the time, it featured explicit (straight) sex, while Witcher 3 has nudity and only implied sex as you'd see in an R-rated film. That scene was removed after the game was on steam because players were uncomfortable with it (rape, but not like this game where that is the goal or glorified. MC was the victim). The remaining content is more borderline as far as softcore/hardcore. In short, their troubles never had anything to do with the queer story or even the content of the game at all -- just Valve's inability to communicate.
An Uncensored Sex Game's Difficult Journey To Steam
Ladykiller In A Bind—which Heather found to be a bold exploration of sexual experiences and perspectives—is finally coming to Steam on January 9. It’ll be fully uncensored, despite the way Valve usually handles these things. For creator Christine Love, reaching this point wasn’t easy.
Anyway, we've derailed the thread too much, and the original topic is one that needs full attention.
steam opened its floodgates many years ago and uses a reactive approach to issues nowadays
as with all social media bs, one report won't do anything. multiple people will have to report it en-masse for steam to even give a crap.
Unfortunately I've seen worse on steam. When I come across titles like this I just report them and put them on ignore. Not much else to be done about it.
