@lentfilms: thanks for letting me know. So are they removing all VN's or just ones that have any sex in them?

I only care about what happens to rickled pick

@travisrex: The visual novels they are removing seem to be random. All of the ones they've removed so far have some kind of sexual content in them but there are still plenty of other VNs that have just as much sexual content that are being left alone. I think the real reason to be upset about all this is that Steam doesn't have any clear rules about what makes a game appropriate for their service and they are contradicting themselves by removing titles years after they were allowed to be sold on Steam.

Meanwhile, House Party 40% off.

Steam has much bigger problems than shitty H-games. The store is a dumpster fire of asset flips and outright scammers at the moment.

It's weird they've "complied" up till now and are suddenly found in violation of the rules. How did they even get approved in the first place? I suppose Valve might just be changing their terms after the fact.

I hope this doesn't mean something like Dangonronpa or Zero Escape will be pulled too.

@lentfilms: really a strange situation, is it being blown up in media? If so, id imagine theyll have to give an explanation at some point.

If Valve had a problem with this stuff, maybe they should have done something about it before their service was absolutely littered with it.

@themanwithnoplan: I highly doubt that titles like Danganronpa or Zero Escape will be effected by any of this. They were rated by the ESRB and, honestly, are published by much larger companies that can more effectively defend their "right" to be on Steam. I'm more curious to see if any of pQube's more explicit titles will be effected by this take-down spree, games like Gal Gun or even their upcoming release of Punch Line (although those titles were rated by the ESRB as well so they will most likely stay on Steam).

Ok, that's good to hear.

So they are changing their rules after looking at them and realising they are flawed? Sounds a good thing to me.

Yeah, the achivement spam games etc aren't great. But they are better than hentai games.

I'll wait for a blogpost to see what the reasoning is like.

Even if we consider the best possible reasoning for this change, that they legit concerned with some of the games that have made it onto the store, they have still thoroughly fucked up the implementation of these new guidelines.

Really shitty move. Not that I ever thought much of Valve.

https://endsexualexploitation.org/videogames/

https://endsexualexploitation.org/articles/top-videogame-company-steam-removing-sexually-graphic-content/

First they came for the hentai and I did not speak out...

Valve doesn't give two shits about the content on Steam as they've CLEARLY shown the past couple years. They are doing this because supposedly Paypal is actually getting up in their business about selling games that can be "construed as sexually oriented", and to lose Paypal as a payment method would be a fairly big deal.

Paypal is against this because again supposedly digital porn stuff has a very high charge back rate. I dunno how accurate the paypal stuff is but I do know that Valve clearly has stopped caring long ago and it doesn't make sense for them to suddenly start caring now. Especially in many of these cases where the games in question don't even have nudity anymore, much less sexual content.

This strikes me as a similar kerfluffle as Steam Greenlight and the problems with user reviews that crop up. With proper vetting and a better parental control system this would be a non-issue, but Valve wants to keep their overhead as low as possible to help their bottom line. Sucks for the developers.

@oldenglishc: This basically sums up my thoughts on this.

Changing the rules without any prior communication to products that had been following the rules up to that point is a rather bad business practice for a store front.

From what I understand, they haven't changed any rules whatsoever, at least not in a way that makes anything clear. And really, those spam games are better than 'hentai' games (that have no or minimal nudity by default, pretty shitty hentai)? Those achievement/card spam games (especially the card ones) are literally made to game the steam market, they have no redeeming purpose or function. The visual novels are telling stories and sometimes contain *GASP* sexual situations. In their love stories. My god, what a fucking travesty. You might play/read a dozen hours worth of story for one scene. If you're looking for something to jack it to, these games are not that when you've got the entire goddamn internet in your browser.

The Witcher series is a really good comparison. Those games aren't going to be asked to change content, and they have (in some cases) more nudity and sex than a lot of these VN's.

Ah, Steam, finally wielding Gabe's many knives of justice to strike down games that
allow you to expose female chests in the throes of passion.
Meanwhile, games that allow you to stab said female chests and perhaps even rip them apart remain.
Well done.

Yeah, it definitely has something to do with this and/or the "Stop Enabling Online Sex Trafficking Act". Everyone knows Valve doesn't give half a shit about the quality of the steam store, just go look into the upcoming tab on any given day to see all the new asset flips, achievement games, and early access games that will never be finished if anyone still needs proof.

Requiring ESRB/PEGI ratings would be massively against indie devs though, with the costs to get the games judged by them. There's also (in my opinion) a massive issue with how puritanical systems like the ESRB can be (I'm Australian, look at our ratings board, that place has historically been hot bullshit).

As for the patches on the forums, what I've read has said this was actually 100% fine to for the devs to link to patches on their game forums until roughly six months ago when they instated a rule that said something along the lines of "developers can't promote these patches on the steam service", which honestly is fair enough, anyone who really wants it will be able to google anyway, and it's such an obvious "covering out asses" clause.

Edit: I'd also like to add that it's FAR from impossible for Valve to implement parental controls. These developers aren't trying to hide that their games have sexual content, at most they're just adding an extra hoop to jump through to get the very sexual content. They would happily tell Valve (and have) "Yo, this game had sexual content" so it wouldn't even take someone at Valve looking through the game (God forbid they look at the shit going on their store).

ESRB is not mandatory for brick and mortar games. It's a voluntary program that publishers participate in. Stores can certainly choose not to stock unrated games, but it's the actions of publishers that ensure unrated physical games mostly don't exist for them to sell.

This situation has finally turned me to the argument that Valve being so big is bad for the community.

@muftyriots: In a hypothetical where developers have to get ratings, they would presumably have to get those ratings in each region they wanted to sell the game. Suddenly you're talking about a lot more than just the $800 fee for the ESRB rating, and these fees could feel like a hell of a gamble for someone that made a game on their own and isn't sure if it will hit. If Steam don't want to police themselves, then they should be shutting down their bullshit Steam Direct service.

When you're talking about developers obfuscating their content to get it on to Steam, at that point how is it really any different to any mod for any game? Just the fact that the devs have it shared on their site that you had to seek out on your own? And like I said, this behaviour was a-ok with Steam until roughly six months ago, and the only thing they changed there was that you couldn't advertise the patches on their forums.

The crux of this argument to me is puritan bullshit, where sex is verboten but all sorts of violent murder is very much okay. I'm probably coming at this from a slightly different angle than most Americans, because despite our (still) backwards game ratings here in Australia, it was easy as hell to see boobs and such on tv when I was growing up. From an outside perspective, America has an insane perspective on human sexuality in media. Australia has the same insanity with sexuality in video games (because the people in control of those ratings still believe games are for children, ignoring that people who grew up with them are now in their 30's and 40's).

Apologies as I'm sure this post is very much not as clear as I'd like it, I'm quite tired and have a handful of ciders in me at this point.

Been reading through the thread and thought it might be good to throw-out a few facts, as least as things currently stand.

So far, only ten games are known to have been targeted. One of those games, as previously mentioned, is "Kindred Spirits on the Roof." The game has no adult-content patch, and according to its publisher, the title as it exists was checked and certified by Valve to be fine for sale on Steam. Another title, "Mutiny!!," does have an adult-content patch, but according to the developer, the censored version available on Steam was also checked and verified by Valve. (For reference, "Kindred Spirits on the Roof" is a visual novel with a handful of lesbian sex scenes; the game's content is meant to be romantic, and not hardcore, in nature.)

Of the ten known, targeted titles, there are currently other visual novels with significantly more hardcore adult content that can be patched into the game. Also as previously mentioned, developers were banned several months ago from promoting their adult-content patches in the Steam forums.

The biggest issue being voiced by the publishers/developers of the targeted titles is they haven't been informed of why this ban is potentially being enforced and what adult content they need to remove/alter.

One theory making the rounds, due to an anonymous comment from a supposed Valve employee, is the company is targeting games where the adult content still exists in the Steam files and is only unlocked via a patch. Of course, this doesn't explain why "Kindred Spirits on the Roof" was picked, other than the core game having adult content.

In general, things could certainly develop, but currently we're not looking at a purge from Steam of visual novels or certain types of games with adult content.

Typical Valve. Choosing a stupid solution that is the laziest method to cave to demands.

Would have been simply easier to create a section in the marketplace for this stuff. Hell they constantly hide "violence" behind a clickwall even though they don't seem to employ people to manually do this. Lazy company that doesn't want to employ real people to do work.

I don't see what is desirable about any business modeling their policies after the Walmarts and Targets of this world, or for that matter any UK business. Is Valve following the same certification standards of Russian or Saudi Arabian stores? I'm not asking that to be flippant, they are legitimate state entities with legitimate aims (that I disagree strongly with), as far as such a thing exists. We shouldn't expect one company to serve the entire world, the result wouldn't be pretty.

Valve can try, of course. I'm sure they love being a global standard. But succeeding means conforming to the most wretched denominator. I wouldn't want my options to be limited to UK storefronts. And if there's a better locale for buying games than the US then I'd hope to be able to buy games from a business located there, not calling for them to warp themselves to US standards.

@muftyriots: Acting as if things are legit? When Steam has told you it's fine and you can sell this what else are they supposed to think?

Just change all references to sex as 'hugging' in a patch.

@muftyriots: You can buy vibrators from Walmart’s online store. So even Walmart seems more relaxed than Steam.

A) I wouldn't be surprised if this is related to FOSTA/SESTA; take a few minutes to read up on it and the impact it's already had if you aren't American or aren't very politically-aware.

B) This group, a right-wing puritanical anti-sexuality and anti-pornography group, is doing their best to take credit for these takedowns on twitter, whether or not they were actually responsible. On this page on their website, they also list Mass Effect: Andromeda and The Witcher 3 as games they would also like to censor.

Regarding Steam and 18+ patches, this really has become much less of an issue and loophole.

Initially, some publishers of adult-Japanese visuals novels with Steam versions were offering patches or purchases containing 18+ & all-age copies of their titles. Over time, Valve became much less lenient, and games with adult content from companies like JAST USA and MangaGamer now exists as separate, non-Steam purchases. Certain companies, like Sekai Project, do still offer patches for the Steam versions, although users are required to purchase the patch, directly from the publisher's website.

Not to be disingenuous, some companies/developers, such as the creator of "Mutiny!!," do still offer free, 18+ patches, but even those are no longer allowed to be outright advertised and promoted on the Steam forums. This is not to suggest the information for relevant titles has been completely scrubbed from, or obfuscated in, the forums.

Considering the known games that have been targeted, and to reference my previous post, I am starting to wonder whether the issue really is titles where the adult content still technically exists in the Steam files. For instance, "Re;Lord1" is one of the affected titles, published by Sekai Project; their isn't even an 18+ patch for this game, instead you have to purchase the non-Steam, adult version directly from company. That said, best I can tell, the adult version merely removes articles of clothing otherwise maintained in the all-age edition--maybe the Steam version was seen as being just too risque.

I'm siding with Valve on this one.

Get all the visual novels off of Steam and have someone make a digital storefront solely for visual novels.

Infact, Steam may even do something like that down the road.

@ungodly: kids, generally, arent capable of buying vibrators, kids can buy games.

Why wouldn't they be? These aren't age-restricted items.

I mean...there's no restriction in place it's literally the same process. If the can buy games on Steam they can buy shit they shouldn't on other stores too.

I mean, if you enjoy wanking over your hentai visual porn that's your business, but you seem to be fighting a losing battle with the maturity you'd expect from someone defending such pathetic games.

@supersambo: It seems somewhat more mature than just being kinda shitty and judgmental about it then broadly dismissing it all out of hand.

@neurogia: Why? It’s just another genre. I don’t play battle royal games, but don’t mind that they’re the hot new thing. Hell, I don’t even play visual novels, and find it incredibly easy to ignore them. Is this a “I don’t think they’re games, so a games services shouldn’t sell them” situation? Are we reliving the “Myst isn’t a game” dispute from my childhood?

I’m more bothered by Steam ignoring actual problems with their service, then I am them making it harder for people to play porno. Plus the no graphic sexual content rule is stupid, when there is so much graphic violent content that’s ok.

So it's an implementation issue for these few games? All is fine unless there are 18+ files in the main folder instead of packing it in the adult patch? Seems solvable.

@travisrex: Vibrators are on amazon. They're just as easy to buy as digital games.

Not sure how many kids have debit/credit cards though. I didn't get one until I was maybe 16.