Steam's Censorship against Anime-based games

[bear_369]

There's has been a controversy going in Steam. They began warning multiple developers of these games like Huniepop to censor any adult content or face their game pulled off from their platform, even games labelled as "Mature content" weren't safe from Steam's censorship.
'It's an Anime Titty Holocaust:' Steam Is Cracking Down on Visual Novels
Valve to Remove Steam Games That Are Not Censored

I'm aware that there's numerous games that's poorly made in case for the profit but keep in mind, few well-known and popular games were got affected to this.

However, I have a problem with Steam's motives censoring these games. They told that they pull the games, that has pornographic contents, off from their platform, but as far as it has been shown in the internet, the games were mature content, none of them violates their guidelines, yet faced into censored anyways.
HunieDev on Twitter
Lupiesoft on Twitter
NEKO WORKs@OVA配信中！ on Twitter

My problem with Steam is if they even knew the difference between a pornographic content and a mature content. Both has big difference yet Steam sees this as both, thus why people starts questioning them for what is their clear motives.

If Steam goes this by their logic, then wouldn't any big games faced this problem? However, not.
Lupiesoft on Twitter

My thought over this debacles: Steam being bias against Anime-styled games and even breaking their own motives. What's yours?

Update

HunieDev, creator of Huniepop, tweeted that Valve told the creator to disregard their previous email and is in the process of re-reviewing the game.
HunieDev on Twitter

Update #2
Steam Blog :: Who Gets To Be On The Steam Store?

 

[Arowanna]

All hail.

No, they are not right, they had the chance to give the 18+ mark validity and keep the gaming market open and free, but they went down the perceived status quo* as per usual. However, they have the right to do what they want with their store, and if there's something Steam hates, it's drama and responsibility. The fact that they first accept it, but as soon as there's some kind of drama in the air**, they chicken out. That's what I personally find damning and this kind of cowardice drives me insane.

Is it censorship? No, they're a private company and as long as they follow the law, they can do whatever they want within those boundaries. Just like how the Abrahamic cults doesn't have to accept homosexual marriages inside their temples.

Not to mention that they, just like YouTube, don't enforce these rules equally, which is one of the biggest shames and the main reason why this should blow up to the biggest shitstorm they've created thus far.

My general position; fuck puritans. Stop using Steam for all your games. Go to Itch.io for depravity, go to GOG for actually good games and a serious store in general. Heck, start using Origins as well, as even EA is fairer than Steam. For fuck sake, both GOG and EA test games before they're accepted. Steam has never even taken that much responsibility.

*Isn't it hilarious how the games in question are quite... "Queer" in nature? I'd usually blame SJWs for this kind of crap, but;
**This whole ordeal is the workings of some lobbying puritans called 'Morality In Media'; I would rally people to burn this effort to the ground, but I'd rather just get drunk and get beaten to pulp than actually try to affect anything in the USA.

In all foul honesty; fuck this group, fuck their efforts and fuck them for believing they've the divine right to dictate what people consume. Here's some more "fuck" from Pigface to make the point clear.

 

[Zombie]

Nah Arowanna, it's the SJWs.

There is a clear correlation between a person's consumption of kinky anime material and far-right leaning politics.

They want to remove the most effective recruiting tool of the incel alt-right army.

 

[bear_369]

Problem is this is the sudden change of policy what Steam did, without notifying the developers. Note that Huniepop is already a censored version for Steam before, now they demand the creator to censor it even more.

Since they got caught up by this, they're now in the process of re-reviewing the games they chose to censor. The fact the censorship took place in Anime-based games only, its clearly SJW/Feminist-like action for seeing anime sexist, misogynistic, or whatever else they call.
HunieDev on Twitter
HunieDev on Twitter
Noble on Twitter

 

[Arowanna]

There's no problem in sudden changes, companies can do whatever they want within the boundaries of the law. What we - as consumers - should do is to address our concerns with them for acting like idiots and vote with our wallet. Companies can fall, even Steam. Not that the removal of boobies will cause much of a fuss in the long run. If we had the 'Bethesda: Paid Mods' fiasco levels of panic, they'd react as there would be a massive mob gathering right about now.

And companies should not rely solely on Steam. I know, the sales are crap on other site, but make sure that you're ready for the punch from the drunk step-dad that is Steam. Sure, Gabe is cool at times, but he won't be the one to save us every damn time.

Edit

Since they got caught up by this, they're now in the process of re-reviewing the games they chose to censor. The fact the censorship took place in Anime-based games only, its clearly SJW/Feminist-like action for seeing anime sexist, misogynistic, or whatever else they call.

As I said, this is the group responsible. Make of them what you want, but if they are Simpleton Puritans or Feminazis, I do not know.

Some exerts from the site regarding Steam:
2018 Dirty Dozen List: Steam - National Center on Sexual Exploitation*
Top Videogame Company Steam Removing Sexually Graphic Content

So I guess we shouldn't put all blame on Valve, but I condemn them for their cowardice. Not standing up for what they themselves have made possible is such a filthy display of cowardice.

*For fuck sake, this is even a references to the banning of movies such as Texas Chainsaw Massacre; it was called something along the lines of "The Naughty Eight" during the 80's, but I can't remember just what it was. Or I might be confused, might have been metal or comics that got banned/lobbied to death under that nickname.

Edit 2
I remember now; they were called "the video nasties" and/or "The Video Nasty List".

 

[bear_369]

As I said, this is the group responsible. Make of them what you want, but if they are Simpleton Puritans or Feminazis, I do not know.

Some exerts from the site regarding Steam:
2018 Dirty Dozen List: Steam - National Center on Sexual Exploitation*
Top Videogame Company Steam Removing Sexually Graphic Content

So I guess we shouldn't put all blame on Valve, but I condemn them for their cowardice. Not standing up for what they themselves have made possible is such a filthy display of cowardice.

Like I said, it's SJW/Feminist-like, I don't directly referring towards them but the action is similar. And you got the point, Steam is getting bombarded with tons of emails from these kinds of people, and not standing for themselves just for their market reputation.

Nowadays, these kinds of people were exploiting the trends to pushing their beliefs towards others. Usage of #MeToo is the example of it.
VICTORY: Steam to remove sexually explicit and violent videogames from platform - National Center on Sexual Exploitation

 

[Arowanna]

This is nothing new, here are some of the things that come to mind:

The United States of America
Parents Music Resource Center
Dee Snider's PMRC Senate Hearing Speech

The United Kingdoms
Mediawatch-UK
Video Nasty

Here we have puritan Christians - not de facto, but mostly right leaning - doing the exact same thing as the SJWs/whatever are doing today. In Sweden and Norway*, this crap resurged in the late 80's and early 90's. Art in general - comics, music, movies, etc. - took a beating form Simpleton Puritans, but I guess we got some kind of revenge when the black metal sub culture spiraled out of control.

I could refer to some of the crap Sweden had to deal with during this time, but I see no point in scavenging the web for untranslated crap from 'Svar Direkt' and similar fundamentalist crap.

*Possibly Finland and Denmark as well, but I know far too little about these nations to know for sure.

 

[Shar Dundred]

Can you add the "I don't care" option to the poll, please? That's gonna get my vote.

No offense, but I think this is actually one of the few things I don't get infuriated by the bizarre aspects of SJWs, mostly because I don't have any interest in such games in the first place.

I think it is a bit too easy blaming them for this, btw, I am sure it is more than that.
Steam has had an issue with low/shit quality games for YEARS. Lately they had voiced on several occasions that they wanted to do something about that.
I dare to believe that most of those games are not high quality.

I wouldn't say that it is just another SJW/feminazi movement having actually done something to pat themselves on the shoulder, I think that this is Steam considering this as a way to increase quality - of course, there may have been some truth to your claims, but it is too easy to find and shoot a single group for this.

 

[bear_369]

Can you add the "I don't care" option to the poll, please? That's gonna get my vote.

No offense, but I think this is actually one of the few things I don't get infuriated by the bizarre aspects of SJWs, mostly because I don't have any interest in such games in the first place.

I think it is a bit too easy blaming them for this, btw, I am sure it is more than that.
Steam has had an issue with low/shit quality games for YEARS. Lately they had voiced on several occasions that they wanted to do something about that.
I dare to believe that most of those games are not high quality.

I wouldn't say that it is just another SJW/feminazi movement having actually done something to pat themselves on the shoulder, I think that this is Steam considering this as a way to increase quality - of course, there may have been some truth to your claims, but it is too easy to find and shoot a single group for this.

Poll have been tied up for other people's opinion.

Yes, I understand that Steam is having issues in poorly-made games because it's the only platform that can give developers a big publicity, since I have been told by someone about this somewhere in the internet. I can respect Steam for cleaning their list of games by taking out the poor ones, it's one way to make a great gaming-platform selling good games, but the issue is Steam never officially stated their clear reasoning on why taking these games down. Not all games were great or being high quality, big or small companies or independent developers have access to their platform to share their game to the public, of course their games won't be great but there's a few amount of new games that is great, which is hard to find around the sales.

According to every developers, which they received an email by Steam, they told the developers to remove sexual/pornographic contents in their game but it's contradictory because other big games like God of Wars and GTAV have these contents in their game, yet they never received any email from Steam. Judging the chains of games being delisted by Steam were anime games, people will assume Steam is clearing out the anime-inspired games.
Lupiesoft on Twitter

If Steam were doing this to managing their platform to have a good games, good on them I praised it for that, but they have to be clear on their actions and explain why to the public or otherwise people will go on into assumption. I can respect your opinion about this.

Edit:

I found an article that enlisted the games that is being faced into censorship by Steam. It's not official but this is as far as I can get. It also includes the updates of every story.
[Updated] HuniePop and Other Adult Games Facing Removal From Steam Store

 

[Arowanna]

Steam has had an issue with low/shit quality games for YEARS. Lately they had voiced on several occasions that they wanted to do something about that.

Moderation. It was a thing they did once upon a time. Does anyone even remember how respectable it was to gain that badge of honor? To have your game on Steam wasn't just a sure way to selling a hell of a lot more copies, but the badge alone was a testament that your shit was worthy of Steam! Sure, some stinkers got through, but generally, the store was clean from filth.

Then they opened the flood gates, and as Valve are lazy bastards who rather let the community do the work for them, they just left it like that. The curation system did jack shit part from starting circle jerks, the voting has done next to nothing and reviews are a joke. I do like the tags however.

I dare to believe that most of those games are not high quality.

You don't have to like them, but I refuse to call the opinion valid if you haven't played them; or at least looked into the targeted companies. Most of the target companies have been around for quite some time now, with Winter Wolf being around since 2008-ish.

HunieDev has turned into an oddly respected game dev and his stuff is generally well liked, despite the sexual content. Of course, he hasn't delivered that much yet, but his games are far from hated by his consumers.

Lupiesoft got into trouble from the start as they fucked up their Kickstarter/s. I don't remember all the details, but what I remember from DexBonus and whoever else "reported" on it, it went something like this:
- They promised X.
- They cut X into Y episodes; let's say A, B and C.
- They released A.
- They abandoned the project when A didn't sell well enough.

So Lupiesoft deserves a smack, but complete rejection from the store? Why? Peter Molyneux has committed far worse offenses against his consumers. Cliff Bleszinski has been grasping for straws with the utter shitfest that was Radical Heights; only to close the studio just recently, apparently. EA and Activision has committed more sins than all ancient Assyrian kings combined. But we still accept them rearing their faces on Steam. Let people vote with their wallet instead.

I have never heard anything bad or good about NEKO WORKs. They seem to handle their business like they should; they deliver what their niche wants and they seem to deliver it to a quality the consumers deem good enough.

However, we should also consider that there's a market for these kinds of games and they do sell. SteamSpy is kinda broken now, due to the new Steam privacy settings, but here are some examples for the best selling developers:
HuniePot - Company Stats -
Winged Cloud - Company Stats -
NEKO WORKs - Company Stats -
Lupiesoft - Company Stats -
Winter Wolves - Company Stats -

For indie products that doesn't have a mass appeal, the numbers are quite fine. And with some further digging, some studios are funded via Patreon as well - who also had a crack down on porn a while back* - which puts even more pressure on the devs to actually deliver what the consumers want.
Winged Cloud is creating Anime Art and Visual Novels | Patreon
Studio Lupiesoft is creating Games | Patreon
Winter Wolves Games is creating video games | Patreon

In short, calling them all shit on the basis that some of the games are crap is hyperbole. If there's something Steam needs it's real curation. Ever since 'Day One: Garry's Incident' and 'Guise of the Wolf' Steam has been in dire need of it. Not to mention Digital Homicide. Erotic games might not have the budget of Triple A studios nor the appeal, but from what little I have gathered here, I'd take HuniePop over most of the 7000 games released on Steam last year.

And there's a whole lot more asset flips, outright scams and 12-year olds 'My Game' projects on Steam than porn and I'd rather have those removed than products that have real work put into them.

I wouldn't say that it is just another SJW/feminazi movement having actually done something to pat themselves on the shoulder, I think that this is Steam considering this as a way to increase quality - of course, there may have been some truth to your claims, but it is too easy to find and shoot a single group for this.

This has nothing to do about targeting the group, they're lobbying for it. Did you read my last post, Teuton? If you didn't enjoy my gracious keyboard stroking or if they're TL;DR, here are some rambles:
Jim Sterling: Steam Pulling Visual Novels For 'Pornographic Content' Regardless Of Actual Content
Tarmack: Boss Key Productions Closes | News Wrap Up

*May thou forever plague humanity Shädbase!

 

[Naze]

If Gabe wanted to keep those games he would have. His customers (whom he cares most) have no problem with those games, and they're very lucrative. Every once in a while one of those games surfaced into the top selling list. I doubt this is solely the result of a womens' rights organization campaign, perhaps the big game publisher companies must've weighted in from behind the scenes to pressure him into making that decision. These sexually-oriented (and other controversial) things generally aren't welcome by companies: Patreon has had measures against pornography, Youtube had to deal with advertisers complaining about their ads showing on such controversial videos, TV channels now segregate sexual content from regular content (moving it to a separate minor channels) because of advertisers, etc.

Obviously womens' rights organization like that one has had an increasing political weight in the recent years, so that's Steam bowing down to the status quo as Arowanna said. This kind unsatisfaction with women portrayal in media is a hot topic everywhere at the moment, so it means this really is becoming the status quo (even though the rhetoric is that the status quo is conservative, therefore the struggle to break down the establishment). And enforcing the status quo is... exactly what I expect from any big company like Steam, Youtube, BBC, etc. On the other spectrum, I wouldn't expect it from 4chan, porn sites, etc. So I wouldn't be surprised at them for not questioning the status quo. It surprised me that they went against the opinion of their own public, though, since the average steam user certainly has no problem with those ecchi games, it doesn't matter if he plays them or if he has no interested on them (like me or Shar Dundred).

I find this sudden action of Steam very irresponsible: it is a private company and does what the owner wants to do, sure, but I think they shouldn't suddenly change the policies in such a way. Lots of companies rely on their platform to operate, so they should be more careful to avoid breaking them. When a government needs to change tax law or any other thing that affects their countries' companies, they tend to ajust it gradually via small changes and annoucing what's their plan on the long run - all this to avoid breaking companies that rely on those rules.

According to every developers, which they received an email by Steam, they told the developers to remove sexual/pornographic contents in their game but it's contradictory because other big games like God of Wars and GTAV have these contents in their game, yet they never received any email from Steam. Judging the chains of games being delisted by Steam were anime games, people will assume Steam is clearing out the anime-inspired games.
Lupiesoft on Twitter

If Steam goes this by their logic, then wouldn't any big games faced this problem? However, not.
Lupiesoft on Twitter

Well, what's de difference between those anime games (ecchi games, specifically) and big blockbuster games (GTA V, God of War, etc.) that also have sexual content? Why do you think one group attacked while the other group wasn't?

I think they targeted only one group because the main difference of an anime-ecchi game is the core feature of getting aroused by such sexual content, hence Steam calling it pornography (even though it's probably not correct). People didn't buy Huniepop mainly because of that Bejewelled gameplay (the reviews tell that). Western (and even asian) big titles like GTA V have sexual content too, but won't be removed from Steam because it's not the main goal of the game. I'm not even bringing up those examples of those loli ecchi games with upskirt shots of underage girls. It's obvious most organizations will be against such controversial games and will pressure Steam to take them down =P

I didn't fully check, but it seems to me that anime games which the central focus isn't sexual imagery won't be targeted. So they're probably targetting ecchi, not anime in general.

The fact the censorship took place in Anime-based games only, its clearly SJW/Feminist-like action for seeing anime sexist, misogynistic, or whatever else they call.

Even LGBT games that are targeted towards the typically liberal audience (like SJWs) will be targeted if the core feature of the game relies on kinda sexual content. Other games (anime and western) that have sexist content won't be targeted and will be left in peace. The problem is if the game is ecchi or not. Funny thing is that this strangely unites a bit the intentions from some of the liberals with some of the conservatives, as Arowanna mentioned.

In short, calling them all shit on the basis that some of the games are crap is hyperbole. If there's something Steam needs it's real curation.

Yea, I doubt it's because of quality control. And seriously, the low quality games on Steam aren't such a problem to justify these actions. One can quickly realize if the game is gonna be crap or not before buying it - this "problem" never bothered me anyway. Kickstarter and early access are different topics, but this policy change won't affect these issues either.

 

[bear_369]

Well, what's de difference between those anime games (ecchi games, specifically) and big blockbuster games (GTA V, God of War, etc.) that also have sexual content? Why do you think one group attacked while the other group wasn't?

I think they targeted only one group because the main difference of an anime-ecchi game is the core feature of getting aroused by such sexual content, hence Steam calling it pornography (even though it's probably not correct). People didn't buy Huniepop mainly because of that Bejewelled gameplay (the reviews tell that). Western (and even asian) big titles like GTA V have sexual content too, but won't be removed from Steam because it's not the main goal of the game.

You got your point, but Ecchi is not exactly equivalent to being a porn. Ecchi is defined in any erotic manners but not exactly becoming a sexual act in media.

Arousal is probably normal when the player stumble itself into a erotic scenes, for my opinion at least. These games already have censored multiple sexual scenes for Steam, as a censored version of them, but yet people get confused seeing it as porn for some reasons.

Now to think about it, do people sees erotic acts as same as porn?

 

[Naze]

Now to think about it, do people sees erotic acts as same as porn?

Yeah saying that ecchi are porn isn't true by most definitions of the word. Steam is saying this as an attempt to justify their actions.

 

[chobibo]

I hope that they (steam) also consider pulling those games that save shit (game data, not install or configuration data) on your fucking registry, that's fucking annoying... What the fucking hell are they thinking saving to the fucking registry... /s

Maybe the people responsible for censoring don't evaluate the games properly? Maybe they just look at the game's cover art or whatever you call it... *clap* bravo

Anyway, they should consider actually testing for the game's quality rather than filtering content through genres, that's terrible, Mr. Crabs would be disappointed. A player-base for those kind of games exists, they won't lose money on that. Also, people who complain about the existence of these kind of games are probably people with issues... they don't need to buy the fucking merchandise if they don't like it. Supply and Demand will make them obsolete if they aren't profitable, no need for whiners, go home boo.

 

[Yours Truly]

I don't like weaboos anyway

 

[aeman]

I don't like weaboos anyway

and i don't like the hungry one too

 

[Madison]

I only cared for House Party but fortunately it wasn't in the "black list".

 

[bear_369]

I don't like weaboos anyway

I second that, they wouldn't survive in Japan without a subtitle or dub.

 

[chobibo]

But we don't live in Japan.

 

[Dr Super Good]

Valve is probably forced to do this because otherwise their steam platform might become subject to pornography laws in some countries. This could result in the platform being blocked in those countries, or them being subjected to extra taxation/restrictions.

It is the same reason why Blizzard has to comply with US laws even for business done in EU. Blizzard Europe cannot be allowed to reach Iran because if it did then Blizzard America would be subject to huge fines, criminal charges and possibly asset seizing. Valve might be trying to avoid similar problems in some countries.

 

[HarryTomlin]

Valve is probably forced to do this because otherwise their steam platform might become subject to pornography laws in some countries. This could result in the platform being blocked in those countries, or them being subjected to extra taxation/restrictions.

It is the same reason why Blizzard has to comply with US laws even for business done in EU. Blizzard Europe cannot be allowed to reach Iran because if it did then Blizzard America would be subject to huge fines, criminal charges and possibly asset seizing. Valve might be trying to avoid similar problems in some countries.

Wow! I didn't know that. That's one way of somehow, summarizing the whole situation. I guess it's just a case of "prevention being better than cure."

 

[Selaya]

censorship bestship

clearly
because don't you know if you censor a problem it will just magically go away!

 

[ILikeMacNCheeze]

Let's talk about Anime then.

 

[aeman]

this is orient stuff, leave this stuff to them (who use that word "orient" anymore, other than people who want to...)

 

[chobibo]

Dunno, some 'orient' stuff are good, it's just that a lot of devs for steam like making 'steamy' content... There's other 'orient' games on other genres too, like Ys for example.

 

[Naze]

Steam Blog :: Who Gets To Be On The Steam Store?

What's considered acceptable discussion / behavior / imagery varies significantly around the world, socially and legally.

we've decided that the right approach is to allow everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal, or straight up trolling. Taking this approach allows us to focus less on trying to police what should be on Steam, and more on building those tools to give people control over what kinds of content they see.

So it seems Steam stepped back again and now will allow everything, while giving a tool to the user to avoid certain games if they're offended by it.

The first quote kinda reiterates what DSG said, regarding the legal issue in other countries. More arguments on making me doubt that removing ecchi games was the pushing of a liberal agenda... The liberal group linked may advertise it as so, but they're not big enough to influence Steam, and most importantly not their target audience - which is who steam cares the most. On top of that Steam isn't targeting misogynistic games as it was being said, instead it was just ecchi games - even the lgbt ones, it seems. The average gamer doesn't care or is pissed at this move. After some time, Steam listened to their userbase and stepped back again.

 

[Sky Green]

Valve is probably forced to do this because otherwise their steam platform might become subject to pornography laws in some countries. This could result in the platform being blocked in those countries, or them being subjected to extra taxation/restrictions.

It is the same reason why Blizzard has to comply with US laws even for business done in EU. Blizzard Europe cannot be allowed to reach Iran because if it did then Blizzard America would be subject to huge fines, criminal charges and possibly asset seizing. Valve might be trying to avoid similar problems in some countries.

Big if true.

If this is indeed the case, then I'm actually kinda understanding what Steam's doing, because by allowing content of that nature in countries where it carries a heftier taxation/restriction is counterproductive to their main goal, which is money.

Although I guess it wouldn't hurt them to create something steamier for more mature content (half-serious).

As a person who watches anime, I do think it's somewhat unfair for anime to be targetted like this, but on the other hand we're talking about a genre that creates 700+ year olds with a flat chest to appeal to a really creepy niche.