Steam lifts its ban on adult games!

[Chel]

Seems like the feedback from the last months change to remove games with adult/uncensore patches actually did something!

Steam will now be taking a totally hands-off approach when it comes to their store, removing and monitoring only games that have illegal content or are considered to be "troll games".

This means, that from now on, most adult/porn games can be put up for sale (or for free) on steam (still requiring the 100 dollar buy-in to put up your game).

Steam blog post:

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Ploygon article:

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Note: If i missed anything, or there are better articles, let me know and ill update the OP on this topic.

 

[Blazblue]

Gotta keep printing that porn money!

 

[IM6]

Seems like a positive for just about anybody making a game here.

It'll be curious to see what happens to the first incest game dev who tries to publish to steam as this statement is relatively gray about what will make it through when they consider legalities.

 

[Delmach]

Well, interesting, could be them just trying to lighten up the mood of the many critical voices over their view on already censored anime tiddy games, or could actually mean something.

As someone in the comments of the Steam Blog Post already pointed out, they contradict themselves immediately. They say to make it fair everything should be allowed, but not illegal or trolling things, and that they decide whats illegal and trolling.

But then again they also say this:
So what does this mean? It means that the Steam Store is going to contain something that you hate, and don't think should exist. Unless you don't have any opinions, that's guaranteed to happen. But you're also going to see something on the Store that you believe should be there, and some other people will hate it and want it not to exist.

Now I must admit, if they really go along with "theres going to be something you hate, deal with it" then I would be all for it. That would basically fight a part of what lead to platforms censoring more than they even have to, as most here experienced often enough, especially over the last 9 months or so.

So im gonna try something new, im going to be slighty positive about news, instead of slightly negative, until things happen of course.

 

[Hadley]

Well, I can't see this making it any worse than right now. It can only get better.

 

[anne O'nymous]

As someone in the comments of the Steam Blog Post already pointed out, they contradict themselves immediately. They say to make it fair everything should be allowed, but not illegal or trolling things, and that they decide whats illegal and trolling.

I don't see it as contradictory.
They explicitly remembered, more than once, that Law isn't a generic things shared by every countries around the world. Basically, I'm almost sure that every controversial content is illegal somewhere and they'll have to deal with this. But they can't just say, "this is illegal in this country, so it will be illegal on Steam", nor, "this is illegal in half the world, so it will be illegal on Steam".
In the same time, games are fiction, like movies and books. And because of this they can be used as a vector of personal reflection on sensible subject. By example, you can create a game where torture is the main tool used by the player to make him think about it ; even if it's just a game, the feelings aren't the same if you have to torture than if you heard about torture. At the opposite, you can have the same game, but wrote as an apology of torture and not as a vector of reflection. Both have torture as main process, but one have more is place on Steam than the other. This is reinforced by the fact that many countries exclude fiction of their laws, writing about an illegal subject isn't illegal. This while some of these countries limit this exclusion, and apology of an illegal subject is still illegal, even when it's done in form of fiction.
As I read them, it's this direction they've chose, probably mixed with a limitation of the countries where a game will be available. As long as it's not strongly promotion of something illegal or really controversial, the game will be allowed. So, obviously they'll have to define themselves what is legal and what isn't. Take incest by example, it's legal in (more or less) half of the world, so which half should win and determine if it should be on Steam or not ? Apparently they decided that it's not like this that they should think, and it's a positive news. It doesn't mean that they will permit games with incest, still it mean that, by default, they'll not see the game as not allowed and don't judge it on this simple fact.

 

[Ignazzio]

If that's true then it's a great news. Normal market could bring endlessly higher quality of products than we have now in our small monthly copy-paste "market". But it will take years for real devs to come with their finished products to attract community and other devs. End of the monthly updates would also be the end of most of devs we have now. Looking at this more realistically, even if true there is no way Steam would allow extreme fetishes like incest or even loli on their platform. I can only imagine how dangerous it would be for all games on all sites if Steam would be flooded by incest just as Patreon was. Bringing attention to such extremes is like asking for reaction.

 

[Retro]

I predict they change their mind in about a week after a bunch of loli games flood the Steam store and they get tired of getting a million reports submitted every day.

 

[Deleted member 435]

Yes fucking pleaseeeee

 

[GuyFreely]

Overall, it's the right direction. Let the market decide the fate of these games. Cynically, I think they want the most ways possible to make money, so filtering out content runs against that idea. It's much much easier to limit the criteria of what can't be on the platform from a maintenance standpoint. I mean think about this scenario. Okay, we allow nudity, but only "tasteful nudity" what the fuck does that mean? As opposed to, fuck it, the entire game can be people fucking as long as it's not illegal. This means they can open the floodgates and only have to worry about a tiny minority of bad content.

This will also require a much better system for content control and parental control FROM THE USER SIDE. Basically, they have pushed the job of filtering back on the users. You don't want furry games? Add a filter. You don't like anime? Add a filter. At some point you'll only see the games you want to see, but after you've done all the work.

Still, yay, boobies!

[PS: Also, this puts some glimmer of hope that people working on these erotic Patreon funded games might one day get to release on Steam. What a world that would be.]

 

[xj47]

This sounds like a positive change.
They really need to add more privacy options though. I don't want to broadcast to the world which porn games I play >_>

 

[Egglock]

It's still too early to celebrate. The information Valve has provided still leaves a lot of gray areas.
Adult content in terms of art and virtual space is still a hot topic. If it was easy, adult content creator wouldn't have to jump through hoops to expose their content. Sooner or later it'll get opposition from those who are "squeamish" to adult content, or parents who don't put restriction to what their children's have access to.

On the other note, let's just take a moment and think about the possibility this holds for consumers and content creators. Consumer, would have a central point in which they can search a library of adult games/vn, and for content creator it would be a place for exposure, or make a name for themselves. I'd say it's a win/win for everyone.

 

[GuyFreely]

This sounds like a positive change.
They really need to add more privacy options though. I don't want to broadcast to the world which porn games I play >_>

I agree all the built in facebook like features need to be controllable by the user. Maybe don't show every game I own, maybe don't show how many hours I've spent. I play in offline mode sometimes just for these reasons. If I was going to get any adult games through steam I'd probably need a second account.

 

[thecardinal]

I agree all the built in facebook like features need to be controllable by the user. Maybe don't show every game I own, maybe don't show how many hours I've spent. I play in offline mode sometimes just for these reasons. If I was going to get any adult games through steam I'd probably need a second account.

Same. I play a few games with my little brother on Steam.

 

[fauxplayer]

Haha I read this just now on Kotaku and came here to post GOOD NEWS EVERYONE and then saw I was behind the times a few hours. Regardless of any tangible effect this might have, a concrete in-writing policy that allows more adult content is good news, right?

From the article, this quote is attributed to Valve's Eric Johnson:
“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,” said Johnson. “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.”

He continued to say (emphasis mine):

“If you’re a developer of offensive games, this isn’t us siding with you against all the people you’re offending,” said Johnson. “There will be people throughout the Steam community who hate your games, and hope you fail to find an audience, and there will be people here at Valve who feel exactly the same way. However, offending someone shouldn’t take away your game’s voice. We believe you should be able to express yourself like everyone else, and to find others who want to play your game. But that’s it.”

I'm posting this not for the "news" but because the moderated user comments at Kotaku are worth a read, for better or for worse.

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ETA and yes, I understand that "except for things that we decide are illegal" is a VERY grey area. Ummm, the courts and laws and things like that decide. If corporations got to "decide" what's legal or not, we'd all be fucked.

 

[Dr PinkCake]

Even though it is vague, I love this decision! It is a huge step in the right direction. To make it work for them in the long run they really need to change the ways they do parental control to protect the younger audience from our types of games. That way they can have a strong counterargument to the protests that will follow.

 

[Dragoman]

That's good but they would make even more moola if they would allow uncensored version of games.I think that the ban wouldn't be lifted for a long time as long as those NCOSE bastards are still hanging around,come to think of it weren't the banning malarkey occured due to them pressuring steam? Will adult game devs will prevail or those religious cults will? only time will tell.

 

[baneini]

So jap publishers get to sell their games on steam with tits/uncensor patches and everything is like a year ago?
Did they actually decide to allow AO games by default? That'd be something.

 

[abana]

I'm 50/50 about this, the benefits of exposure to devs and their games are obvious, but thinking about how Patreon has forced devs to rewrite their games to comply with their own rules makes me wonder how much leverage Steam will have to do the same once devs are dependant on their market access. Considering how many kids use Steam, seems like it will be inevitable at some point.

 

[OldMoonSong]

As long as they maintain a "hands-off" attitude concerning content (with the exception of illegal stuff) this is a good thing for nsfw gaming.

However--while it's nice to have something outside of Patreon--Steam's platform can't give the monthly income to developers of games which are in progressive development.

As much as everyone hates it, many games here--good ones, even--would not exist without the financial incentive made possible through Patreon.

Until a popular, more "laissez-faire," alternative to Patreon comes along, censorship of many of our favorite games will continue.

Perhaps Steam embracing nsfw content will push the adult gaming industry closer to creating something to compete with Patreon. As soon as this platform emerges and threatens them, I imagine Patreon will change their tune.