Community MetaSteam | October 2022 - The phantom thieves & Friends will take your wallet this month, holy f***

[Knurek]

Knurek I didn't get the chance to reply to you before the September thread was locked. You posted this a tweet with this image on Era:

Based on what you said about the game's content, it clearly violates the stated rule.

This was in a response to banning a different game, "All-ages VN, no school setting or school uniforms involved"
And in this game's case both ESRB and PEGI don't agree.
This is a game that will be sold in Wallmart, Best Buy, Gamestop.
It's frankly ridiculous you're trying to good faith Valve's decision here, going off solely by some rando tweet in, all the while ignoring people who actually played the game saying there's nothing in it warranting to be banned and people working on releasing VNs on Steam have been shouting into ether for years that the review process for them is inane.

 

[Cacher]

Judgment has some girls in school uniform dancing in a night club for yakuzas... They better remove that game from the store asap.

 

[Knurek]

I mean, doesn't P5 contain some of those themes? Also with lightly clothed "minors".

Persona games, Blue Reflection and Atelier games, heck, the upcoming Trails of Zero has a minor character.
The rule is nebulous enough to fit reviewer's agenda/bias, and Valve has already rewritten the rules to match a game they wanted banned.

 

[LRB1983]

first october purchase

Chilla's Art new game ^^ (and that NOT lollipopchainsaw game)

 

[Alexandros]

I mean, doesn't P5 contain some of those themes? Also with lightly clothed "minors".

I have no idea, I haven't played any Persona game. It seems that the important distinction is "sexual conduct" which suggests some sort of interaction.

This was in a response to banning a different game, "All-ages VN, no school setting or school uniforms involved"
And in this game's case both ESRB and PEGI don't agree.
This is a game that will be sold in Wallmart, Best Buy, Gamestop.
It's frankly ridiculous you're trying to good faith Valve's decision here, going off solely by some rando tweet in, all the while ignoring people who actually played the game saying there's nothing in it warranting to be banned and people working on releasing VNs on Steam have been shouting into ether for years that the review process for them is inane.

That was quite blunt but honest, so let me be equally blunt: In such decisions I trust Valve a hell of a lot more than I trust the judgment of the people who play these games or the people who make them. There have been a few of those cases recently and every time I looked up what the game's content was, it was extremely questionable at best. When it comes to such content, the line between "extremely questionable" and "straight-up illegal" is very thin and I think Valve is doing the right thing by erring on the side of caution.

You don't have to agree with me, I respect the fact that you have a different opinion, but my opinion is that people are trying to push these games through based on technicalities while the intent behind the included content is very, very clear.

 

[KainXVIII]

Scary month even without new Yomawari and Halloween

 

[Joe Spangle]

Cheers Mor

Me this month...
Bought and installed new motherboard, cpu and ram the other day so ill probably be loading up old games and going 'yeah that looks nice' before playing something like Vampire Survivors on the Deck.

 

[fantomena]

Such an amazing month, but not sure what I will get other than Plague Tale 2 (pre-ordered) and Persona 5 as there are still games I have installed I wanna be done with.

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Thanks as ever to Mor for the new thread

OK I'm late on the CHN thing
I love you Valve, but you can fuck right off into the heart of the sun on this one. This is just another tally mark on the laundry list that is poor management of VNs on Steam, and it's increasingly clear imo that someone over in Bellevue has an issue with VNs.
I mean god almighty the game's sequel is on Steam and has very comparable content matter.

I would hope that a PEGI and ESRB rated game available at retail for a Nintendo console being banned would allow for Valve to gain some bloody perspective when they let so much dreck on the store but I'm not holding my breath.

I'll be happily looking into these alternative storefronts cos Valve doesn't deserve any money from VN fans for the way the genre keeps getting treated by them.

 

[Lashley]

4090 (and my birthday) month!

 

[Knurek]

OK I'm late on the CHN thing
I love you Valve, but you can fuck right off into the heart of the sun on this one. This is just another tally mark on the laundry list that is poor management of VNs on Steam, and it's increasingly clear imo that someone over in Bellevue has an issue with VNs.
I mean god almighty the game's sequel is on Steam and has very comparable content matter.

The issue is, games like these are tailor made for Deck, and sadly, running non-Steam games on Deck is not the optimal experience.

 

[Hektor]

Soon™

 

[fantomena]

Im not much into VNs, but this is not a good look for Valve.

 

[LRB1983]

Soon™

Say it clearly because somebody may not know Kawakami is a prostitute and she's hired by her male 16 y.o. student Amamiya.

 

[Mivey]

You don't have to agree with me, I respect the fact that you have a different opinion, but my opinion is that people are trying to push these games through based on technicalities while the intent behind the included content is very, very clear.

It feels strange that Valve has now become some kind of moral arbiter of what's allowed in games (though strangely only for one particular genre, put that same shit in cheap Unity clone or RPG Maker game and you're just fine).
If a game has a rating and is being sold on shelves in stores, then it's just bizarre that Valve is even spending resources looking at it. There's so much disgusting crap with literal rape (implied and often shown) that gets released on Steam every day and Valve is completely missing in action. But put that stuff in a VN from a Japanese developer, and Valve suddenly acts like they need to protect toddlers from hard-core porn or something. It's a bad look and even if you want Steam to stay clear of problematic content like that, at this point it's not VNs that keep flooding the store with it. It's just that Valve only ever looks at that genre and is literally blind to everything else. At least that's the pretty clear impression they are sending out.

 

[C-Dub]

It's obvious to anyone who even gives it a cursory glance that Valve have a double standard and are treating VN's more harshly. Whether that's a company policy to try and avoid anything really dodgy slipping through the net (leading to perfectly fine games getting caught in it) or someone in the company doing the reviews has it in for the genre, I don't know.

But I think given such a high profile release has been caught in their ban, Valve now more than ever needs to come out and clarify the following:

• Why this game specifically was banned when it's available on a Nintendo system and is seemingly far more tame than other garbage on the store.
• Why they are treating VNs differently from other games in terms of content curation/moderation.
• What they're going to do to rectify this situation going forward.

The inconsistency and silence is in my view unsustainable.

 

[GhostTrick]

I have no idea, I haven't played any Persona game. It seems that the important distinction is "sexual conduct" which suggests some sort of interaction.



That was quite blunt but honest, so let me be equally blunt: In such decisions I trust Valve a hell of a lot more than I trust the judgment of the people who play these games or the people who make them. There have been a few of those cases recently and every time I looked up what the game's content was, it was extremely questionable at best. When it comes to such content, the line between "extremely questionable" and "straight-up illegal" is very thin and I think Valve is doing the right thing by erring on the side of caution.

You don't have to agree with me, I respect the fact that you have a different opinion, but my opinion is that people are trying to push these games through based on technicalities while the intent behind the included content is very, very clear.

Except the game is being sold at Gamestop, Walmart and has a PEGI/ESRB rating.

I understand that stance for obscure titles sold on obscure storefronts.

This one though ?
It's as official as it gets. Valve has no excuse to refuse a title carried by console manufacturers, major physical retailers all over the world.


With that one, Valve has became the taste police, where they decide after rating boards, major retailers and such that they won't carry a title.

There is no side of caution here.

 

[LRB1983]

• What they're going to do to rectify this situation going forward.

Sadly nothing. This won't change.
Sadly this is not going to change, now it has had some repercussion because it has affected a moderately important publisher, but it has been going on for years, since Valve changed the rules and said that now everything was allowed (lol). Circumstances have been so absurd that even some games have been published with less censorship on Sony's puritanical console than on Valve's platform, like Ar Nosurge or some others.

 

[GhostTrick]

Heck, even worse, if Valve is going through such lenght for a game that was allowed by rating boards, major retailers and such, that means they're doing active curation and that they actually consider racist content or questionnable content in other titles okay to be sold.

I was okay with Valve letting most games except for extreme cases out.

But Steam is turning into a pile of trash if Valve decides to be the taste police and decides that legit titles allowed by rating boards shouldn't be on Steam while allowing subpar trash that is obviously against the rules in.

 

[Ge0force]

Thanks for the new thread Mor .

Not much gaming for me those weekend. Spending the weekend in Brugge. Great food, great beer, great place.

also in Brugge is a great film.

Welcome to my little country

If you have some spare time, be sure to visit the chocolate museum

 

[GhostTrick]

For the record, the game is sold even in local supermarkets here:

E.Leclerc

www.e.leclerc

On top of major retailers such as Carrefour, Gamestop, Fnac and even smaller retail chains.

What Valve is doing right now is complete bs and should be harshly criticized until they revise their stance.

 

[Kvik]

That was quite blunt but honest, so let me be equally blunt: In such decisions I trust Valve a hell of a lot more than I trust the judgment of the people who play these games or the people who make them.

I'm a bit curious about your point of view here, since from your tone, it seems that you feel that Valve's decision is infallible. Do you think Valve made a correct decision by allowing Sex With Hitler into the store as well?

There have been a few of those cases recently and every time I looked up what the game's content was, it was extremely questionable at best.

Why don't you share with the rest of us here, what game do you think have questionable content? And before you think to cite Chaos; Head Noah as an example, I will remind you that the game's content has been already classified correctly by other rating board and platform holders.

my opinion is that people are trying to push these games through based on technicalities while the intent behind the included content is very, very clear.

While it is true that there are some publishers or developers who tried to skirt the guidelines in order to get their content passed, there are also developers who are truthful about their content. What kind of publisher do you think Spike Chunsoft is, based from their track records. The former, or the latter?

 

[AHA-Lambda]

Sadly nothing. This won't change.
Sadly this is not going to change, now it has had some repercussion because it has affected a moderately important publisher, but it has been going on for years, since Valve changed the rules and said that now everything was allowed (lol). Circumstances have been so absurd that even some games have been published with less censorship on Sony's puritanical console than on Valve's platform, like Ar Nosurge or some others.

fucking hell that’s stark, didn’t know that

personally I’m going to avoid Steam for VNs now wherever possible cos they simply don’t deserve the support

 

[C-Dub]

I think flooding Gabe's inbox is a good way to at least get Valve to address this.

Gabe has said before that if he wakes up to 1000s of emails about the same thing they've probably fucked up somehow.

 

[kafiend]

Sorry about that, it was new thread moment :3

Thank you for the new thread as always.

We should just agree to stop talking on the last day of the month and spend our time meditating or fapping.

 

[Dandy]

I loved Tales from the Borderlands, but am suspicious of this new one for some reason. I think I will wait for impressions. I'm also waiting for reviews of Gotham Knights to see how the performance on PC is.

 

[dfghstrbght]

Knurek I didn't get the chance to reply to you before the September thread was locked. You posted this a tweet with this image on Era:

Based on what you said about the game's content, it clearly violates the stated rule.

this one has blood-related incest to top it off


this has hardcore gore/sex/rape/corruption

this has cousin incest

this opens with a collective blowjob with all the girls and the MC in a sauna


this one has unavoidable heroine rape by the protagonist

as chaste as I am a camel even in its censored version

blood related incest!

I'm sure I can keep going for a whole day if I actually do try to find more and I don't restrict myself to just actual japanese games/VN and go for actually everything that's released and has high school, incest or both.
If I go looking for stuff that's worse than whatever is in C;H NOAH I can find even more.

 

[GhostTrick]

I think flooding Gabe's inbox is a good way to at least get Valve to address this.

Gabe has said before that if he wakes up to 1000s of emails about the same thing they've probably fucked up somehow.

I sent one already lol.
And I encourage everyone to send a civil message too.

 

[dfghstrbght]

btw these 2 games were in my discovery queue today


edit: whoops one of them I posted above already

 

[Alexandros]

Well, some of you guys are really invested in this topic. I'll try my best to answer to everyone.

It feels strange that Valve has now become some kind of moral arbiter of what's allowed in games (though strangely only for one particular genre, put that same shit in cheap Unity clone or RPG Maker game and you're just fine).
If a game has a rating and is being sold on shelves in stores, then it's just bizarre that Valve is even spending resources looking at it. There's so much disgusting crap with literal rape (implied and often shown) that gets released on Steam every day and Valve is completely missing in action. But put that stuff in a VN from a Japanese developer, and Valve suddenly acts like they need to protect toddlers from hard-core porn or something. It's a bad look and even if you want Steam to stay clear of problematic content like that, at this point it's not VNs that keep flooding the store with it. It's just that Valve only ever looks at that genre and is literally blind to everything else. At least that's the pretty clear impression they are sending out.

I don't think morality has anything to do with it. I think Valve is trying to avoid content that could be considered illegal.

Except the game is being sold at Gamestop, Walmart and has a PEGI/ESRB rating.

I understand that stance for obscure titles sold on obscure storefronts.

This one though ?
It's as official as it gets. Valve has no excuse to refuse a title carried by console manufacturers, major physical retailers all over the world.


With that one, Valve has became the taste police, where they decide after rating boards, major retailers and such that they won't carry a title.

There is no side of caution here.

There is and I would imagine that the difference between console platforms and Steam is the ability to mod in any censored content.

I'm a bit curious about your point of view here, since from your tone, it seems that you feel that Valve's decision is infallible. Do you think Valve made a correct decision by allowing Sex With Hitler into the store as well?

Why don't you share with the rest of us here, what game do you think have questionable content? And before you think to cite Chaos; Head Noah as an example, I will remind you that the game's content has been already classified correctly by other rating board and platform holders.

While it is true that there are some publishers or developers who tried to skirt the guidelines in order to get their content passed, there are also developers who are truthful about their content. What kind of publisher do you think Spike Chunsoft is, based from their track records. The former, or the latter?

this one has blood-related incest to top it off


this has hardcore gore/sex/rape/corruption

this has cousin incest

this opens with a collective blowjob with all the girls and the MC in a sauna


this one has unavoidable heroine rape by the protagonist

as chaste as I am a camel even in its censored version

blood related incest!

I can keep going for a whole day if I actually do try to find more and I don't restrict myself to just actual japanese games/VN and go for actually everything that's released and has high school, incest or both.
If I go looking for stuff that's worse than whatever is in C;H NOAH I can find even more.

This is a reply to both of the last posts. I am a lawyer by profession and to put it as simply as possible, there is a huge difference between inappropriate, disgusting, sleazy, offensive content and illegal content. It's really, really important that everyone understands this distinction. The first type of content will not bring your business down, the second will. You may think that Valve is being overly zealous and maybe they are, but them trying to avoid hosting illegal content is a way more plausible explanation than someone at Valve having it out for VNs.

 

[dfghstrbght]

lol illegal content being sold at walmart, if they wanted to look at illegal content they host on their platform there are curators that keep track of that too and I mean it quite literally

It's a load of rubbish and whoever at Valve axed the game knows it too

you also didn't check any of the games I linked to see what their content is like at least on a surface level on a vndb page at all.
Honestly I'm done discussing VN with anyone that doesn't follow the medium, it's always a waste of time

 

[Ganado]

I think flooding Gabe's inbox is a good way to at least get Valve to address this.

Gabe has said before that if he wakes up to 1000s of emails about the same thing they've probably fucked up somehow.

Yep, I really hate doing that personally, but some issues are just too grand to look away from (like when they made my favorite flavour of bearnaise sauce vegan, I sent the manufacturer a mail of disappointment ).

 

[GhostTrick]

Well, some of you guys are really invested in this topic. I'll try my best to answer to everyone.



I don't think morality has anything to do with it. I think Valve is trying to avoid content that could be considered illegal.



There is and I would imagine that the difference between console platforms and Steam is the ability to mod in any censored content.




This is a reply to both of the last posts. I am a lawyer by profession and to put it as simply as possible, there is a huge difference between inappropriate, disgusting, sleazy, offensive content and illegal content. It's really, really important that everyone understands this distinction. The first type of content will not bring your business down, the second will. You may think that Valve is being overly zealous and maybe they are, but them trying to avoid hosting illegal content is a way more plausible explanation than someone at Valve having it out for VNs.

If you ban stuff depending on what modders could do, then you should ban every major titles. Heck Fallout games first.

The game never had any sexual content so anything that'd be modded in would be fan made.

 

[Mivey]

I don't think morality has anything to do with it. I think Valve is trying to avoid content that could be considered illegal.

I don't think so. This game has been confirmed to be sold physically in the US, and many other countries, and has been confirmed to be legal and allowed to be played by non-adults (PG16). If Valve was just interested in making sure that things are legally sound, then the entire discussion should end the moment it's clear a game has been checked by a ratings board and even passed muster by the certification of another major platform holder like Nintendo.
I have actually gone out and tried to find what the supposed illegal content in Chaos;Head is supposed to be. And it's literally nothing compared to stuff that is sold on Steam right now. There's no sex. There's no nudity. Our hero in the game is being manipulated by outside forces, with literal voices in his head telling him to do messed up shit, but there's no follow through.

Valve is clearly not acting rationally here and if they were simply going by what is legal then they should just say so. Sure, it's their store, their rules. But it's pretty messed up when a game that does not actually feature sex is treated like it's worse than games that currently sold on Steam.

 

[Ganado]

Well, some of you guys are really invested in this topic. I'll try my best to answer to everyone.



I don't think morality has anything to do with it. I think Valve is trying to avoid content that could be considered illegal.



There is and I would imagine that the difference between console platforms and Steam is the ability to mod in any censored content.




This is a reply to both of the last posts. I am a lawyer by profession and to put it as simply as possible, there is a huge difference between inappropriate, disgusting, sleazy, offensive content and illegal content. It's really, really important that everyone understands this distinction. The first type of content will not bring your business down, the second will. You may think that Valve is being overly zealous and maybe they are, but them trying to avoid hosting illegal content is a way more plausible explanation than someone at Valve having it out for VNs.

I understand the guideline generally, but this is a product that isn't illegal. I mean, the line has to go if ESRB/PEGI is allowing it and Walmart selling it?
Most of what ZKenir wrote as examples aren't bad, just because they removed the naughty bits, most of them are all-ages. However e.g. Has you explicitly fucking girls that goes to some kind of highschool (they aren't humans though, so they might be 18+?) But that wouldn't help the case since it's still a school setting, and some of the girls looks young. I'm guessing this gets to stay on the platform because it was accepted before the tighter rules, the 18+ content of the fandisk wasn't allowed to be sold on Steam. But then they are still hosting content that they think might be illegal??
I do not think that someone at Valve is actively trying to stop them all, but there is just something that's missing in it all. They are taking the easy way out with a blanket ban. This isn't illegal because then Nintendo nor any other store would be able to sell it. Same with a game called Duel Princess. It's not a school setting, it doesn't have nudity, but it does have pervy scenes. Banned on Steam, not on eShop or itch.io or JAST.

 

[dfghstrbght]

By the way, in other news I swapped back to firefox from chrome

 

[fantomena]

The more I think about it, the more angry I get at Valve and I don't really care for VNs despite owning some.

I can't find any logical reason for the ban. If kid friendly Nintendo sells it, then what the fuck.

 

[LRB1983]

fucking hell that’s stark, didn’t know that

yep
slightly nsfw:

Spoiler

There're few other examples with modified CGs on Steam release than aren't on sony consoles.
But well seems people enjoy censorship, social media like twitter army or forums that sadly some big publishers take in consideration like that non-players political Era forum are advocating for this trend. Dark times we live on.

During 90s and first 00s decades game industry fight agaisnt this people, nobody remember cases like Jack Thompson versus Rockstar and GTA and his particular crusade against videogames, now is terrible how people are on that side. Even Rockstar has joined them with lastest changes on their games.
It's so sad look at they finally won afterall.

 

[prudis]

Nintendoes what Valve don’t: Game barred from Steam will launch on Switch

Visual novel insider says "school setting" may have caused concern for Valve.

arstechnica.com

Seems like mainstream press is starting to reporting about the ban. Hopefully this will spark enough attention for Valve to respond to these issues.

its Kyle Orland ... so its not really mainstream press caring , but rather the steam haters in the press using this to do their usual stint

 

[Li Kao]

I will try to tone down the snark I first had in mind. Rating boards are not exactly known to be lawless perverts.
That should be the end of the discussion for any reasonable person.

 

[lashman]

 

[Li Kao]

Let me check, there are so many releases this month that they go from instant buy to (so many) wishlist fodder.

I still could be tempted by Potionomics, depending on the WOM.
Marvel Snap to waste some hours, yeah, why not.
Persona 5 Royal if I'm not totally burned out when it releases.

That's it, there were many casualties or things I still kinda want to play asap, but too much is too much. Persona could wait and be replaced by several cheaper releases I suppose.

 

[Hektor]

Watching Rings of Power and it makes me hope that now that the Total Warhammer Trilogy is completed, they manage to get the LOTR license for the next fantasy titles.

 

[PhaZZe]

Thanks Mor for the amazing OT! and everyone here have a nice month with a lot of releases, the only thing i want is my vacations!

 

[MegaApple]

NEW THREAD!

 

[NarohDethan]

The fact that Valve allowed a game clearly based on Kyle Rittenhouse and shit like 'Sex with Hitler' to be sold in their store should be enough proof that their certification process is fucked.

Either that, or one member in their certification team is a massive racist.

 

[fantomena]

Im really happy that this forum can also be very critical of Steam/Valve and not blind fanboys.

It gives this forum a better view, imo.

So many forums/websites/discord servers that are focusing one one particular thing (like PC/Steam here) have a hard time being critical at the thing they focus on.

 

[NarohDethan]

They got DS games as well!

Cooler Daniel / Daniel

 

[Li Kao]

Damn, I even win pvp in Moonbreaker. Sometimes.


More often than in Magic Arena, but this game lost its marbles with the added elements. Time of day, artifacts, sacrifices, by the time I understand all this shit they will have changed the card set.

 

[Stevey]

Thanks Mor

Hope Scorn is good