The purge of adult games.

[Worgen]

Sounds like steam might be doing a purge of adult games from their storefront. Apparently a number of devs who have made sexy games where the steam version doesn't have more then perhaps some exposed breast, will have those games pulled from the steam store within 2 weeks. If there are certain smexy games on steam you have had your eye on it might be time to grab them since they will always be available to download but you might not have a chance to buy them if you wait too long.

https://kotaku.com/valves-inconsistent-rules-on-sexy-steam-games-continue-1826153796

A right wing anti pornography group called 'national center on sexual exploitation' is taking credit for the removals, their original name was 'morality in media'.

Link to their twitter since I dont know how to link a tweet.
https://twitter.com/ncose

Have some Jim Sterling talking about it too.

Update: apparently valve has apologized to Mutiny dev Lupiesoft and Huniedev, makers of Huniepop. According to a tweet by the Huniedev "I have just received word from Valve apologizing for the confusion, saying to DISREGARD their previous e-mail about the violation, that they are in the process of re-reviewing the game and will follow up soon."

This is good news and takes our precious adult games out of immediate danger, but this is still just a re-review. Valve might still decide to take the safe road and just ban any type of sexual content. However I think the counter protests against removal of adult games have really shown there is a sizable market for this, so hopefully valve will agree.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Fuck this moral majority bullshit, seriously. There is nothing inherently harmful about porn, especially with this softcore stuff; let the people selling the tiddie games continue to sell the tiddie games, they aren't hurting anyone.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

So Steam is going the Apple way. Shame. And stupid.

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

But...but...but..I thought only left wing SJW's did such things! GamerGate told me that conservatives were our allies!

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

I don't even support removing shitty Unity games from Steam, which is something that Jim Sterling is in favor of. I see Steam as nothing but a store that just so happens to be digital. Game stores used to sell games like Big Rigs and other shitty games and that was fine. I firmly believe that it's up to the consumer to educate themselves about the product before they decide on a purchase. If you don't like it, don't buy it. If you bought it, ask for a refund since that's now an option too. If you're offended by the content, go fuck yourself?

 

[sanquin]

I don't even support removing shitty Unity games from Steam, which is something that Jim Sterling is in favor of. I see Steam as nothing but a store that just so happens to be digital. Game stores used to sell games like Big Rigs and other shitty games and that was fine. I firmly believe that it's up to the consumer to educate themselves about the product before they decide on a purchase. If you don't like it, don't buy it. If you bought it, ask for a refund since that's now an option too. If you're offended by the content, go fuck yourself?

Jim is mostly in favour of removing crappy games from steam because there's so many of them that the good ones get drowned out and lost in between all the crap. Which causes genuinely promising or good games to never get the publicity they deserve. For instance, I personally avoid the steam store like the plague unless I'm looking for a specific game I already know I'll like. There's just so much trash on there that it would take me hours to find some good ones.

On topic: I don't get this prudishness... It's just nudity. What's so bad about it? What, is this for "teh childrenz!!" or something? Do they think kids will get messed up later in life if they see some nudity in a game? I doubt there's any evidence for that at all.

 

[Casual Shinji]

But...but...but..I thought only left wing SJW's did such things! GamerGate told me that conservatives were our allies!

It's an SJW conspiracy. Everybody knows only they are a threat to our precious geek media.

 

[Worgen]

I don't even support removing shitty Unity games from Steam, which is something that Jim Sterling is in favor of. I see Steam as nothing but a store that just so happens to be digital. Game stores used to sell games like Big Rigs and other shitty games and that was fine. I firmly believe that it's up to the consumer to educate themselves about the product before they decide on a purchase. If you don't like it, don't buy it. If you bought it, ask for a refund since that's now an option too. If you're offended by the content, go fuck yourself?

Jim is mostly in favour of removing crappy games from steam because there's so many of them that the good ones get drowned out and lost in between all the crap. Which causes genuinely promising or good games to never get the publicity they deserve. For instance, I personally avoid the steam store like the plague unless I'm looking for a specific game I already know I'll like. There's just so much trash on there that it would take me hours to find some good ones.

On topic: I don't get this prudishness... It's just nudity. What's so bad about it? What, is this for "teh childrenz!!" or something? Do they think kids will get messed up later in life if they see some nudity in a game? I doubt there's any evidence for that at all.

I really think Jim overblows the whole crappy games flooding steam thing. The bots they have are actually really good at preventing those things from clogging my new releases. I don't even see most of them in the upcoming games list which tends to be much less filtered.

Its because here in the states we have a proud tradition of viewing the human body and sex as the worst thing ever. Its more wholesome to see a woman decapitated then to see a breast. A lot of it has to do with the fact that we have a good number of right wing christians who hate sex in general but also view certain things as just for kids and they think kids are innocent.

 

[Zontar]

But...but...but..I thought only left wing SJW's did such things! GamerGate told me that conservatives were our allies!

As both a conservative and someone who was part of GamerGate, why, just, why? There is nothing gained from knowingly misrepresenting people you don't like, overtly insulting us and also insulting anyone reading indirectly by implying they'd fall for it.

 

[Zontar]

OT: it's honestly refreshing to see the one trying to take away our games being someone other then a socialist. First and foremost it means we won't have most of the gaming media and a depressingly large part of the community defending the act, instead they'll be attacking it and defending the community, where as with socialists they defend the attack and attack the community. This also helps to show the hypocrisy in such people, since now that it's someone who isn't ideologically aligned with them doing it, they now take issue with it.

 

[Worgen]

OT: it's honestly refreshing to see the one trying to take away our games being someone other then a socialist. First and foremost it means we won't have most of the gaming media and a depressingly large part of the community defending the act, instead they'll be attacking it and defending the community, where as with socialists they defend the attack and attack the community. This also helps to show the hypocrisy in such people, since now that it's someone who isn't ideologically aligned with them doing it, they now take issue with it.

Ugh, dude, just stop. Most of this kind of censorship is pushed by right wing christian groups at least in the states, I always assume your from Britannia. We saw them push against disco in the 70s, metal music in the 80s, rap/grunge in the 90s. Did you already forget trump starting to rail against games after the nra put their foot down after the Parkland Florida school shooting when it sounded like he might actually do something about guns. Sure you could bring up Lieberman who was one of the main people involved in the early push against violent video games but he is actually pretty conservative once you get outside of lgbt issues.

 

[Zontar]

OT: it's honestly refreshing to see the one trying to take away our games being someone other then a socialist. First and foremost it means we won't have most of the gaming media and a depressingly large part of the community defending the act, instead they'll be attacking it and defending the community, where as with socialists they defend the attack and attack the community. This also helps to show the hypocrisy in such people, since now that it's someone who isn't ideologically aligned with them doing it, they now take issue with it.

Ugh, dude, just stop. Most of this kind of censorship is pushed by right wing christian groups at least in the states, I always assume your from Britannia. We saw them push against disco in the 70s, metal music in the 80s, rap/grunge in the 90s. Did you already forget trump starting to rail against games after the nra put their foot down after the Parkland Florida school shooting when it sounded like he might actually do something about guns. Sure you could bring up Lieberman who was one of the main people involved in the early push against violent video games but he is actually pretty conservative once you get outside of lgbt issues.

I'm aware of the history of right wing Christian groups being against gaming and the like, but the attack on games, like movies and television, is by no means a partisan one. In the 90s it was left wing groups that where the largest push against gaming (such as the crusade by a certain woman who tried to become president), and in movies/television, left wing groups have been as opposed to violence as the right has traditionally been against sex. The past 20 years, for whatever reason, has seen most of the anti-gaming push come from left wing groups, and people who are partisan have defended it on the grounds that "they're not taking away your games", even when the ability to do so was the entire goal of one of these groups.

To pretend that there isn't an issue of partisanship over the past two decades is to pretend the past two decades didn't happen. I mean for god's sake, this is a case of one group seeing what another did and emulating it because it worked. Much as it is disturbing that companies, even Valve, are so divorced from reality they think the people complaining are their customers or that caving to them is ever a good idea, I find it equally as disturbing that people are trying to erase history for political reasons, as if the long, well documented history of both sides attacking our hobbies never happened. This attitude reeks of "my side is all good, the other is all bad".

 

[Smithnikov_v1legacy]

As both a conservative and someone who was part of GamerGate, why, just, why?

Why what?

There is nothing gained from knowingly misrepresenting people you don't like

LIke being radical feminist/cuckold/communist/soyboy/whatever new insult the right has cooked up this month for liking the wrong games? Yea, take your own advice.

 

[Yoshi178]

*adult* games.

violence is worse than sex is. sex is part of literally everyones natural life.

 

[Worgen]

OT: it's honestly refreshing to see the one trying to take away our games being someone other then a socialist. First and foremost it means we won't have most of the gaming media and a depressingly large part of the community defending the act, instead they'll be attacking it and defending the community, where as with socialists they defend the attack and attack the community. This also helps to show the hypocrisy in such people, since now that it's someone who isn't ideologically aligned with them doing it, they now take issue with it.

Ugh, dude, just stop. Most of this kind of censorship is pushed by right wing christian groups at least in the states, I always assume your from Britannia. We saw them push against disco in the 70s, metal music in the 80s, rap/grunge in the 90s. Did you already forget trump starting to rail against games after the nra put their foot down after the Parkland Florida school shooting when it sounded like he might actually do something about guns. Sure you could bring up Lieberman who was one of the main people involved in the early push against violent video games but he is actually pretty conservative once you get outside of lgbt issues.

I'm aware of the history of right wing Christian groups being against gaming and the like, but the attack on games, like movies and television, is by no means a partisan one. In the 90s it was left wing groups that where the largest push against gaming (such as the crusade by a certain woman who tried to become president), and in movies/television, left wing groups have been as opposed to violence as the right has traditionally been against sex. The past 20 years, for whatever reason, has seen most of the anti-gaming push come from left wing groups, and people who are partisan have defended it on the grounds that "they're not taking away your games", even when the ability to do so was the entire goal of one of these groups.

To pretend that there isn't an issue of partisanship over the past two decades is to pretend the past two decades didn't happen. I mean for god's sake, this is a case of one group seeing what another did and emulating it because it worked. Much as it is disturbing that companies, even Valve, are so divorced from reality they think the people complaining are their customers or that caving to them is ever a good idea, I find it equally as disturbing that people are trying to erase history for political reasons, as if the long, well documented history of both sides attacking our hobbies never happened. This attitude reeks of "my side is all good, the other is all bad".

Oh no no no. While when this issue comes up its not uncommon for democrats to be the big names behind things, the groups that are pushing these are right wing groups. Sure there are feminist movements that decry porn but its mostly about exploitation of the women in porn, in fact there is actually feminist porn out there. Right wing groups are most just no porn for anyone since "masturbation is evil." Plus, you're ignoring the fact that when it comes to power, the right has the ability and desire to really put on a lot of pressure against things they don't agree with and if you don't keep an eye on them they will force others to give into them with all the religious conviction they can muster and they have that shit in spades.

 

[Tanis]

OMG STEAM WON'T LET ME REAP (BARELY) LEGAL GIRLS IN SHITTY LITE-NOVELS!

You do realize this isn't censorship, right?
Steam picks and chooses what it will allow on it's platform.
-Same goes for Twitch and Youtube and MySpace and etc.

IF this is true, it's pretty shitty, but it's nothing new.

The 'morality police' have always been there and if you have a problem with them and their activities...protest in a way that will get a FOR-PROFIT company's attention...

 

[Worgen]

OMG STEAM WON'T LET ME REAP (BARELY) LEGAL GIRLS IN SHITTY LITE-NOVELS!

You do realize this isn't censorship, right?
Steam picks and chooses what it will allow on it's platform.
-Same goes for Twitch and Youtube and MySpace and etc.

IF this is true, it's pretty shitty, but it's nothing new.

The 'morality police' have always been there and if you have a problem with them and their activities...protest in a way that will get a FOR-PROFIT company's attention...

Did you not read the original post? People have done that, they have valves attention and valve is re-reviewing the whole thing after everyone came out of the woodwork to defend the games. Also the games that were hit had no underage anything in them and all were western developed games. Hell, one was a best seller called Huniepop which was all about dating women in their 20s-30s, haven't played the other two big ones that were hit, but all those underage girl games your so interested in are still fine.

 

[Zontar]

Oh no no no. While when this issue comes up its not uncommon for democrats to be the big names behind things, the groups that are pushing these are right wing groups. Sure there are feminist movements that decry porn but its mostly about exploitation of the women in porn, in fact there is actually feminist porn out there. Right wing groups are most just no porn for anyone since "masturbation is evil."

I think you've missed my point. My issue isn't specifically with the censorship of sex with intent to take away our ability to buy games, my issue is with censorship with intent to take away our ability to buy games. Yes, sex being the issue has usually been a right wing thing, but the specifics are what is partisan, the broad strokes are not. Change sex out and replace it with violence, and suddenly it becomes a left with thing. I don't care what the reason is, my problem is with the censorship to begin with, and the intended end result.

Plus, you're ignoring the fact that when it comes to power, the right has the ability and desire to really put on a lot of pressure against things they don't agree with and if you don't keep an eye on them they will force others to give into them with all the religious conviction they can muster and they have that shit in spades.

As a Canadian it would be the height of dishonesty for me to pretend that I don't know what you're talking about since we had a decade of just that end a few years ago, but it would also be equally dishonest to pretend the left doing just that now and in the decade before it was the right doing it wasn't also the way things where.

It's not a left or right wing thing, it's a "we're the ones in power" thing, which is why in the US it's coming from the right when it comes to government power and the left when it comes to corporate power, since the right currently controls the government and the left controls the tech side of the private sector.

In 2024 or 2028 (whichever sees the Democrats finally get their act together) things will switch once again, as they always do.

As both a conservative and someone who was part of GamerGate, why, just, why?

Why what?

There is nothing gained from knowingly misrepresenting people you don't like

LIke being radical feminist/cuckold/communist/soyboy/whatever new insult the right has cooked up this month for liking the wrong games? Yea, take your own advice.

You know it was my impression that when one's opponent was acting the fool, one shouldn't go down to their level since they would beat you with experience. Have you thought of just ignoring them instead of emulating them?

 

[I can't enter my old name]

OMG STEAM WON'T LET ME REAP (BARELY) LEGAL GIRLS IN SHITTY LITE-NOVELS!

There it is. I miss arguing about these things on the Escapist.

For most people, there has to be a vested interest in order to care. If the stuff being censored is something you dislike, well you will be inclined to defend such censorship.

Let's say Steam bans all games with sexual scenes in them, including Far Cry 3, the Witcher series, and BioWare games. Now that's when people actually start caring. The fundamental act is still the same, and it's wrong is it not?

You do realize this isn't censorship, right?

Steam picks and chooses what it will allow on it's platform.
-Same goes for Twitch and Youtube and MySpace and etc.

This is really an irrelevant argument on the basis that the word censorship has a really negative connotation to it.

But just for fun let's say that your ISP decides to block all pornography because of some parental complaints. The ISP decided that it was in their best interest and would make more money if they did so. Of course it's censorship. Replace ISP with school internet being censored. It is voluntary, you just forfeit federal funding if you don't, but most people would call the censorship of school internet censorship.

Now back to ISPs. You can switch ISPs, but censorship does not have to be all reaching to be censorship. Let's assume every ISP in the world has decided to implement this policy. What makes it censorship now? They were all individual private decisions that coincidentally lead to all pornography on the internet being banned. Not one ISP is solely responsible for censoring the entire internet, nor the government.

Now, let's switch ISP with something that doesn't have much of a censorship subconscious association to it, like Walmart. Walmart doesn't want to sell pornography, is it censorship? Well, considering you have local and federal obscenity laws, and zoning laws, that's censorship in most people's eyes. Let's ignore that. Is it still censorship?

Yes. It is to protect the moral well-being of the public, so good, decent, hard-working families won't be subjected to such ilk. Protect people from bad ideas. It's ... corporate censorship.

IF this is true, it's pretty shitty, but it's nothing new.

The 'morality police' have always been there and if you have a problem with them and their activities...protest in a way that will get a FOR-PROFIT company's attention...

Considering Valve might reverse this decision, I think everyone has protested enough.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

The past 20 years, for whatever reason, has seen most of the anti-gaming push come from left wing groups, and people who are partisan have defended it on the grounds that "they're not taking away your games", even when the ability to do so was the entire goal of one of these groups.

Jack Thompson wasnt that long ago... Saying 20 years is too long. Maybe you'd have an argument for the staement if you said 5-10 years, but Id still disagree. Im nearly 30 now and when I was in my early twenties it was all religious people leading the charge against us, and 'sjws' were just busy writing critical articles, giving their opinion with no power at all to enforce it. Meanwhile, you ask a politician what religion he is where I live or in America, and id guess in Europe too, what religion they are and you will always get christian. The lawmakers are Christian so they have all the power.