Multiple game developers have been tweeting about warnings received from Valve about the content included in their games distributed on Steam.
Apparently, the company behind the popular digital download platform is cracking down on quasi-sexual content, threatening the developers involved of removal if the games are not censored before the deadline.
So far, we have seen this kind of report only from developers working on visual novels or games with a markedly anime-ish art style. Below you can read a few examples from Huniepop developer Huniepot and Tropical Liquor developer Neko Works.
– IMPORTANT NOTICE –
I’ve received an e-mail from Valve stating that HuniePop violates the rules & guidelines for pornographic content on Steam and will be removed from the store unless the game is updated to remove said content.— HunieDev (@HuniePotDev) May 17, 2018
We have been informed that adult content in Tropical Liquor must be censored by the end of this month or the game will be removed from Steam. We are working on this issue.https://t.co/Cs3VxVARQy #steam
— NEKO WORKs@OVA配信中！ (@nekopara_pr) May 18, 2018
Mutiny!! developer Lupiesoft provided a more extensive comment on the situation, that you can see below in its entirety. They also maintain that their game does respect Steam’s guidelines.
We’ve just received some troubling news today that @steam_games has decided to pull down our titled “Mutiny!!” within 2 weeks for ‘reports of pornographic content’. Now those of you who know @Lupiesoft know that we don’t put that on Steam, or advertise that content on Steam.
— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) May 18, 2018
In fact @Lupiesoft has been one of the strictest developers in terms of following Steam’s guidelines, and absolutely nothing in Mutiny!! violates their guidelines. After our Steam publisher @MangaGamer met with Valve in person, they were told that ecchi content was fine on steam.
— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) May 18, 2018
It seems this new change violates what Valve agreed to before, and the entirety of the Visual Novel genre on Steam is feeling the effects of this nuclear option. Every developer big & small, no matter how much they followed Steam’s guidelines to the letter is having games pulled.
— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) May 18, 2018
From Huniepop, to SonoHanabira, to Mutiny!!, the message is clear, if your game has sexy anime-inspired art in it, get it gone, while western games which are 100x more pornographic content escape unscathed. One rule for them, and no rules for us.
— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) May 18, 2018
This puts @Lupiesoft in a bad situation. while funding for #DizzyHearts is secure, Mutiny!! was our biggest title, this threatens our future when a platform like @steam_games can decide on a whim to just pull our games even when we follow their guidelines.
— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) May 18, 2018
This is not normal, this is not okay. Games are being pulled simply because they look a certain way and there is a stigma behind the look of a game. In the future this could easily extend to anyone who even makes visual novels no matter how ‘sexy’ they might appear to be.
— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) May 18, 2018
We are not sleazebags making horrific pornography, we’re a strongly queer VN studio that makes sexy games, that is not wrong, that is not pornographic, nudity is also not wrong as a massive amount of Steam’s library has nudity, and Mutiny!! follows those content guidelines!
— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) May 18, 2018
This threatens the future livelihood of any developer even wanting to work on Visual Novels in the future, this threatens the very fabric of the medium itself, when THE largest sales platform can just pull your game without justification or reason at any moment.
Speak up.
— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) May 18, 2018
The situation appears to be certainly odd, especially considering that games like Huniepop are already censored exactly to comply with Steam’s guidelines, and their sexual content can only be restored via external patches.
It’s also relevant to mention that there are plenty of games that don’t involve this kind of art style but include plenty of sexual content and nudity, like The Witcher series, or Conan Exiles. At the moment there are no reports from their developers about having received similar notices, even if this does not necessarily mean that they didn’t.
We reached out to the developers involved in order to receive updates on the situation, and to Funcom and CD Projekt RED to verify whether or not they have been affected by Valve’s warnings. We will keep you updated as the situation evolves.