Valve threatening to remove VNs with adult content from steam?

[jetpack003]

I find this picture appropriate for the setting:

[phantomJS]

2 hours ago, jetpack003 said:

I find this picture appropriate for the setting:

This is more befitting of the absurdity of the entire situation, especially the fact that Valve's bots / flagging system made errors in judgement came to light (picture taken from a post in Huniepop's Twitter page): 

 

Edited May 20, 2018 by phantomJS

[+StrikeR+]

I agree with tymmur, saying its an algorithm its ridiculous, this was from beginning to end specifically targeted games. Valve like always tried to weasel out and take what seemed to be the easy way out, and this time it backfired badly, they underestimated perverts :p. It got quite the backlash, there's the petition, and various groups now have gone after sjw/feminist/homosexual games on steam, some even going as far as reporting all games. It turned chaotic, of course they had to pull back for now, i wish they'd learn their lesson from this, but they never do. Also i see here the word pornographic being thrown out for the most ridiculous things, just because something has nudity and sexual themes it is not pornographic, Underworld the movie (and other movies even worse) for instance has a pretty flashy sex scene, but its not porn for crying out loud... They are porn after and only after they have been patched for 18+.

[Formlose Gestalt]

I wouldn't relax just yet.

Who knows what comes out of them re-reviewing Kindred Spirits or what the follow up emails say. We really don't know what caused this to happen in the first place. The reasons behind this deicison could still be there and Steam is just paddling back for the moment before sending new emails two weeks later, saying the conent still needs to be removed.

I would be nice if Steam could give  more concret guidelines for what they want on their store, but since that is unlikely to be happening lets just hope they go back to the way it was before this whole thing happend.

[Dreamysyu]

8 hours ago, sarkasmus said:

if it analyzes discussions, reviews, tags or a mixtrue

I would say, if this system exists, it probably just reacts to how often a  game is reported for rule violation. And it could be that this system is actually old but was only triggered now after somebody reported all these games some unproportionally big number of times.

7 hours ago, tymmur said:

just by chance it hits the games Morale in Media started targeting a week earlier?

Just for clarification, is there a proof that they actually did that and not just claiming to be the cause of something that already happened?

[Nandemonai]

I very much doubt that there exists a system that will issue "censor the game within 2 weeks or we will delist you" threats 100% automatically without any interaction.  If for no other reason than we would already have seen it in action before, by this point, and we haven't.  Not to mention that once trolls find out about it, they would make use of it to do far more than just mess with VNs.

[tymmur]

2 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

Just for clarification, is there a proof that they actually did that and not just claiming to be the cause of something that already happened?

I'm not going to dig through everything again, but I read somewhere that they started targeting Steam on the 10th of May.

2 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

I would say, if this system exists, it probably just reacts to how often a  game is reported for rule violation. And it could be that this system is actually old but was only triggered now after somebody reported all these games some unproportionally big number of times.

If MIM started mass report VNs, wouldn't they have had to buy them first? It seems a bit suspicious how this happened apparently to all VNs or VN like games. If it was about some nutcases using mass trolling, they would have hit specific titles, not an entire genre. The fact that it hit VNs in general is a strong indication that somebody working for Valve did something intensionally.

9 hours ago, Ranzo said:

Man, it still really shows what a terrible job Valve does at handling their business side of things. How can you feel confident as either a publisher or consumer if your major retailer is this inconsistent.

If I were to sell anything, I would not rely on a single publisher/location of sales unless the single location would be something I own. Valve just makes this obvious, but it works as a general rule.

[Dreamysyu]

2 hours ago, tymmur said:

I'm not going to dig through everything again, but I read somewhere that they started targeting Steam on the 10th of May.

Hmm, I thought it was all based on what they themselves said, but, yeah, I'm not going to look through everything again either.

2 hours ago, tymmur said:

If MIM started mass report VNs, wouldn't they have had to buy them first?

Good point. Then it probably means that if it was them reporting VNs, it was probably done in some more or less formal way and therefore was handled by a Valve employee.

3 hours ago, Nandemonai said:

I very much doubt that there exists a system that will issue "censor the game within 2 weeks or we will delist you" threats 100% automatically without any interaction. 

Yeah, come to thing of it, it was pretty stupid. Never mind my previous post then.

[solidbatman]

I've seen some people point out games like GTA V and Witcher 3 feature explicit sexual content as well as many other rated M games not getting hit by this wave. I would imagine, because those games sell so well and as a result make a lot of money for Valve, that Valve would simply ignore any mass reporting campaign of those games. VNs on the other hand do not make enough money for Valve and would not be worth the headache of focused media attention on their content should the group in question doing the mass reporting were to launch a large media campaign against Valve for hosting. 

Someone may have already said this somewhere in the 200 replies to this thread but really the whole situation just seems like a PR maneuver on Valve's part to prevent undesired media attention. 

[Tyrael]

Kind of an update on the whole matter:

They're taking notice of all the outrage, at least.

 

[littleshogun]

I guess what I can say is that Valve here is pretty much panicked in regard of the new law, and more so if we think that surely Valve would receive many reports in regard of porn content (Not necessarily from SJW organization). At least it work out somehow for now, although to be honest it's not like there's no other alternative if we talk about the platform to sell the VNs.

[Hetzer123]

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Edited October 2, 2019 by Hetzer123

[Happiness+]

On 5/18/2018 at 2:18 PM, Dreamysyu said:

It's more like it could go wrong, and nobody is going to bother with this possibility, considering that 18+ games isn't what Steam is for to begin with.

Like what would happen, will there mass boycotts because of anime tiddies?

Oh no, will someone think of the children, I don’t want them seeing anime tiddies. Shame on you steam. 

No seriously, all the normies would’nt even notice with all their Fornite going on.

And those that do, like, steam is still steam are they going to take their business to GOG. Okay, but it’s going to be the end of steam as we know it. 

 

On 5/21/2018 at 3:31 AM, Hetzer123 said:

At least Gaben is not Thanos, wiping half of anime tiddies from steam. I hope it will resolve quickly. I am not sure if this is due to algorithm error, rogue employee, false complaints,etc.

Steam should just leave it alone. Even though I oppose pointless eroge with a passion, sex sells. Nobody is going to care in the long run, because what are the odds that some American gun-toting Christian Conservative is going to look up Subahibi or even stumble upon it by “accident”. 

And if they do, are they going to write a blog post about it? Are they going to tell their pastor about this VN? And even if it does start a controversy it’ll be forgotten in a week. 

[tymmur]

24 minutes ago, Happiness+ said:

Oh no, will someone think of the children, I don’t want them seeing anime tiddies. Shame on you steam.

Laugh all your want, but there are people who believe seeing breasts counts as a sexual encounter. Some woman was kicked out of a toy store because she went to a quiet area and started breastfeeding. The argument was that if child had walked in on her, that child would have been traumatized. Likewise breastfeeding counts as sexual abuse of your own child. I view lack of breastfeeding as child abuse considering we know that the bottle has a tendency to cause constipation, which in turn causes pain.

[bakauchuujin]

Female breast are just there to feed the baby with needed milk, it doesn't really serve any biological sexual function. Honsetly I find it sort of odd how society has made it into such an extreeme sexual symbol. I wonder how it would turn out if we just stopped censoring boobs, maybe people would just stop caring about it. Honestly I think it is related to how we have made it a taboo, much like how in many extremist religious muslim countries a female showing any bare skin at all is considered to be extreemly sexual and an act of sexual temptation toward men.

Edited May 21, 2018 by bakauchuujin

[Dreamysyu]

@Happiness+ Oh, sorry, reading again through your original comment, it looks like I actually misread what your point was. Well, I'm being me again.

[Hetzer123]

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Edited October 2, 2019 by Hetzer123

[Happiness+]

2 hours ago, tymmur said:

Laugh all your want, but there are people who believe seeing breasts counts as a sexual encounter. Some woman was kicked out of a toy store because she went to a quiet area and started breastfeeding. The argument was that if child had walked in on her, that child would have been traumatized. Likewise breastfeeding counts as sexual abuse of your own child. I view lack of breastfeeding as child abuse considering we know that the bottle has a tendency to cause constipation, which in turn causes pain.

I understand your point, but I am talking about majority of people just would’nt care about this. Sure, you have that one weirdo that is grossed out by breast-feeding, but it’s not like it’s going to hurt Steam’s revenue. After all the complaining, it’s just going to disappear because Logan or Jake Paul did something stupid again. We’re niche enough as it is. So, any and all controversy would actually help visual novels become popular in the west ironically.

[Yuuko]

2 hours ago, bakauchuujin said:

it doesn't really serve any biological sexual function

Neither does asshole 

[tymmur]

6 minutes ago, Happiness+ said:

Sure, you have that one weirdo that is grossed out by breast-feeding, but it’s not like it’s going to hurt Steam’s revenue.

It's my impression that it's fairly widespread in America, or at least in some parts of America. It's most likely limited to certain social groups, but they can be really loud. It's most likely not the kind of people who buy from Steam anyway and as such should be a minor problem.

I don't know what it is about Americans and breasts. They went absolutely nuts about it when they gained control of Japan and realized the public baths had people of both genders in at the same time. The Americans banned it and the Japanese had no saying in the ban. They did however manage to make the ban apply to new onsen and bathhouses, meaning you can encounter mixed gender bathing in old places. Roughly at the same time the Americans were telling the Europeans to use bathing suits on the beach since the Americans didn't like the widespread nude bathing.

[Hetzer123]

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Edited October 2, 2019 by Hetzer123

[tymmur]

26 minutes ago, Hetzer123 said:

Looks like gog.com change their mind about VN (based on mangagamer tweets). No explanation about how they handle adult content. Gog.com don't have regional pricing for my country so it is still not a good steam alternative for me.

You missed the MG blog, which states

Quote

We are also joined in this new move to GOG by fellow visual novel publisher, Sekai Project.

I called GOG as the new outlet way back on page 4, but that was quickly shut down as GOG will not have anything to do with VNs.....

[Hetzer123]

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Edited October 2, 2019 by Hetzer123

[Eurekachan26]

Weird, I just read Mangagamer is looking to try to sell their games in gog and they seem fine as well, because I just was recently there and seem like they are announcing it somehow.

We will see how things goes.

 

[Darklord Rooke]

7 hours ago, tymmur said:

I called GOG as the new outlet way back on page 4, but that was quickly shut down as GOG will not have anything to do with VNs.....

People have been calling for GOG to include visual novels for over 5 years now ( https://www.gog.com/forum/general/why_is_gog_refusing_visual_novels/page1 ). Their policy has consistently been "we're not putting them up". Maybe MG and Sekai just wore them down through rugged persistence or something ...