Starting yesterday, there have been multiple warnings being issued to the developers of anime games on Steam by Valve; to remove or censor Sexualized Content On Steam or else they will be removed.
Developers of HuniePop, Tropical Liquor, Mutiny, Kindred Spirits on the Roof and many others have been warned and asked to censor Sexualized Content On Steam within two weeks or they will be removed from Steam.
This warning came pretty much out of nowhere and like an unpleasant surprise to the developers. Most of the developers who have received the warnings have already had games on Steam for months or years without any trouble. Although with this sudden censorship request developers are now concerned and annoyed.
Like for instance, Kindred Spirits on the Roof which launched back in 2016. Its publisher MangaGamer says that the team did its due diligence in making sure that the game does not conflict with Valve’s content policies.
Basically what the affected developers are saying is that, while Valve’s policy specifically prohibits “pornographic content,” but what it exactly means or where the line is drawn between pornographic content and mature content has always been perpetually unclear.
Perhaps there is a thin line between “appropriate for the platform” and inappropriate and this has been a questionable issue in the past as well. Having said that, most of the developers also seem to conform to a statement that this is basically the depiction of double standards on Steam, when it comes to various types of mature content.
At the moment most of the developers who have been approached by Valve seem to be pretty annoyed. Their argument being, that “saying Pornography is banned” does not define to which level as it is pretty Vague. Furthermore, LupieSoft took to the Twitter account and said, that why other games with bare breasts and even more explicit sexual content such as GTA 5, God Of War and The Witcher have not been threatened?
Having said that, we will have to wait and see what comes of this. Several developers are collaborating to promote their games on other services sus as itch.io. If the developers do not censor their Sexualized Content On Steam they will likely be removed in two weeks time.
That said, a new website has been established by Valve which points out to the fact that we might soon be seeing new games from the company and perhaps along with other projects which Valve describes as top secret.
