Y’know what? I’ll disagree with you there, let the porn games be on Steam. BUT! Do a thorough quality and content check (i.e. no rape, kiddy diddling, spousal abuse, any other type of abuse, etc.) on ALL of them, and throw the slop away. Then do this for every other genre, and make the porn harder to find - like the video store backroom.
Edit: Steam should assume more curation roles. I mean, even SOME curation roles, because the Steam library looks like my old dorm room the morning after my birthday party: filled with trash, vomit, and loneliness.
Edit 2: speaking of video store backrooms, maybe they could do just that, branch off that section of the library and set it on its own domain, like a Steam After Dark, or whatever.
Edit 3: STEAMY AFTER DARK! I want my 10.000 Internet Points NOW!
I am not being glib, I simply don’t know how else to respond to “why not allow games about raping people, or paedophilia, or abusing people in a romantic context” other than with “because all of those things are objectively unconscionable.” And, yes, I’d argue that they are all worse than Video Game Violence™ even when just taken within the “it’s just vidya” context.
I dunno, I fully accept that it may be just getting old and outdated, but… I genuinely can’t see that stuff otherwise, nor could I agree with the distribution of such stuff out of the same website on which you can also get, like, Tiny Tots’ Fluffy Fun Town Adventure, the hit platformer for 1-year-olds, y’know?
I’m not stupid enough to believe that such stuff will never exist, as I’ve seen it exist already. Like, ok, but that’s different. Horrid stuff will exist in one way or another, there’s still a market for snuff films and such, ok I can accept that as an inevitability. But it’s one thing for It to exist, and another to sell It as one would a can of soda, in full view and reach of just anyone.
Also porn games will keep getting delisted and removed because ultimately it’s the payment processors powering the store that have the final say. And nobody there is interested in indulging in your content checks, they have their own.
Do a thorough quality and content check (i.e. no rape, kiddy diddling, spousal abuse, any other type of abuse, etc.) on ALL of them, and throw the slop away. Then do this for every other genre
There are games that talk about or depict abuse as part of their story line. I think adults can be trusted to engage with art that has adult themes. In the end the hardest part (of letting adults in but not kids) is enforcement, games are rated for that reason but it’s on parents to care.
And I was referring more to games which have you abuse other characters, broaching abuse as an element and studying it for what it is is ok. Hell, I’d even argue we need more games which show the effects and repercussions of abuse…
It doesn’t matter if it’s done by a playable or non-playable character in my opinion. My litmus test is if you can write a book with it’s depictions, then you can show it in a game too. The only difference is the audience.
edit: and by “write” I mean “without it becoming a hateful manifesto”. also I’m not talking strictly about steam here, but anything that uses those payment processors
Fair enough, should’ve phrased it as “where the abuse is presented as a positive in any way, or is the goal in order to obtain gratification,” what you said is essentially what I was thinking:))
I think a lot of people understood that I wanted to start a censorship war with porn, but it’s not at all what I meant. I would just keep the inhuman, the monstruous stuff away from shelves, and by that I don’t mean kinks and such.
Not even Nintendo, who for a long time branded itself as the most family oriented company in videogames, is doing any sort of proper curation for stuff entering their shop. Unlike Steam, they don’t even care to label whether the slop has AI or not
But it’s pretty clear Nintendo’s almost exclusively in it for the money and nothing else at this point. I wouldn’t even expect them to curate anything, quite the contrary, I expect everything Nintendo-wise to keep getting worse.
Steam, on the other hand, still has hints that it primarily wants to be a one-stop-app for gaming, which is why I believe there would still be room for them to “own it,” y’know?
Y’know what? I’ll disagree with you there, let the porn games be on Steam. BUT! Do a thorough quality and content check (i.e. no rape, kiddy diddling, spousal abuse, any other type of abuse, etc.) on ALL of them, and throw the slop away. Then do this for every other genre, and make the porn harder to find - like the video store backroom.
Edit: Steam should assume more curation roles. I mean, even SOME curation roles, because the Steam library looks like my old dorm room the morning after my birthday party: filled with trash, vomit, and loneliness.
Edit 2: speaking of video store backrooms, maybe they could do just that, branch off that section of the library and set it on its own domain, like a Steam After Dark, or whatever.
Edit 3: STEAMY AFTER DARK! I want my 10.000 Internet Points NOW!
Genuine question, why? It seems just that you want your arbitrary moral rules instead of Visa’s or MasterCard’s (or PayPal’s).
I am not being glib, I simply don’t know how else to respond to “why not allow games about raping people, or paedophilia, or abusing people in a romantic context” other than with “because all of those things are objectively unconscionable.” And, yes, I’d argue that they are all worse than Video Game Violence™ even when just taken within the “it’s just vidya” context.
I dunno, I fully accept that it may be just getting old and outdated, but… I genuinely can’t see that stuff otherwise, nor could I agree with the distribution of such stuff out of the same website on which you can also get, like, Tiny Tots’ Fluffy Fun Town Adventure, the hit platformer for 1-year-olds, y’know?
I’m not stupid enough to believe that such stuff will never exist, as I’ve seen it exist already. Like, ok, but that’s different. Horrid stuff will exist in one way or another, there’s still a market for snuff films and such, ok I can accept that as an inevitability. But it’s one thing for It to exist, and another to sell It as one would a can of soda, in full view and reach of just anyone.
Never going to happen. It’s valve lmao.
Also porn games will keep getting delisted and removed because ultimately it’s the payment processors powering the store that have the final say. And nobody there is interested in indulging in your content checks, they have their own.
There are games that talk about or depict abuse as part of their story line. I think adults can be trusted to engage with art that has adult themes. In the end the hardest part (of letting adults in but not kids) is enforcement, games are rated for that reason but it’s on parents to care.
Myeah :-<… it’s a damned shame, though…
And I was referring more to games which have you abuse other characters, broaching abuse as an element and studying it for what it is is ok. Hell, I’d even argue we need more games which show the effects and repercussions of abuse…
It doesn’t matter if it’s done by a playable or non-playable character in my opinion. My litmus test is if you can write a book with it’s depictions, then you can show it in a game too. The only difference is the audience.
edit: and by “write” I mean “without it becoming a hateful manifesto”. also I’m not talking strictly about steam here, but anything that uses those payment processors
Fair enough, should’ve phrased it as “where the abuse is presented as a positive in any way, or is the goal in order to obtain gratification,” what you said is essentially what I was thinking:))
I think a lot of people understood that I wanted to start a censorship war with porn, but it’s not at all what I meant. I would just keep the inhuman, the monstruous stuff away from shelves, and by that I don’t mean kinks and such.
Not even Nintendo, who for a long time branded itself as the most family oriented company in videogames, is doing any sort of proper curation for stuff entering their shop. Unlike Steam, they don’t even care to label whether the slop has AI or not
But it’s pretty clear Nintendo’s almost exclusively in it for the money and nothing else at this point. I wouldn’t even expect them to curate anything, quite the contrary, I expect everything Nintendo-wise to keep getting worse.
Steam, on the other hand, still has hints that it primarily wants to be a one-stop-app for gaming, which is why I believe there would still be room for them to “own it,” y’know?
Why are you booing me, I’m right!=)))