Horses, a first-person narrative horror game, was banned from the Epic Games Store just hours before it was set to launch on December 2nd. Then, a day after launch, the Humble store (temporarily) banned it as well. The decision shocked the developers at Santa Ragione, makers of the critically respected Saturnalia, as these storefronts were the homes they’d found for their game two years before it was preemptively banned from Steam.
Valve and Epic say Horses violates their sexual content policies. Humble hasn’t yet said why it banned the game.
Banned is the wrong word.
Steam chose not to distribute it because it they understood an early build to include children in sexual situations. Further builds did not dissuade them from the original decision.
Epic, who originally was going to distribute based on the developer filling out some form chose not to after filling it out themselves and finding it had a higher rating (adult only) at the last minute.
The developer speculated it was about a specific scene, but based on both steam and epic there are fundamental concerns about the content that led to no distributing on their platforms, which is not banning, that do not align with the story the developers are presenting. It is not likely to be about one scene that was in an earlier build that was the issue for them.
The important thing is that the game is not BANNED in any way whatsoever. It is available on fewer distribution platforms, which reduces visibility, but is not banning any more than exclusive deals or limited releases are banning on other platforms.
Personally I get the impression that the developers see the content very differently than steam and epic because the developers focus on intent and steam and epic focus on what actually exists in the game.
No, banned is the right word colloquially. The media is not eligible to be distributed in the monopolistic or anti-competitive web service run by Valve. It wasn’t banned by a government, but it was indeed banned.
So, by that definition and the definition everyone else is using, the game has been banned from various marketplaces for games. Context matters. In this context ban is used EXACTLY the same way we talk about banned books at the library.