Erotic game "kicked off" Steam Greenlight

Surely offensive material is objective and that is partially the point of Greenlight.

While sexual themes might be offensive to whoever took it down at Valve it might not be for others and therefore the voting system would show that. If people were offended by it's content they would just not vote for it to be published on Steam.

Posted:9 months ago

Yes, this should be up to the people who vote.

Games with people getting bullets in their head, falling down and die in blood seas are eligibles, so why a naked girl or boy would be a problem...

Posted:9 months ago

Having seen a number of submissions over the years tied to adult/erotic content (some actually interesting) and with the obvious size of the adult entertainment industry, there is market for this type of media, a market that traditional game publishers won't touch due to reputation.

There's money to be made here.

Posted:9 months ago

Valve is an American company therefore you can have all the violence you like but any sexual content is a no go. One day American will grow up.

Isn't it the biggest porn market/industry too?

There's money to be made here.

Yeah, following the same idea, the porn industry is what is driving almost everything from VHS to the Internet. Why wouldn't it be the same for video games? Anyway, Im not into naked virtual girls, but I don't understand why it is such a big deal when 13 years old boys are already playing battlefield all day long...

Posted:9 months ago

It might just be an issue with age ratings, though it's a bit of a cop-out if it is. Anyone who accepts the Steam license has to be over 13 years of age, I believe, but given the American sensitivity to sex/nudity - in all media, not just gaming - it could just be that Valve are hedging against anything too controversial with Greenlight right now. The last I read, inclusion of sex/nudity bumped-up the ratings of films. It's also fairly obvious that sex/sexuality is more of a talking point in American media and entertainment than violence. Not defending Valve's move here - because it should have been left for people to vote on - but I can see why they might have removed it.

Also, there's nothing to stop No Reply Games from submitting their game to Valve through the standard approval process, correct? It's just the Greenlight submission which was removed, far as I can tell.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Morville O'Driscoll on 4th September 2012 9:22pm

Posted:9 months ago

'Isn't it the biggest porn market/industry too?'

It is but it's like the dodgy uncle no one talks about, even though porn takes in more revenue than the Hollywood film industry. It comes down to the overly religious nature of the USA. Europe and the far east are so much more relaxed.

Posted:9 months ago

Valve is a private company. They are entitled to put up whatever they want to put up. End of story. They don't have to open themselves up to negative PR and possible litigation if they don't want to.

Posted:9 months ago

Right you are, Chris. I'd say the LAST thing Valve needs to be doing is running around defending themselves from parents groups, the easily offended or anyone else who'll use that game to claim it's being targeted at kids (as Faux News did with the original Mass Effect). That developer can self-publish their game, take it to Kickstarter or distribute it through some other service that won't mind the controversy.

Hell, they should just contact an adult film company and ask if they'd like to get into the game publishing business. I'm sure something would come out of that. Er, no pun intended...

Posted:9 months ago

< Joke about needing Valve Redlight >

Posted:9 months ago

@Morville: From watching the trailer on Youtube this is actually a full-on porn game, not just occasional nudity and discreet camera angles. I hasten to add that I agree with you completely about the double standards applied to sex and violence, but there's no way Valve could have let this game stay on with no age check system in place.

Posted:9 months ago

Taken down by Steam; quite the proof that not even the industry takes himself seriously. Sad...

Posted:9 months ago

If steam was based in Germany, Holland or France this wouldn't have happened!

Posted:9 months ago

I agree with Andrejs - I think that lot of people around the world is just confused what is right and what is wrong. Just to straighten it out: violence = wrong, sexual themes = right - we shouldn't pretend that we don't know where are babies coming from - this is just denying our nature.

Posted:9 months ago

We're over thinking this. It's valve's platform so they get to choose their own rules. Nothing is stopping them from creating their game and publishing it on the Internet. Minecraft did pretty fine without Facebook, Steam, a Console release or microtransactions, so why is this even an issue?

Posted:9 months ago

If you want to read a full interview with No Reply Games, follow the link:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-09-05-no-sex-please-were-gamers

Posted:9 months ago

Would be interesting to see a game removed for being "too violent". Surely everyone would agree with Valve, right?
Edit: This said, I would like to hear it if Valve has anything more to say about this.
Sometimes on the App Store games get rejected not for the reason invoked by their developers (who'd love some controversy as free publicity) but because of some simple technical issue with a game.
Hopefully, Valve will try to clear things out. Otherwise, it's a big let down from an otherwise great company.

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Jeremie Sinic on 6th September 2012 2:40am

Posted:9 months ago

How is this any worse than the Amensia? A monster that is stiched together is less "offensive" than a erotic game? There has not even been any ingame screens - so there is nothing to really base these claims on. This is bad judgement i'd say.

Posted:9 months ago