Valve's Adult Anime Visual Novel Crackdown
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Overview
Valve's Adult Anime Visual Novel Crackdown refers to the controversy surrounding Valve reportedly threatening to remove anime-style dating simulators with sexual and explicit content from Steam unless the developers removed that content from their games. This angered those developers and fans of those games, as Steam has been historically unclear with the kind of content they will allow on their platform, and have been allowing those types of games on the platform for years.
Background
On May 17th and 18th, 2018, several developers of anime visual novel games tweeted that they had been contacted by Valve saying their games were in jeopardy of being removed from the platform due to the explicit sexual content within if that content was not removed in two weeks time. These developers included Manga Gamer, developer of Kindred Spirits,[1] HuniePot,[2] and Lupiesoft.[3]
Developments
The following day, Manga Gamer[4] and HuniePot[5] reported that Valve had walked back on what they said the previous day, and that their games were now under review. Kotaku[6] wrote a piece that day pointing out that Valve has been inconsistent with their definition of what constitutes pornography, noting that many of the developers worked with Valve before getting their games on the platform without issue. They also noted that non-anime style games with sexually explicit content such as Witcher III were not subject to the crackdown. Other publications to cover the crackdown included Vice,[7] IGN,[8] PC Mag,[9] and Newsweek.[10]
Steam's Update
On June 6th, Valve's Erik Johnson wrote a blog post discussing the challenges of deciding on a case-by-case basis what kind of adult content is allowed on Steam.[11] Citing the frequent disagreements their content-reviewers experience, Johnson stated Steam's policy from that point on would be to allow "anything" onto the platform unless it was "illegal or straight up trolling." He also stated Steam would give users tools to avoid seeing the kind of games that may offend them. This was covered by Kotaku.[12]
Search Interest
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External References
[1] Manga Gamer – Regarding Recent Inquires Into Steam Content Policy Notices
[4] Twitter – @MangaGamer
[6] Kotaku – Valve's Inconsistent Rules On Sexy Steam Games Continue To Baffle Devs [UPDATE]
[7] Vice – 'It's an Anime Titty Holocaust:' Steam Is Cracking Down on Visual Novels
[8] IGN – VALVE THREATENS POPULAR EROTIC GAMES ON STEAM WITH TAKE DOWN WARNINGS
[9] PC Mag – Steam Threatens to Remove Anime-Style Adult Games
[10] Newsweek – STEAM EROGE CRACKDOWN: ADULT GAMES IN LIMBO, ANTI-PORN LOBBY GROUP CLAIMS ‘VICTORY’
[11] Steam – Who Gets To Be On The Steam Store?
[12] Kotaku – Valve Says It Will Now Allow 'Everything' On Steam, Unless It's Illegal Or 'Straight Up Trolling'
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