Why is there no offical responses about the anime game bans?

[LogicalPoint]

There has been issues on Steam in which they have been banning anime games or putting them on perminant review hold. There is some evidence that suggests that it was some rouge employees who have a hatred towards eastern games that are doing this. My question is why Steam hasn't made any offical responses or actions towards this issue. Do they really care so little for smaller eastern developers?

[Winged One]

引用自 north：

引用自 cinedine：

First: this poor guy was Doug Lombardi or at least backed by him. Lombardi is the VP of Marketing at Valve.

What's your point? Did the janitor or the security guard back him too? Why should the opinions of business support staff matter? I want to know what the most senior management think and we found out from Gabe what he thought

Second: Gabe Newell never said anything about this game. He apologized and simply said "it wasn't a good decision [...] [we are] creating tools for content creators and customers."

I don't know why you felt the need to chop the quote up when it takes like 3 seconds to google it and find what you are trying to hide. Here are direct quotes without cutting the parts that don't fit your agenda
" It turns out that it wasn’t a good decision, and we’ll be putting Hatred back up. My apologies to you and your team. " - Gabe
"“Good luck with your game.” - Gabe
Looks to me like Gabe Newell (head of Valve and a game developer rather than business support staff) was in supportive and in favor of Hatred

Third: Americans (in)famously have a completely different approach to sexual content than to violent content thanks to their cultural upbringing.

Yeah will agree to that. American audiences have weird puritanist values very different to most of the world. Perhaps they should release anime games but just block sale in USA? They do similar for violent games in Germant. If a certain audience has an irrational pedo panic, just don't let them play the game. The rest of us can enjoy ourselves

*sigh* its not Anime games, as there are many anime games that are fine.. its these ones you are somehow supporting to a borderlined radicalized level that go to far into the sexual content involving minors area

https://store.steampowered.com/app/537100/Shuffle/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/345610/The_Fruit_of_Grisaia/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/377670/Gsenjou_no_Maou__The_Devil_on_GString/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/462990/Tomoyo_After_Its_a_Wonderful_Life_English_Edition/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/397270/A_Kiss_For_The_Petals__Remembering_How_We_Met/



Hey look Anime games (and pretty good ones at that, although I never did get a chance to finish Tomoyo.. maybe I should go back to it) that have no issue.. now why do you think that is? maybe its because they don't cross a legal line..




and USA is far from having the strictest laws even in western countries on this kind of stuff, but region locking will not work.. the laws involving distribution of such content are different than Germanys laws on violent content, if Valve is seen as distributing such stuff Valve will be locked out of doing business in multiple countries.. region locking won't stop it, because Valve will now be assosciated with said content as far as governments are concerned..


once again, sit and think, don't believe whatever script these devs hand you

[The nameless Gamer]

引用自 theseraph1：

引用自 The nameless Commander：

Unless "Bloom" and "What?! My neighbours are demons?" don't get hit by the ban-hammer, my axe of war remains burried. Much as I loved "A kiss for the petals - Maidens of Michael", I'm getting weary of school settings. Adult characters for adult themes, please.

it honestly appears that after the PayPal incident, Maidens of Michael never reapplied and instead just opted for GoG (as many developers do prefer GoG over Steam).. after all, the previous game in the series is still on here last U checked

I too went for "Maidens of Michael" on GoG, and personally, I found a potential reason why Valve wouldn't lift the ban. I suspect the reason to be the Takako and Runa route (which is the only one I honestly didn't like too). Had to get the patch from MangaGamer, just to be safe nevertheless. Either way, I think that any further uproar would come off as being ungrateful for the already numerous adult visual novels being allowed on Steam.

[north]

引用自 theseraph1：

and USA is far from having the strictest laws even in western countries on this kind of stuff,

What stuff exactly? Perfectly legal content that upsets puritan morals?

[Tito Shivan]

引用自 Start_Running：

You assume alot.

Beware of alots, they're dangerous animals.

[Winged One]

引用自 The nameless Commander：

引用自 theseraph1：

it honestly appears that after the PayPal incident, Maidens of Michael never reapplied and instead just opted for GoG (as many developers do prefer GoG over Steam).. after all, the previous game in the series is still on here last U checked

I too went for "Maidens of Michael" on GoG, and personally, I found a potential reason why Valve wouldn't lift the ban. I suspect the reason to be the Takako and Runa route (which is the only one I honestly didn't like too). Had to get the patch from MangaGamer, just to be safe nevertheless. Either way, I think that any further uproar would come off as being ungrateful for the already numerous adult visual novels being allowed on Steam.

never played Maidens of Michael, I had just seen nothing that points to them having reapplied after the paypal incident (as when that happened, Valve just said reapply).. it appears they may have just went "you know, I feel GoG is a better fit for this one" and went with that



but you brough up a valid point Commander in your last sentance that people never want to address when this thread pops up.. there are plenty of Anime VN's on Steam that are on here just fine, with more being added all the time.. if there was a "rogue employee doing a witch hunt" why would these be unaffected? because they know where to dry the line with their product legally

引用自 north：

引用自 theseraph1：

and USA is far from having the strictest laws even in western countries on this kind of stuff,

What stuff exactly? Perfectly legal content that upsets puritan morals?

Sexual Content depicting minors, which even with animated characters is illegal in a good portion of countries..

you know, trying to play dumb does not help your credibility

引用自 Tito Shivan：

引用自 Start_Running：

You assume alot.

Beware of alots, they're dangerous animals.

if these forums had signitures, I think I would make this mine :P

[Midnight]

引用自 north：

Perhaps they should release anime games but just block sale in USA? They do similar for violent games in Germant. If a certain audience has an irrational pedo panic, just don't let them play the game. The rest of us can enjoy ourselves

Steam knows it doesn't have to do or relinquish anything, and why should it? It's a business covering their asse(t)s. Devs implicated in these bans will find it much easier to simply toe the line and replace a few lines of text and perhaps some static graphical assets (for those where the theme is pervasive... they're SOL). The theme is legally gray, attempting to rally followers against this is feeble and laughable.

[north]

引用自 theseraph1：

Sexual Content depicting minors, which even with animated characters is illegal in a good portion of countries..

you know, trying to play dumb does not help your credibility

but they're not minors? I thought we established that it's due to a prudish, conservative, (perhaps even misogynist) view on female bodies that people were presuming flat chest = pedo kid material? Not everyone has to look like a 50 year old hag, be obese and have massive breasts to be an adult.

引用自 Midnight：

Steam knows it doesn't have to do or relinquish anything, and why should it?

It already does it in Germany though?

[Winged One]

引用自 north：

引用自 theseraph1：

Sexual Content depicting minors, which even with animated characters is illegal in a good portion of countries..

you know, trying to play dumb does not help your credibility

but they're not minors? I thought we established that it's due to a prudish, conservative, (perhaps even misogynist) view on female bodies that people were presuming flat chest = pedo kid material? Not everyone has to look like a 50 year old hag, be obese and have massive breasts to be an adult.

引用自 Midnight：

Steam knows it doesn't have to do or relinquish anything, and why should it?

It already does it in Germany though?

your straw manning again, once again its not being flat chested that makes them viewed as a minor.. law on such things is that if it is beyond any reasonable doubt meant to depict a minor it is to be treated as a minor (regardless of whatever random "age" the developer assigns, same way as you can't legally put a 13 year old in an adult film just by "saying" they are 18)


believe it or not, more goes towards showing a body has gone through development than breast size.. an anime girl could be flat chested and around 15 or 16, but they could reasonably pass as an underdeveloped 18 year old.. a person who visually looks 12? they can not..

[Midnight]

引用自 north：

It already does it in Germany though?

Think about what you're saying. Steam is US-based and most (all?) violent material is perfectly legal there, they can distribute material legal in the US to other jurisdictions in a dumbed-down format without any consequences. If the material is legally dubious in the US then they are risking being implicated in distribution.

Edit: Screwed up quotation

[Winged One]

引用自 north：

引用自 theseraph1：

Sexual Content depicting minors, which even with animated characters is illegal in a good portion of countries..

you know, trying to play dumb does not help your credibility

but they're not minors? I thought we established that it's due to a prudish, conservative, (perhaps even misogynist) view on female bodies that people were presuming flat chest = pedo kid material? Not everyone has to look like a 50 year old hag, be obese and have massive breasts to be an adult.

引用自 Midnight：

Steam knows it doesn't have to do or relinquish anything, and why should it?

It already does it in Germany though?

and once again, Germanys laws on violence in media are totally different than laws regarding child exploitation..

I know you think you are defending this kind of game by making these non-sensical strawman attempts after it has already been explained thats not how it works prior to you posting, but all you are doing is furthering a view of "wow, these people don't understand how things work in the world.. are, are they okay to be left unsupervised?"..

Straw manning hurts you, doesn't help you

[cinedine]

引用自 north：

引用自 cinedine：

First: this poor guy was Doug Lombardi or at least backed by him. Lombardi is the VP of Marketing at Valve.

What's your point? Did the janitor or the security guard back him too? Why should the opinions of business support staff matter? I want to know what the most senior management think and we found out from Gabe what he thought

Second: Gabe Newell never said anything about this game. He apologized and simply said "it wasn't a good decision [...] [we are] creating tools for content creators and customers."

I don't know why you felt the need to chop the quote up when it takes like 3 seconds to google it and find what you are trying to hide. Here are direct quotes without cutting the parts that don't fit your agenda
" It turns out that it wasn’t a good decision, and we’ll be putting Hatred back up. My apologies to you and your team. " - Gabe
"“Good luck with your game.” - Gabe
Looks to me like Gabe Newell (head of Valve and a game developer rather than business support staff) was in supportive and in favor of Hatred

VP is vice president. That's top brass and not "business support staff member". Or what you call "most senior management".

I left out the irrelevant parts of the quote. "Good luck" is just a set phrase and not hearfelt. Just like you'd write "Kind regards" or "respectfully" at the end of a letter.

And again: as you have realized, Hatred was re-instated by Gabe Newell himself because he wasn't d'accord with the decission others made. Those games were not. And it's been a while. So it's safe to assume that the removal won't be reverted and they had good reasons to do so.

And the comparison to Germany and violent games is not only completely outdated but also conceptually wrong.
Steam is a US company and has to repsect US law of what they distribute, advertise and have access to. It would be illegal to store references to child pornography on servers on US terretories for example. Just the same as it is illegal to produce copies of Mein Kampf in Germany or for a German publisher to sell them. And that's something you can still legally own in Germany.

[Start_Running]

I think the only reasons Gabe reversed it are:

a) They(Steam/Valve) should have done this when the game entered Greenlight. The game has always worn its intent on its sleev so to speak so it'd be a bit of bad-face and bad-faith.

b) Gabe's been in gaming long enough to know that the best thing he could do to hurt Hatred would be to let it on Steam. As in, not give them more needless and unwarranted media attention by prolonging the issue. Hatred as a game was rather reprehensible in that it was a shock game, it was a game that i think was methodically designed to make media headlines for its violence and the nature of that violence. You could essentially consider it Postal with less taste. And he was right. the game has more or less fell off the gaming radar a month after it released and all people really remembewr about it is that it got canned and then reinstated on steam.

[LogicalPoint]

Whoa just got back home from work to see 60+ notifications. Good to see at least some discussion is being done about this topic. There were so many anime haters that I thought it was just going to be drown out by them and locked. VNs can be great games if you don't like them you don't have to play them give players the freedom to choose the games they want to play. The freer the market the better. Everlasting Summer was one of the most memorable games I have ever played on Steam and I know that in todays Steam it would be shut down by people with a very bigoted bias towards eastern develoers. I don't want to see experiences like that shut down by people with a adgenda. Steam said they would allow anything that wasn't illegal, many of these games are well made and not illegal in many countries including my own.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/331470/Everlasting_Summer/

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2019/01/food-girls-all-ages-steam-release-indefinitely-delayed-due-to-valve/74838/

[Winged One]

引用自 LogicalPoint：

Whoa just got back home from work to see 60+ notifications. Good to see at least some discussion is being done about this topic. There were so many anime haters that I thought it was just going to be drown out by them and locked. VNs can be great games if you don't like them you don't have to play them give players the freedom to choose the games they want to play. The freer the market the better. Everlasting Summer was one of the most memorable games I have ever played on Steam and I know that in todays Steam it would be shut down by people with a very bigoted bias towards eastern develoers. I don't want to see experiences like that shut down by people with a adgenda. Steam said they would allow anything that wasn't illegal, many of these games are well made and not illegal in many countries including my own.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/331470/Everlasting_Summer/

https://www.oneangrygamer.net/2019/01/food-girls-all-ages-steam-release-indefinitely-delayed-due-to-valve/74838/

please read the thread, the fact more VN's are being added all the time (it is the quickest growing genre on the platform) should show its not some "bigoted bias", its that some of these devs walk to close to the legal line on child exploitation..

Once Valve is shown to having knowingly distributed such content, they are banned from doing any business in multiple countries (even if the game was region locked out of that country) due to how the laws for such content work..


Its not a hatred for anime (if my profile wasn't set the way it is, you could see my library :P ), its an understanding that sometimes a developer goes to far in something.. as such it has to be evaluated case by case, and that is exactly what is being done..


Like i said, read the thread.. you should find alot of it rather illuminating

[Satoru]

The bizarre irony of complaining about “bias” from Valve while referencing a website that is on par with the National Inquirer and is so biased and misinformed it’s laughable