Potential increasing Censorship on Steam

[[S+S]King of Something]

With sony's playstation now operating out of southern california, the politically charged and censorious manor of its current culture is Worming its way through the online gaming community. I don't want to see Steam start to limit what some people can play because you never know where it will end. Once one thing is censored, you never know what the next idea to be censored is. Adult games? Violent games? Stories with Gay characters? Stories with Straight characters? Games that have nudity or sex? I thought we were supposed to be getting away from the whole censorious small minded phase of our evolution.

When you change a game, to appeal to a different demographic than it was made for, OR to try to make it appeal to more people, you deprive a game of its CORE audience. You bland the experience. A game that takes raw skill and is unforgiving to newbies, by making it easier then the value the game offers to its established players diminishes because the challenge diminishes. More players come in, but you end up losing what the core of the game was before.

The same can be said of Niche games, that fall outside of what we'd call "AAA" gaming, from Adult to, Visual novels, to Rpg's, to many other games that have content some people might not like. Those people do NOT need to play those games. Games are escapes from reality and only those who have literal mental issues in any way for a moment, believe what you do in a game, can or should be done in real life. (I mean seriously, if a parent raises a child THAT dense, they should not be allowed to have MORE of them)

My point is, Games and Books are one of the last refuges of Actual intellectual and contextual freedom of thought and freedom of speech in games. Steam, is one of the last places that isnt pulling a China and censoring everything in its software or worse, treating adults as though they are children and censoring media thats been out for decades. I've been on steam a while. Steams wide bredth of software and title available of all kinds is what keeps me here.

Please dont send steam down the path the Playstation is going and censor your incredible Developers works. If you feel the need to AGE GATE some of them, well do it. Please don't derail Steam from being one of the brightest shining bastions of sheer game diversity left still on the internet. Remember that those of us that BUY the games are the ones you want to be listening to, Not the overly bombastic and loud Activists who day by day, pick a new target and act as though the end of humanity hinges on its eradication from existence.

[Neko Snack]

Friggin AMEN. Thats one reason I left the playstation community and actually started gaming on my pc and steam. The Playstation totally was where the anime-ecchi games were always written to go, and now its down to steam. I'm with valve and steam all the way, but only if they dont start more of THAT crap. Cancel Culture sux.

[Χάρης]

I only read the first paragraph and that is totally not the case with steam. It is the exact opposite. And it doesn't necessarily have to do with evolution. If someone has kids at home, it wouldn't be cool to see random hentai games pop up in the home page of the community.

Please dont send steam down the path the Playstation is going and censor your incredible Developers works.

' Incredible ' ... right. In case you haven't noticed, any and I mean any person who has made a game can publish it on steam for actual money. Even if it's a garbage game. Just use the filters and go to the most negative reviewed ones to see how many ' incredible ' developers there are.

[Neko Snack]

Originally posted by Χάρης:

I only read the first paragraph and that is totally not the case with steam. It is the exact opposite. And it doesn't necessarily have to do with evolution. If someone has kids at home, it wouldn't be cool to see random hentai games pop up in the home page of the community.

Please dont send steam down the path the Playstation is going and censor your incredible Developers works.

' Incredible ' ... right. In case you haven't noticed, any and I mean any person who has made a game can publish it on steam for actual money. Even if it's a garbage game. Just use the filters and go to the most negative reviewed ones to see how many ' incredible ' developers there are.

Im technically not in this discussion, but, Sony has put a Kaibosh on alot of its Ecchi titles lately. Thats been publically available information. They seem to be trying to cater to a more, i dunno, "PG13" crowd? would that be saying it right? And have been tossing their adult developers like hot potatos. Im really hoping steam and Valve dont start trying to decide what is "fantastic" like you seem to be ready to. Not all games meet MY idea of good, not even Tasteful, but that doesnt mean that those who DO like those topics. Everybody knows there are some TERRIBLE games in terms of quality on here, but thats what reviews are for. If games are broken, or just asset rips, or buggy garbage, by all means, toss them. But dont go all Puritan, i THINK is what the something guy was talkin about.

[Zekiran]

You know for every one of these "there must be all the games" threads, five others exist for "omg please stop selling this trash" (regardless of what type of game someone asserting is trash)...

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by S+SKing of Something:

With sony's playstation now operating out of southern california, the politically charged and censorious manor of its current culture is Worming its way through the online gaming community. I don't want to see Steam start to limit what some people can play because you never know where it will end. Once one thing is censored, you never know what the next idea to be censored is. Adult games? Violent games? Stories with Gay characters? Stories with Straight characters? Games that have nudity or sex? I thought we were supposed to be getting away from the whole censorious small minded phase of our evolution.

Heavens no. I mean look at film an literature and the censorship that goes on there. DId you expect video games tto be exempt?

When you change a game, to appeal to a different demographic than it was made for, OR to try to make it appeal to more people, you deprive a game of its CORE audience.

A portion of its CORE audience. Don't assume everyone who liked the game liked it for the same reasons you did. Some portion of the CORE audience will be apathetic to the change, others will see it as an improvement. Now it becomes a matter of math, whether the people you gain is greater than the people you lose.

You bland the experience.

It worked for McDonalds and daytime television....

A game that takes raw skill and is unforgiving to newbies, by making it easier then the value the game offers to its established players diminishes because the challenge diminishes. More players come in, but you end up losing what the core of the game was before.

And this is why difficulty sliders exist.. Granted there are some uncomromising genres but these genres.. well, they aren't very big and they're rather hard to break into .

The same can be said of Niche games, that fall outside of what we'd call "AAA" gaming,

You do realize 90% opf games fall outside the 'AAA' sphere right?

from Adult to, Visual novels, to Rpg's, to many other games that have content some people might not like. Those people do NOT need to play those games.

No but the developers and publishers like to do things like afford rent, eat food, maybe buy nice things for themselves. WHich is why rtheir goal is to generally get as many people buying their game as possible.... well either that or jack up the price on their releases by 3X. Fancy paying $90 for that niche experience?

Games are escapes from reality and only those who have literal mental issues in any way for a moment, believe what you do in a game, can or should be done in real life. (I mean seriously, if a parent raises a child THAT dense, they should not be allowed to have MORE of them)

Since most censorship is handed down by government mandate, yeah not much use there. Ppluse the more extreme your content, the less visibility and the smaller the audience it will have...so again...its a cashflow issue. Publishers want money, Developers need money. Its the reason so many films aim for that PG 13 sweetspot.

My point is, Games and Books are one of the last refuges of Actual intellectual and contextual freedom of thought and freedom of speech in games.

Nope. Books have not been such a thing for literally centuries. You've just had the good fortune of not living in a region where your choice of lit was deemed taboo.

Steam, is one of the last places that isnt pulling a China and censoring everything in its software or worse, treating adults as though they are children and censoring media thats been out for decades. I've been on steam a while. Steams wide bredth of software and title available of all kinds is what keeps me here.

STeam doesn't censor anything. That's the developers. And when it is a conscious and voluntaryy act by the creator...its not censorship. Its a revision. Creators revise their works all the time (hell talk to any editor and the hard part is to get writers to stop revising their work).

But CHina does play a role in this. See again. CHina has a lot of people with disposeable income. That's a very large market, that dwarfs even the US. Now if the only thing keeping your game from having access to the market is a choice of words here and few pixels there... well...its again a matter of cash.



SO just remember. Censorship is what is imposed upon the work by parties that are not the creator. Any changes made by the creatior of their own volition are not censorship.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Steam, is one of the last places that isnt pulling a China and censoring everything in its software or worse, treating adults as though they are children and censoring media thats been out for decades. I've been on steam a while. Steams wide bredth of software and title available of all kinds is what keeps me here.

STeam doesn't censor anything. That's the developers. And when it is a conscious and voluntaryy act by the creator...its not censorship. Its a revision. Creators revise their works all the time (hell talk to any editor and the hard part is to get writers to stop revising their work).

But CHina does play a role in this. See again. CHina has a lot of people with disposeable income. That's a very large market, that dwarfs even the US. Now if the only thing keeping your game from having access to the market is a choice of words here and few pixels there... well...its again a matter of cash.



SO just remember. Censorship is what is imposed upon the work by parties that are not the creator. Any changes made by the creatior of their own volition are not censorship.

wise words

[crunchyfrog]

I love seeing the cheery picking and nonsense that people claim when making threads like these.

Censorship exists in selling media and art. Get used to it. You're not special because of your ignorance of this fact, nor is video games exempt.

Things have to exist in the real world, and in a marketspace, you HAVE to have compromises.

[Tolkien Book Fan]

"L337 of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your forum privileges." That's what this is about: men who play FPSes call themselves warriors and demand control of the 'gaming community' on the grounds that they are the fighting elite.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Originally posted by S+SKing of Something:

With sony's playstation now operating out of southern california, the politically charged and censorious manor of its current culture is Worming its way through the online gaming community. I don't want to see Steam start to limit what some people can play because you never know where it will end. Once one thing is censored, you never know what the next idea to be censored is. Adult games? Violent games? Stories with Gay characters? Stories with Straight characters? Games that have nudity or sex? I thought we were supposed to be getting away from the whole censorious small minded phase of our evolution.

Dear OP,

Sekai Project (famous for its work localizing visual novels, including but not limited to a wide variety of smutty ones) is headquartered in Los Angeles.

JAST USA (which localizes outright pornographic visual novels, and sells both its own work and the work of others in this vein) is headquartered in San Diego.

Your point -- and your apparent allergy to southern California which is actually just a front for your desire to push your own political viewpoint -- is invalid.

[RoasterToaster(Jet)]

ive heard the ADL might be coming after steam, better stay the HELL away from the adl and never do buisness with them for whatever reason. sure the name might sound promising but what they do is far beyond from promissing for anyone but themselves, they're selfish , ignorant and relentless and will stop at nothing until you give them what they want,censorship, of words and people they just dont like, words that have a meaning not even close to what they'll try telling you, as in the ok hand symbol or the bowl haircut. they're a bunch of bullshitters and i'd be livid to see steam ever bend the knee for them.

[RoasterToaster(Jet)]

Originally posted by crunchyfrog:

I love seeing the cheery picking and nonsense that people claim when making threads like these.

Censorship exists in selling media and art. Get used to it. You're not special because of your ignorance of this fact, nor is video games exempt.

Things have to exist in the real world, and in a marketspace, you HAVE to have compromises.

sure you need to compomise, but the majority should win everytime, not some loudmouth, if i say trees are offensive would you be the guy to put a blanket over every tree or be the guy who laughs and moves on. censorship doesent make any problem better, in this case it only makes it worse like some parent sheltering their kids from the real world, if you cut out the people who will tell you reality more than what makes you feel better then you've just made an echo chamber arround yourself, and im sure thats where the angry keyboard pounding and twitter screeching starts when you see some guy in the comments saying you're wrong for whatever reason when the only thing you hear is you're right about everything...

[CoolINaturrBoy]

You know what else this worse in community?!
People making f%king pRon comments and misreprensation on nudity content idea
https://steamcommunity.com/app/903950/discussions/0/1739980540130356070/

And yeah man , we all hate censorship. I also dont want this to be happened on steam

[Gus the Crocodile]

Originally posted by Equinox:

sure you need to compomise, but the majority should win everytime

Well no, not really. Sometimes the majority are arseholes. It's not automatically a good idea to let the biggest gang that shows up do whatever they like.

[RoasterToaster(Jet)]

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

Originally posted by Equinox:

sure you need to compomise, but the majority should win everytime

Well no, not really. Sometimes the majority are arseholes. It's not automatically a good idea to let the biggest gang that shows up do whatever they like.

Sure the majority can be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but just because they hurt your feelings or challenge your opinions doesent mean theyre wrong. Also... people can be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥... get used to it

[Gus the Crocodile]

Originally posted by Equinox:

Originally posted by Gus the Crocodile:

Well no, not really. Sometimes the majority are arseholes. It's not automatically a good idea to let the biggest gang that shows up do whatever they like.

Sure the majority can be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ but just because they hurt your feelings or challenge your opinions doesent mean theyre wrong. Also... people can be ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥... get used to it

I'm sure we're all used to plenty of problems existing. Doesn't mean they aren't problems or shouldn't be addressed. People are responsible for the way they choose to behave, and sometimes actions have consequences.