Why is STEAM censoring games?

[D. Flame]

This game now requires being logged into even see it:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1232460/Onee_Chanbara_ORIGIN/

I understand putting porn games behind a filter, but why is Steam starting to do the same crap that Sony pulled?

I owned even Playstation home console from 1 to 4, including the hardware backwards compatible PS3. I owned the PS Vita as well. And rather than buy a PS5, I upgraded my PC, bought a Switch, and bought a Steam Deck for me and one for my friend, all because Sony pulled crap like this and killed the Senran Kagura series. Why is Steam now starting down the same road?

And just to clarify, that game I linked contains no nudity.

[Soren]

D. Flame lähetti viestin:

Yeah, the game that had bikinis at worst is more smutty that the game with full frontal nudity and full sex scenes. /s

Yes. You had a sarcastic sentence that was unironically just the flat truth. The entire point of onee chanbara is girls in scantly clad clothes. CP2077 is an action RPG where you do action RPG stuff. That's the focus of CP2077.

Likewise, you can hire strippers in GTA or Metro Last Light, but the point of those games isn't hiring strippers. Where STRIPPERS the game on Steam is entirely about strippers and nudity so it has a higher rating based on the content it's focused around.

[D. Flame]

Soren lähetti viestin:

D. Flame lähetti viestin:

Yeah, the game that had bikinis at worst is more smutty that the game with full frontal nudity and full sex scenes. /s

Yes. You had a sarcastic sentence that was unironically just the flat truth. The entire point of onee chanbara is girls in scantly clad clothes. CP2077 is an action RPG where you do action RPG stuff. That's the focus of CP2077.

Likewise, you can hire strippers in GTA or Metro Last Light, but the point of those games isn't hiring strippers. Where STRIPPERS the game on Steam is entirely about strippers and nudity so it has a higher rating based on the content it's focused around.

Onee Chanbara is about vampire-like Zombie hunters. They absorb blood through their skin and transform into monsters and keep killing Zombies.

The game is about combat.

Meanwhile, BG3 has time until Sex (Sex%) speedruns with a record of 3 Minutes and 20 seconds. So you could literally be having sex in that game in under 3 and a half minutes. That is no way less smutty than a vampire zombie hunter.

[Ben Lubar]

D. Flame lähetti viestin:

Soren lähetti viestin:

Yes. You had a sarcastic sentence that was unironically just the flat truth. The entire point of onee chanbara is girls in scantly clad clothes. CP2077 is an action RPG where you do action RPG stuff. That's the focus of CP2077.

Likewise, you can hire strippers in GTA or Metro Last Light, but the point of those games isn't hiring strippers. Where STRIPPERS the game on Steam is entirely about strippers and nudity so it has a higher rating based on the content it's focused around.

Onee Chanbara is about vampire-like Zombie hunters. They absorb blood through their skin and transform into monsters and keep killing Zombies.

The game is about combat.

Meanwhile, BG3 has time until Sex% speedruns with a record of 3 Minutes and 20 seconds. So you could literally be having sex in that game in under 3 and a half minutes. That is no way less smutty than a vampire zombie hunter.

There's a Super Mario Odyssey category entirely focused on seeing Mario's nipples. Just because a speedrun exists does not mean that's the focus of the game. I can open the screenshots page for the game you're crusading on behalf of and see completely nude characters. There's not a single screenshot that isn't of at least partial nudity.

[Sleepy Yoshi]

Soren lähetti viestin:

I see the word "censorship" is being used rather frivolously. Onee Chanbara is a primarily focused on smut game/series, it makes sense why it could be moved to the adult online rated while other games like Cyberpunk aren't. Because their focus isn't sex or nudity and instead just incidentally have those things.

The crux of the issue is age ratings aren't censorship. They can lead to censorship because the company might self censor to get a lower rating in some countries. But they themselves are not censorship.

The game should have an age gate. I don't think that's up for dispute, as even BG3 does. However, not being able to view a title while logged out has traditionally been saved for very specific types of games i.e. those that have sexually explicit nudity. This game certainly doesn't fall under that. If lewd is going to be the determining factor for that, fair enough, but it's certainly not the norm or standard at the moment.

[Ben Lubar]

Sleepy Yoshi lähetti viestin:

Soren lähetti viestin:

I see the word "censorship" is being used rather frivolously. Onee Chanbara is a primarily focused on smut game/series, it makes sense why it could be moved to the adult online rated while other games like Cyberpunk aren't. Because their focus isn't sex or nudity and instead just incidentally have those things.

The crux of the issue is age ratings aren't censorship. They can lead to censorship because the company might self censor to get a lower rating in some countries. But they themselves are not censorship.

The game should have an age gate. I don't think that's up for dispute, as even BG3 does. However, not being able to view a title while logged out has traditionally been saved for very specific types of games i.e. those that have sexually explicit nudity. This game certainly doesn't fall under that. If lewd is going to be the determining factor for that, fair enough, but it's certainly not the norm or standard at the moment.

There are three categories for games with sexual content. The game developer decides which category their own game is in, and they're given the same examples that you are given in your store preferences of games for each category.

https://imgur.com/a/iBps4yj

A game with Some Nudity or Sexual Content can be seen while logged out. The other two categories are for games that are mostly about nudity and sexual content, or for straight-up pornography.

[D. Flame]

Ben Lubar lähetti viestin:

D. Flame lähetti viestin:

Onee Chanbara is about vampire-like Zombie hunters. They absorb blood through their skin and transform into monsters and keep killing Zombies.

The game is about combat.

Meanwhile, BG3 has time until Sex% speedruns with a record of 3 Minutes and 20 seconds. So you could literally be having sex in that game in under 3 and a half minutes. That is no way less smutty than a vampire zombie hunter.

There's a Super Mario Odyssey category entirely focused on seeing Mario's nipples. Just because a speedrun exists does not mean that's the focus of the game. I can open the screenshots page for the game you're crusading on behalf of and see completely nude characters. There's not a single screenshot that isn't of at least partial nudity.

There is zero nudity in the game.

And I see you have Skyrim in your list of games. If I go to its community hub and filter screenshots by most recent, I can can see full penetration tentacle images. Are you going to claim that Skyrim should be rated AO based on that information?

[Ben Lubar]

D. Flame lähetti viestin:

Ben Lubar lähetti viestin:

There's a Super Mario Odyssey category entirely focused on seeing Mario's nipples. Just because a speedrun exists does not mean that's the focus of the game. I can open the screenshots page for the game you're crusading on behalf of and see completely nude characters. There's not a single screenshot that isn't of at least partial nudity.

There is zero nudity in the game.

And I see you have Skyrim in your list of games. If I go to its community hub and filter screenshots by most recent, I can can see full penetration tentacle images. Are you going to claim that Skyrim should be rated AO based on that information?

There's partial nudity in the game's official screenshots on the store page.

[D. Flame]

Ben Lubar lähetti viestin:

Sleepy Yoshi lähetti viestin:

The game should have an age gate. I don't think that's up for dispute, as even BG3 does. However, not being able to view a title while logged out has traditionally been saved for very specific types of games i.e. those that have sexually explicit nudity. This game certainly doesn't fall under that. If lewd is going to be the determining factor for that, fair enough, but it's certainly not the norm or standard at the moment.

There are three categories for games with sexual content. The game developer decides which category their own game is in, and they're given the same examples that you are given in your store preferences of games for each category.

https://imgur.com/a/iBps4yj

A game with Some Nudity or Sexual Content can be seen while logged out. The other two categories are for games that are mostly about nudity and sexual content, or for straight-up pornography.

Again, the login gating filter is recent and was retroactively applied. It did not previously exist. You could previously see the game without logging in.

Ben Lubar lähetti viestin:

D. Flame lähetti viestin:

There is zero nudity in the game.

And I see you have Skyrim in your list of games. If I go to its community hub and filter screenshots by most recent, I can can see full penetration tentacle images. Are you going to claim that Skyrim should be rated AO based on that information?

There's partial nudity in the game's official screenshots on the store page.

Only if you consider a bikini to be partial nudity.

[Realigo Actual]

Why are you guys debating this so much? The reason this happened is clearly related to China, and Germany was an afterthought. This isn't censorship. This is something that happened to Bamco or D3 which prompted action, or just publisher people making the rounds on their catalogue and thought this configuration was in their best interests.

[Soren]

D. Flame lähetti viestin:

Onee Chanbara is about vampire-like Zombie hunters. They absorb blood through their skin and transform into monsters and keep killing Zombies.

The game is about combat.

People generally aren't buying back door sluts 9 because they want to see back doors. Making the argument that they are is spurious.

I'd go as far to say if Onee Chanbara wasn't girl in bikini focused, it'd have basically zero buyers. Just like how almost no one plays the porn visual novels for their engaging gameplay.

D. Flame lähetti viestin:

Meanwhile, BG3 has time until Sex (Sex%) speedruns with a record of 3 Minutes and 20 seconds. So you could literally be having sex in that game in under 3 and a half minutes. That is no way less smutty than a vampire zombie hunter.

It isn't the focus of BG3. If BG3 was 25-50% sex scenes it'd go in the adult category too. Heck, BotW has a speedrun for staying the night with Paya (get laid%). Is this the focus of BotW since we're using special runs to prove a point? Don't make me bring up nipple% for Mario Odyssey too.

[Ben Lubar]

D. Flame lähetti viestin:

Ben Lubar lähetti viestin:

There are three categories for games with sexual content. The game developer decides which category their own game is in, and they're given the same examples that you are given in your store preferences of games for each category.

https://imgur.com/a/iBps4yj

A game with Some Nudity or Sexual Content can be seen while logged out. The other two categories are for games that are mostly about nudity and sexual content, or for straight-up pornography.

Again, the login gating filter is recent and was retroactively applied. It did not previously exist. You could previously see the game without logging in.

It was not "retroactively applied". They did not make a time machine and add a requirement to log in on your previous browser sessions.

https://steamdb.info/changelist/22867276/

The game's mature content labels were changed here, by the game's developers.

[Sleepy Yoshi]

Ben Lubar lähetti viestin:

Sleepy Yoshi lähetti viestin:

The game should have an age gate. I don't think that's up for dispute, as even BG3 does. However, not being able to view a title while logged out has traditionally been saved for very specific types of games i.e. those that have sexually explicit nudity. This game certainly doesn't fall under that. If lewd is going to be the determining factor for that, fair enough, but it's certainly not the norm or standard at the moment.

There are three categories for games with sexual content. The game developer decides which category their own game is in, and they're given the same examples that you are given in your store preferences of games for each category.

https://imgur.com/a/iBps4yj

A game with Some Nudity or Sexual Content can be seen while logged out. The other two categories are for games that are mostly about nudity and sexual content, or for straight-up pornography.

Sure I'm aware of that, but my comment is in regards to whether that makes sense, because the game is lewd. Which I would argue, no, it doesn't. It's an outlier among 'frequent nudity and sexual content'. I can't speak to who set it that way or why, but I would say that as a consumer, especially when it comes to things that effect store filters, I much prefer consistency. Hell, even in this franchise it's not consistent as Onechanbara Z2:Chaos doesn't have it set.

[Ben Lubar]

Soren lähetti viestin:

D. Flame lähetti viestin:

Meanwhile, BG3 has time until Sex (Sex%) speedruns with a record of 3 Minutes and 20 seconds. So you could literally be having sex in that game in under 3 and a half minutes. That is no way less smutty than a vampire zombie hunter.

It isn't the focus of BG3. If BG3 was 25-50% sex scenes it'd go in the adult category too. Heck, BotW has a speedrun for staying the night with Paya (get laid%). Is this the focus of BotW since we're using special runs to prove a point? Don't make me bring up nipple% for Mario Odyssey too.

I play this game called Real Life and I hear they even let -1 year olds play it.

[Mad Scientist]

D. Flame lähetti viestin:

The game itself isn't censored. It is simply being hidden on Steam, and that was not always the case. This appears to be more recent.

To go back to the fact title claims but a post admits its not censorship.

Boxes checked can cause things to or not to display in specific manners which may include having to be logged into steam to use the age gate/to view content, so it's not really "hidden" either, plus others have noted PC vs Console versions are different, with likely the appropriate ratings/box checking being done for that fact.

Ben Lubar lähetti viestin:

The game's mature content labels were changed here, by the game's developers.

[D. Flame]

Ben Lubar lähetti viestin:

D. Flame lähetti viestin:

Again, the login gating filter is recent and was retroactively applied. It did not previously exist. You could previously see the game without logging in.

It was not "retroactively applied". They did not make a time machine and add a requirement to log in on your previous browser sessions.

https://steamdb.info/changelist/22867276/

The game's mature content labels were changed here, by the game's developers.

No, that was when the filter was applied to all games with "frequent nudity". Before then, you would just get the age verification page. Only porn games would require a full sign in.

Just go down some of the examples in the list of examples that you posted yourself:
https://i.imgur.com/u0BOWCg.png

1.) Bunny Garden
https://steamdb.info/app/2654470/
last modified March 2024

3.) Dungeon Travelers
https://steamdb.info/app/1901620/
Last modified March 2024

5.) Maid of the Dead
https://steamdb.info/app/1868020/
last Modified March 2024

Now are you really going to claim all these games just so happened to go in an modified themselves all in the exact same month, which also just happens to be the same month that Steam also implemented this new censorship filter?