Pulling Upcoming Titles

[blue.baron]

For the second time this month, a game on my wishlist was removed by Steam. In the latest case, just days short of its release. No explanation given. No avenue to question or protest offered. No possibility of appeal.

These were both adult titles. The second episode of Tales From the Unending Void, and the lesbian-themed AVN, Summer in the City.

You may disapprove of sexually explicit games. Fine. If Steam had a policy against such material, I could understand. Yet this does not represent a change a policy. This is not even about the nature of the games themselves. Rather, this is about pressure put upon payment providers to dictate what a group of campaigning individuals believe you should and should not have access to.

Morality is subjective. It's certainly not science. Many a moral panic has targeted video games as the source of social ills. Comic books too. Dungeons and Dragons was the target at one time. All proved to be groundless. Video game violence does not create more real life violence. D&D is not satanic and does not undermine mainstream religion. Comic books do not undermine the morals of youth. And pixel sex does nothing to encourage warped or wholly unacceptable behavior among people in their actual lives.

TLDR: If you allow outside self-righteous pressure groups to determine what games you're allowed to play in any genre, that's a power no unelected group should have. It's obedience in advance. Nothing good comes from that.

[Scamdiver]

You know what's ridiculous? They take crazy fee (30%) and give almost nothing in return

[KaveMan]

Originally posted by blue.baron:

You may disapprove of sexually explicit games. Fine. If Steam had a policy against such material, I could understand.

There has always been a policy against sexually explicit content. It's time to comprehend it.

No excuses.

[Draug]

Originally posted by KaveMan:

Originally posted by blue.baron:

You may disapprove of sexually explicit games. Fine. If Steam had a policy against such material, I could understand.

There has always been a policy against sexually explicit content. It's time to comprehend it.

No excuses.

Steam had had no such policy.

[The End]

Originally posted by blue.baron:

For the second time this month, a game on my wishlist was removed by Steam. These were both adult titles.

I'm just happy to see that Valve is cleaning up this mess. There are so many other places where lewd games can be sold. IMO. they do not belong on Steam and never has.

Originally posted by Scamdiver:

You know what's ridiculous? They take crazy fee (30%) and give almost nothing in return

The platform Valve has do give a ton of stuff the developer wont get elsewhere. So saying "give almost nothing in return" is simply not true.

/Have a nice day.

[Scamdiver]

Originally posted by The End:

Originally posted by Scamdiver:

You know what's ridiculous? They take crazy fee (30%) and give almost nothing in return

The platform Valve has do give a ton of stuff the developer wont get elsewhere. So saying "give almost nothing in return" is simply not true.

For instance? Ads aside
Cause building a website where someone logs in-> pays -> downloads the game isn't a big deal. Especially for 30%

[AmsterdamHeavy]

Originally posted by Scamdiver:

You know what's ridiculous? They take crazy fee (30%) and give almost nothing in return

Except access to the single largest video game market on the planet.

[Scamdiver]

Originally posted by AmsterdamHeavy:

Originally posted by Scamdiver:

You know what's ridiculous? They take crazy fee (30%) and give almost nothing in return

Except access to the single largest video game market on the planet.

People advertise games on twitch these days too. OFC it doesn't apply to adult content. But Steam isn't the only way to let people know about your game

[Draug]

Originally posted by Scamdiver:

Originally posted by The End:

The platform Valve has do give a ton of stuff the developer wont get elsewhere. So saying "give almost nothing in return" is simply not true.

For instance? Ads aside

Cloud saves, free access to SDK's and API's, huge player base, anti-cheat and other security, integrated community hubs, and user created content (workshop), access to global payment system, etc...

[HikariLight]

Originally posted by Scamdiver:

You know what's ridiculous? They take crazy fee (30%) and give almost nothing in return

That 30% is the industry standard.
Steam is not the only one who uses it.
It also goes to pay for tons of features, some features regular users don't see.

[Scamdiver]

Originally posted by Draug:

Originally posted by Scamdiver:

For instance? Ads aside

Cloud saves, free access to SDK's, huge player base, anti-cheat and other security, integrated community hubs, and user created content (workshop), access to global payment system, etc...

cloud save is matter of uploading/downloading a file to back-end on shutdown/startup
SDK is nothing if you don't use Steam in the first place
player base is specific to a game, not marketplace
anti-cheat - don't make me laugh
user created content (workshop) - there is nexus for that, for free BTW
access to global payment system - there are SDKs for that from payment providers. IDK about legislative issues

[AmsterdamHeavy]

Originally posted by Scamdiver:

Originally posted by AmsterdamHeavy:

Except access to the single largest video game market on the planet.

People advertise games on twitch these days too. OFC it doesn't apply to adult content. But Steam isn't the only way to let people know about your game

There are 30M people online now.

There is no other market available to game developers that provides that reach. If they did not see value in the 30% they wouldnt sell their product here.

The reality is that just access to all of those potential customers is worth the 30% before anything else is added in.

[Haruspex]

Originally posted by Scamdiver:

Originally posted by The End:

The platform Valve has do give a ton of stuff the developer wont get elsewhere. So saying "give almost nothing in return" is simply not true.

For instance? Ads aside
Cause building a website where someone logs in-> pays -> downloads the game isn't a big deal. Especially for 30%

There's a lot of stuff Valve provides in exchange for that industry-standard 30%.

[Scamdiver]

Originally posted by AmsterdamHeavy:

Originally posted by Scamdiver:

People advertise games on twitch these days too. OFC it doesn't apply to adult content. But Steam isn't the only way to let people know about your game

There are 30M people online now.

There is no other market available to game developers that provides that reach. If they did not see value in the 30% they wouldnt sell their product here.

The reality is that just access to all of those potential customers is worth the 30% before anything else is added in.

I'm not saying there is 0 value, but this value is way too overblown
Take a look at Tarkov. Successfully released and maintained the game without Steam

[Draug]

Originally posted by Scamdiver:

Originally posted by Draug:

Cloud saves, free access to SDK's, huge player base, anti-cheat and other security, integrated community hubs, and user created content (workshop), access to global payment system, etc...

cloud save is matter of uploading/downloading a file to back-end on shutdown/startup
SDK is nothing if you don't use Steam in the first place
player base is specific to a game, not marketplace
anti-cheat - don't make me laugh
user created content (workshop) - there is nexus for that, for free BTW
access to global payment system - there are SDKs for that. IDK about legislation stuff

The stuff you so easily dismiss, costs money.

SDK's and API's are needed to do many things game wise, or the tools written from scratch (lol) which costs money in the form of time and resources.

[Nev Nev]

Originally posted by blue.baron:

TLDR: If you allow outside self-righteous pressure groups to determine what games you're allowed to play in any genre, that's a power no unelected group should have. It's obedience in advance. Nothing good comes from that.

People do allow it though. Take Youtube videos that draw up hate for a game they see as "DEI" or "woke". Before you know it you have hordes of people on message boards attacking the game's "woke" hurting it's sales and trying to destroy those games for anyone that might enjoy them. Funny thing is it's usually not even true, people are just impressionable.

The self-righteous pressure, as you call it, will always be around. That's humanity. It's humanity to destroy and tear down. They only want to save the path of the side they were led down.

You really want to stop that? Good luck.