Allow more Eroge on steam

[Proaustin]

This will be a long message however to cut to the chase my complaint is not only are Eroge unfairly treated by steam but that those not allowed on the store are often more tame than those that are.

What I am asking is for steam to reconsider it's arbitrary rulings on adult video games, primarily the Rance games which I've heard Steam refuses to carry. I know whomever is reading this will likely not hear my arguments but I ask that you do. While my initial arguments will be over the strange enforcement of Steam's rules my later ones will be speaking to Steam getting money.

Rance at the very least is one of the strangest things to not allow on the platform, as Steam allows Evenicle another game which Alicesoft made that is also an Eroge but has far worse content than Rance does in relation to what one would consider controversial (it ticks the same boxes Rance does and then some). Steam also allows games which are literal hentai simulators in the form of koikatsu party.

If it were a matter of controversy Rance should be allowed, if it was a matter of Steam not selling what it believes to be porn then Rance doesn't hold a candle to either of the games I mentioned above. As such I think the Rance games should be allowed on steam, at the very least Sengoku Rance as MangaGamer has a patch which removes the erotic content in the game should be allowed.

Now arguments of the rules aside Steam would greatly benefit from allowing Rance on their store.

Steam would regain a lot of customers who previously left as they thought Steam to have been unfair to eroge, on top of this Steam would be holding the holy grail of eroge. Rance is a loved game series especially in Japan, Rance is the literal reason why magazines had to separate their Eroge popularity polls by gender because Rance would win every single time in a landslide.

On top of this when compared to the sales on MangaGamer's website the titles they get released on steam sell way more, this is obvious to PC gamer. Sengoku Rance which has sold around 2000 copies slightly more if I had to guess (going off numbers reported by a translator who left them due to poor wages). same translator reported Evenicle made around 15,000 and that was over a year ago. A massive difference, between Sengoku Rance's numbers and Evenicle's numbers.

When you look at that difference I ask that you look at how large the difference is, the translator I was referencing was making around 3/ the average industry rate for translating. While Eroge is certainly niche if Evenicle sold more than 3 times that of Sengoku Rance (it sold at least 7 times as much maybe more) MangaGamer could afford to pay the industry standard if they were able to put their games, especially popular ones on steam.

You may ask why I keep referencing Sengoku Rance, and that is because it is the highest selling Rance game in the west. Most Alicesoft games only sell around 1500 on the website. That would have been the fate of Evenicle had steam not picked it up.

It would be an easy source of money for Steam as allowing Rance on their store should be more than enough, however even if the sales are not high the fanbase around it will respect steam and have some brand loyalty to them for taking the first steps towards allowing all types of games to flourish.

That aside Rance could also be a smash hit if it were on the frontpage, just look at Rance content. Someone uploaded the Rance 01: Quest for Hikari hentai on YouTube without the hentai, and it got 51k views. Another person just uploaded the "Rance Attack" in both hentai adaptations and it got nearly 200k views. Another video which is just the song "Rebirth the Edge" from the Sengoku Rance soundtrack has over half a million views. Most Rance content that has over a thousand views sits around the 50k mark. Meanwhile if we compare that to Evenicle which has most videos under the 20k mark with one video in the 1.8M view range, however in said video the reviewer literally name drops Sengoku Rance as one of his favorites which I'm sure with a steam release he would do a review on if not for the sole purpose of helping it sell more. In short even in the west Rance is a far more popular title than Evenicle, despite the difference in sales.

So from all of this I can only say that Steam reversing it's decision to not carry the Rance series of games is beneficial for all parties involved and as a consumer will hurt my wallet. Jokes about my decimated bank account in the event my arguments bear fruit aside, I think it would be best for everyone to allow Rance on steam.

While my argument focuses on Rance, I would hope that if this argument gets Rance on steam that it also opens the gate to more Eroge on steam.

If that does not work I at least want everyone who reads this to know that Steam holds a lot of power over smaller devs. MangaGamer can't pay industry standard without heading towards bankruptcy, which the translator I mentioned earlier literally admitted despite his dislike of MangaGamer as he believes they should go out of businesses before paying sub-standard wages. Regardless of one's opinion on that matter the fact is steam could solve this problem handily, and in the process MangaGamer might be able to hire on more staff to release more games in the west.

In short by simply allowing more Eroge on the store steam would be making a long term investment that even if it doesn't become the massive money maker they hoped for will still pay-off.

TL;DR: Add Eroge start with Rance, make decent money, save translators from starving.

[Brian9824]

Steam allows any title even adult ones on the store and has for a while.

As long as the game isn't highly controversial like the rape game or the school shooting one, and ask long as the game is legal it can be sold.

So ask the developer why they don't release it on steam.

[Garou]

There are tons of anime puzzle games and visual novels with free 18+ DLC. Unless you're talking about something different here.

[B l u e b e r r y P o p t a r t]

I'm just going to put it out there that no I def didn't read all of this but what I will say is that I think if you are going to allow some stuff in this genre than you should allow all of it and add in more tools for people that don't want o see it EVER.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Most of what Valve doesn't allow is usually when the game dev does not submit the game for ratings or lied and say they did but actually didn't.

[Proaustin]

Ursprungligen skrivet av brian9824:

Steam allows any title even adult ones on the store and has for a while.

As long as the game isn't highly controversial like the rape game or the school shooting one, and ask long as the game is legal it can be sold.

So ask the developer why they don't release it on steam.

You read what I posted yes?

As reported by a programmer working for Mangagamer both Rance 5D and VI were rejected by steam. And again the idea that it's okay "as long as the game isn't highly controversial like the rape game" only works if that idea is enforced equally. I literally gave you a response to this very argument if you read my full argument, I mentioned that Evenicle also got on steam. Should I tell you what messed up stuff happened in that game? Actually I won't, describing it might actually get me banned from the steam community.

[Proaustin]

Ursprungligen skrivet av F35:

There are tons of anime puzzle games and visual novels with free 18+ DLC. Unless you're talking about something different here.

I am referring in this post to specifically the Rance series, it is a Eroge series that is highly innovative (believe it or not) as it has changed its gameplay in almost every entry to the series after 4.2. It has been a JRPG, a FE style JRPG, a strategy game, a dice game, and a Gatcha game style JRPG.

On top of that the Rance series is only a year younger than the Final Fantasy series, it is a long running series and the developers Alicesoft made every game prior to 5D freeware. Not that I can justly recommend the older games as they have aged poorly, but even then they were innovative for good and bad. Rance 3 had an auto-battle system, which would certainly come in handy when grinding for levels.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

The Rance game was removed because they didn't cut out the content requested by Valve in time and they also lied about submitting it to get rated when they actually didn't. They didn't even bother to submit the cut game back to Steam and left it at that, still never submitting it to be rated either.

It didn't help it came at the time R* Day was removed either. They could have waited a few months, cut out the bad content, submit it for ratings and all would have been peachy.

[Konata]

Agree, especially the really cute and funny ones.

[Proaustin]

Ursprungligen skrivet av cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

The Rance game was removed because they didn't cut out the content requested by Valve in time and they also lied about submitting it to get rated when they actually didn't. They didn't even bother to submit the cut game back to Steam and left it at that, still never submitting it to be rated either.

It didn't help it came at the time R* Day was removed either. They could have waited a few months, cut out the bad content, submit it for ratings and all would have been peachy.

:qr:

Could you direct me on where to find that? I could not find a source on that and a programmer working for Mangagamer did not mention anything about that instead complaining that steam sends automated messages to tell you your game can not be on the store instead of telling you the reasons.

That aside XXX Day being removed should not impact another separate game, the fact that you believe it does should be concerning as to the state of steam. If the removal of one game impacts Steams decision's on another separate game, which it would not impact if said game came months later, then steam has a problem. Steam would not be using precedent as precedent would not change that quickly, nor would steam be using their guidelines because the guidelines don't judge a game based off a unrelated game, the conclusion one would be left with is that Steam is being impulsive in its decision making.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

Ursprungligen skrivet av Proaustin:

Ursprungligen skrivet av brian9824:

Steam allows any title even adult ones on the store and has for a while.

As long as the game isn't highly controversial like the rape game or the school shooting one, and ask long as the game is legal it can be sold.

So ask the developer why they don't release it on steam.

You read what I posted yes?

As reported by a programmer working for Mangagamer both Rance 5D and VI were rejected by steam. And again the idea that it's okay "as long as the game isn't highly controversial like the rape game" only works if that idea is enforced equally. I literally gave you a response to this very argument if you read my full argument, I mentioned that Evenicle also got on steam. Should I tell you what messed up stuff happened in that game? Actually I won't, describing it might actually get me banned from the steam community.

Are those games on Mangagamer?