Valve will soon allow virtually anything on Steam

midian182

Posts: 9,663   +121
Staff member
What just happened? Following the controversy surrounding its decision to ban an FPS about school shootings last week, Valve has now clarified what it will allow on Steam: everything, pretty much. The company has announced that the only content it will restrict is anything deemed to be illegal or “straight up trolling.”

The move comes after a number of games, particularly Japanese visual novels, were threatened with removal from the platform unless their sexual content was censored. Valve later told the publishers and developers of these titles to disregard the warnings and apologized for the confusion caused.

In a blog post announcing the change in policy, Valve’s Erik Johnson writes, “If you’re a player, we shouldn’t be choosing for you what content you can or can’t buy. If you’re a developer, we shouldn’t be choosing what content you’re allowed to create. Those choices should be yours to make. Our role should be to provide systems and tools to support your efforts to make these choices for yourself, and to help you do it in a way that makes you feel comfortable.”

Johnson said that Valve doesn’t rely solely on automation for curation; “groups of people” examine the content of every controversial game submitted through Steam Direct. He added that disagreements over topics such as politics, sexuality, racism, gender, violence, identify, ec. have led to Valve’s “employees, their families, and their communities" getting “mad.”

It's possible that Valve will be changing its Steam Direct rules and guidelines, which state that hate speech, pornography, and patently offensive content shouldn't be published on Steam.

Valve didn’t say what games constitute trolling, though it did use the word to describe the aforementioned school shooting simulator. Johnson explained that Valve was considering a system where it asks developers to highlight any potentially controversial content in their games during the submission process. Any that fail to do so may be banned from the platform. “We'll still continue to perform technical evaluations of submissions, rejecting games that don't pass until their issues have been resolved,” he said.

To make sure Steam users don’t see titles they might find offensive, Valve is adding new tools that allow them to override the recommendation algorithms and hide certain types of games, such as anime titles or anything parents wouldn’t want their kids to see while browsing the store. “And it’s not just players that need better tools either — developers who build controversial content shouldn’t have to deal with harassment because their game exists, and we’ll be building tools and options to support them too.”

Johnson said there wouldn’t be any significant changes to Steam until these tools are complete.

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This is how I envision the meeting went:
"How can we make more money?"
-"Half-Life 3"
"Naaa..."
-"Porn makes a lot of money."
"Hmmm Hmmm... but how do we make it seem like it's not just about porn..."
-"How about we remove all content restrictions."
"Genius!"

;P
 
As long as they don't fill it up with lots of garbage it is a great idea .....

User rated systems and "mods" with reputation that can feature items.

I would love to make money with custom UI modification to certain games or steam profile backgrounds, anything digital.
 
I have a feeling the meeting went more like this:

"Everyone is crying about us banning an inappropriate title
-What? Why? We're doing this for them!
"Well they're mad that we're censoring for them
-Screw it - put all the garbage out there as long as we can't be sued.
"Okay - here goes...

*What the hell? Steam sucks, there's so much garbage on here now.

Most people are sheeple... they don't really know what they want or don't think far enough to consider the consequences of their actions or desires. Contagious outrage steers most people's behavior instead of consideration and logic.
 
I have a feeling the meeting went more like this:

"Everyone is crying about us banning an inappropriate title
-What? Why? We're doing this for them!
"Well they're mad that we're censoring for them
-Screw it - put all the garbage out there as long as we can't be sued.
"Okay - here goes...

*What the hell? Steam sucks, there's so much garbage on here now.

Most people are sheeple... they don't really know what they want or don't think far enough to consider the consequences of their actions or desires. Contagious outrage steers most people's behavior instead of consideration and logic.
Meh, App stores on smartphones are full of garbage, Youtube is full of bad videos, but anything worth using / watching tends to get the attention it deserves so I wouldn't be that worried as long as Valve makes decent strides in letting us block crap we don't want to see.

Would be cool if we could "follow" developers or something so we get more games from them show up for example.
 
I have a feeling the meeting went more like this:

"Everyone is crying about us banning an inappropriate title
-What? Why? We're doing this for them!
"Well they're mad that we're censoring for them
-Screw it - put all the garbage out there as long as we can't be sued.
"Okay - here goes...

*What the hell? Steam sucks, there's so much garbage on here now.

Most people are sheeple... they don't really know what they want or don't think far enough to consider the consequences of their actions or desires. Contagious outrage steers most people's behavior instead of consideration and logic.
And I would add into that internal conversation something along the lines of
Oh my God! We are being branded as liberals who don't believe in the first amendment of the US Constitution. What can we do?

@captaincranky brought up the concept of want vs need in another thread that I think is spot on to your comments about most people being sheeple.

Personally, I wonder if this will lead to more content on Steam with embedded malware. In being politically correct, Steam may have just opened the doors for even more trouble.
 
"In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
Now heaven knows, anything goes

Good authors too who once knew better words
Now only use four letter words writing prose, anything goes

The world has gone mad today and good's bad today
And black's white today and day's night today
When most guys today that women prize today
Are just silly gigolos...……..

May I say before this record spins to a close
I want you to know anything goes"

Cole Porter from a 1934 musical "Anything Goes"
 
I have a feeling the meeting went more like this:

"Everyone is crying about us banning an inappropriate title
-What? Why? We're doing this for them!
"Well they're mad that we're censoring for them
-Screw it - put all the garbage out there as long as we can't be sued.
"Okay - here goes...

*What the hell? Steam sucks, there's so much garbage on here now.

Most people are sheeple... they don't really know what they want or don't think far enough to consider the consequences of their actions or desires. Contagious outrage steers most people's behavior instead of consideration and logic.

Exactly why we need government. People want freedom but are too dumb to realize what that means.
 
I have a feeling the meeting went more like this:

"Everyone is crying about us banning an inappropriate title
-What? Why? We're doing this for them!
"Well they're mad that we're censoring for them
-Screw it - put all the garbage out there as long as we can't be sued.
"Okay - here goes...

*What the hell? Steam sucks, there's so much garbage on here now.

Most people are sheeple... they don't really know what they want or don't think far enough to consider the consequences of their actions or desires. Contagious outrage steers most people's behavior instead of consideration and logic.

I must reluctantly agree with this. While I am 100% against censorship, removing content controls on a platform like Steam will likely result in a flood of garbage coming to the platform. We've already seen this over the past year with all the "visual novels" that have populated the main store feeds.

Nobody has to buy the stuff, but everyone will have to wade through the additional 3-5 pages of BS on the store just to skim products they may be interested in.

This move seems very shortsighted.
 
I have a feeling the meeting went more like this:

"Everyone is crying about us banning an inappropriate title
-What? Why? We're doing this for them!
"Well they're mad that we're censoring for them
-Screw it - put all the garbage out there as long as we can't be sued.
"Okay - here goes...

*What the hell? Steam sucks, there's so much garbage on here now.

Most people are sheeple... they don't really know what they want or don't think far enough to consider the consequences of their actions or desires. Contagious outrage steers most people's behavior instead of consideration and logic.

I must reluctantly agree with this. While I am 100% against censorship, removing content controls on a platform like Steam will likely result in a flood of garbage coming to the platform. We've already seen this over the past year with all the "visual novels" that have populated the main store feeds.

Nobody has to buy the stuff, but everyone will have to wade through the additional 3-5 pages of BS on the store just to skim products they may be interested in.

This move seems very shortsighted.

I 100% disagree with you. Just because you think something is garbage doesn't mean everything one thinks its garbage.

There is multiple functions already in place so you don't have to "through the additional 3-5 pages of BS" There is a search function, there is a function to only see genres you want to see, search by key words, publishers/developers, etc.

So if you are wading though multiple pages its your own fault
 
Just because you think something is garbage doesn't mean everything one thinks its garbage.

There is multiple functions already in place so you don't have to "through the additional 3-5 pages of BS" There is a search function, there is a function to only see genres you want to see, search by key words, publishers/developers, etc.

Do you usually point out the obvious to people or is today a special occasion?

So if you are wading though multiple pages its your own fault

I browse the front pages of the store when I log in to find new games. So do a lot of other people. Those are the feeds that get populated with junk (which you are kind enough to remind us is treasure to some).

What's happening here, is we have a very efficient way of skimming titles. Think of it like a road. And Valve is saying they want to pour gravel on that road. And here you are, saying people who don't like it can just take the scenic rout.

That's no good.
 
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