Eh, if steam saw some of the content as involving a minor and they are sick of dealing with games trying to toe the line before *and likely after* release I could see them defaulting to a no do overs policy. Especially if the game dev doesn't sell enough games to make the potential legal hassle necessary. It would be far better if they pointed out what they are using for criteria for sure and allow at least one do over in case of a misunderstanding though.

Right. I’m not saying anything like “Steam must allow all content because free speech” - I’m just saying if someone is trying to make a game with complex or even weird themes, Valve should at least participate in a conversation instead of dealing out irrevocable absolute judgments based on content that isn’t even finished.

I hate to say it but I perfectly understand why Valve wouldn't want to carry this particular title. Sucks for the makers honestly but what they're trying to convey may be best served someplace else anyway.

After reading a couple more articles I get the strong feeling that steam/valve'a early communication about concerns with the live actor portions likely did convey what they had issues with and the dev is trying to be coy about it by speculating on a scene that magically works better with a young adult. I'm leaning towards them making the change because of expecting the other storefronts to have the same issues. So they kind of did get more than one chance, but they are focused on the one with the rejection.

i think we’re missing the forest for the trees here by arguing wether valve should’ve allowed the game or not. the fact that valve is in such a dominant position that them refusing to sell a game can mean not only the game’s failure, but the shutdown of the studio making it, is a big problem. and it’s not just this game, after the payment processor affair, [VILE: Exhumed](https://dreadxp.com/vile-is-banned/) (a game about sexual assault) was banned from steam (for being about sexual assault), before it could even release game devs shouldn’t have to rely on just one vendor’s approval to sell their stuff, it’s an unhealthy ecosystem.

I honestly don't know what the answer is though, since I refuse to buy a game anywhere else. If it's not on steam I'm not buying it.

But this game is getting distribution through GoG and about a half dozen other platforms listed in the article. Do most people game through steam? Yes. But centralization of the marketplace isn't necessarily a bad thing. There's a reason why people complain when they have to use other game stores an launchers. It's the "I have 50 different streaming services" problem. If Steam starts abusing that market position, then yes, we should care about that and they should suffer backlash. Which makes the question of "did they do the right thing here," very much relevant.

That's shortsighted as hell. I cma understand not wanting to have multiple clients installed but there's GoG at the very least. Gog gives drm free installers, no laucher needed. Install it somewhere, go into steam, add non-steam game. Boom. Done.

there is another way, games shouldn’t be tied to the store you bought them in like, for physical objects, you can buy a thing from one store and another thing from another store, and they’ll be in your house no problem, you won’t even have to think about which store you bought which thing from (unless you need to return it or for customer service). it’s fundamentally decentralized. why shouldn’t digital distribution work that way too? it’s entirely possible, but obviously vendors benefit from locking you to their platform (that goes for steam, but also to epic games and, to a lesser extent GOG and itch as well) there should be no company with power to abuse in the first place. steam refused to sell your game? alright, you can sell it in other places and it’ll be fine. but that’s not how it works right now, most people buy on steam, and ONLY on steam, because it has a dominant position. so, if you can’t sell on steam, you’re done for! and we can analyse each ban on a case-by-case basis (there’s many steam game bans I am glad happened), but there’s also cases like VILE: Exhumed, where steam caved to pressure from payment processors (which are also very centralized, that’s another honestly bigger problem) to ban a game with progressive politics simply because it talked about stuff that makes reactionary prudes uncomfortable. we can’t just rely on Good Guy Valve to stay good forever

Did you watch the game trailer? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYewjNYxV-8 It's not a sex thing.

Did you watch the game trailer? Are you really saying this is pony play fetishism? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYewjNYxV-8 The equivalent here is the idea that something became wrong because it's "young child" and "naked man". It's literally the same discussion I saw in that forum about My Neighbor Totoro, because, again: moralists see nudity and think it can only represent sex

puritan bullshit all up and down this thread, and bronies protesting too much i'll get it from https://www.gog.com/en/game/horses

It really feels like some important piece of information is missing from this article. The whole thing is just the dramatised opinions of the guy who’s game got banned, and it’s clear that he thinks very highly of himself: > And while Horses won't be launching on consoles due to porting costs, Pietro says the console makers who've seen Horses have said they'd be "happy to have the game on \[their] platform" > "We had multiple publishers actively coming to us," explains Pietro, "and be like, 'Hey, we want to make this game.'" Looking at the game trailer and stills, I do not believe that this game was the talk of console-town or a publishing darling. It’s a rough as hell indie game about abusing humans with intentionally sexual imagery (I don’t believe him when he says the game is not sexual either, the trailer features people dressed as horses, followed by a shot of real-life horses fucking). If the game was so beloved by consoles, you would think that the “world’s best indie studio” could scrape together a few investors to pay for porting. Their other games have console releases. Where’s the love for the horse themed snuff game on Switch 2? This is a misleading article implying that the poor devs have had their game ripped from them: > And nearly 18 months on, the studio still isn't certain what triggered the ban. Except Valve explained in their response: > we found that this title features themes, imagery, or descriptions that we won't distribute. Regardless of a developer's intentions with their product, we will not distribute content that appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor. While every product submitted is unique, if your product features this representation—even in a subtle way that could be defined as a 'grey area'—it will be rejected by Steam. Your game crossed lines that Valve has decided are too far for them. You changed the girl into a woman in later builds, but the application YOU submitted showed that there was consideration made in putting a small child into your horse-bdsm-murder game in a sexually suggestive manner. Valve cannot confirm that the rest of your game isn’t going to steer back in that direction, and has made a choice based on the information they have. They do not owe every dev a personalised response when their game is banned for exploiting minors. The game is going to be on GoG, Epic, Humble, and Itch.io. This dev is chucking a public tanty because he’s not allowed on Steam. This is 100% just a marketing ploy to drum up sympathy and push sales on other storefronts. No doubt a future trailer will contain the phrase “The game that was too scary for Steam is now available on Epic!” or some such.

Of course it was Santa Ragione. Met one of the founders years ago, acted like he had discovered the wheel and hot water himself when all he did was come up with Mirrormoon, which while good is anything but the smash hit he was pretending it was, it just happened to be the most successful italian indie game at the time of, like maybe 3 of them? These guys are pathologically auteur, and from everything I've seen of them, think they're way smarter than they actually are.

> the fact that valve is in such a dominant position that them refusing to sell a game can mean not only the game’s failure, but the shutdown of the studio making it, There are games exclusive to Epic that do just fine. There are games on itch and GoG that are doing just fine. If Steam not hosting your game causes your studio to shut down, it's not because Steam is being some unreasonable gatekeeper. It's because you're making something that there isn't any market for, or so little of a market that your only hope is to get it visible to as many people as possible so the tiny fraction of them that are interested can keep you afloat.

But they aren't tied to a store? When you download a game from Steam, it's just an executable on your box. You could put it on a hard drive and move it wherever you wanted. You don't have to launch games you bought with Steam through Steam. They aren't streamed. They are saved locally to your computer. You can only *download* it from that store, sure, but that's not apples to apples. If I buy a game from GameStop, they won't give me another copy for free, just cause I threw away the copy they gave me. Once you download the game, that's what they sold you, and it's notionally your responsibility to keep track of it. Them allowing you to keep downloading new copies forever isn't strictly necessary, and costs them money every time you do it. And if you can run the games you downloaded without Steam, all you're saying is "there should be other places to buy your games." But there are. Those exist. Less people use them, sure, but what do you propose? Kill Steam because too many people use it to buy their games? Legislate that people are required to shop at other stores?

well, many games are tied to the steam client (through the steam runtimes, steam DRM, steam input, needing a steam account for online play...). for most games, no, you can't just take the executable and do whatever you want with it. you'll need the steam client, and this creates a lock-in effect. because you need steam open to play all your steam games, you won't look elsewhere for games, and you won't see games not on steam, unless they're big enough. imo, the solution to this is to break the lock-in, have interoperability between clients. there's no good reason why cross-play between steam and GOG, for example, is an exception and not the norm. there's no good reason why the steam client is required for so many games, there should be offline installers. there's no good reason why steam input only works with the steam client. part of the reason why proton is so amazing is that it's open-source, other steam technologies should be the same!

> You might not immediately recognise the name Santa Ragione Because you clickbait vultures don't use proper nouns in your goddamn headlines?

> There are games exclusive to Epic that do just fine. Alan Wake 2 took an entire year to become profitable. It's because the one store everyone uses didn't carry it.

Yeah, it's a monopoly. That's not a value judgement. It's not calling them evil or criminal or anything. It is a necessary recognition of their market position. I.e. - they have competitors, but those competitors *do not matter.*