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NEWS: Game Publishers: Valve Issues Warning to Remove Adult Content From Steam

Interesting. Valve told the companies to disregard the previous emails and that they'll re-review the games. After that, if there is really any offending content, they'll explain it to the dev more in depth.

Either someone at Valve jumped the gun, or Valve is backtracking after the controversy. It doesn't really matter though. At the very least, I don't think this is an empty statement, and most of the games involved will be untouched. It feels kind of like the Hatred incident where a Valve employee caused controversy about banning a game, and Valve responding by reconsidering their decision.

One of the first responses was a feminist group claiming victory over this. Predictably, goalpost moving happened and people insist "well, they aren't true feminists. true feminists would never celebrate this" This is a game of Calvinball at its finest.

Them being feminists isn't going to change the latest news outlet hit piece on their business or visual novels as a whole being called deplorable. They'll be thrown under the bus like everyone else. Given the direction this thread went, I imagine their 'feminist' status will also be called into question. After all, what feminist would work on games that glorify rape and violence against women?

Again, the fact so many people are focusing on "LGBT games are targetted too!" sounds like people are more upset that they got caught in the crossfire of Steam banning pervy games aimed at straight dudes. To that, all I can say is, people shouldn't push for platforms and businesses to regulate sexual content in media if they aren't prepared for... platforms and businesses to regulate sexual content in media.

One of the first responses was a feminist group claiming victory over this. Predictably, goalpost moving happened and people insist "well, they aren't true feminists. true feminists would never celebrate this" This is a game of Calvinball at its finest.

You will see that this thread has grown substantially shorter. Please stay on topic and refrain from personal insults, or this thread will be locked.

Here's one of the more infamous ones.

https://twitter.com/CensoredGaming_/status/670180252417695744

Chester McCool wrote:

Here's one of the more infamous ones. https://twitter.com/CensoredGaming_/status/670180252417695744

So a male translator said three years ago that he exercises editorial judgment to make things more palatable to Western audiences, and you think that proves there's a vast conspiracy of feminists trying to censor things?I

Yeah, okay dude.

I'd just like to point out that the Fire Emblem Fates localization as a whole has been condemned by feminists after it came out that the only female romance option for the female protagonist had her entire romance route altered and was rewritten into a predatory lesbian trope.

Fire Emblem Fates localization as a whole is a massive dumpster fire. Trying to use it as an example of the Evil Feminist Conspiracy is laughable at best.

Actually it was a bit different than that, they didn't rewrite her into a predatory lesbian trope, but she was an expy of Tharja, who was always creepy/stalkerish. And what they did do though was change her and the one bi dude's support conversations to be identical to the straight romances.

In the original version, the conversations for both characters differed depending on whether you were romancing/interacting with them as a man or as a woman. (The lesbian one, for example, implied that she was actually in some way a reincarnation of Tharja, with the main character being the main character from Awakening, and this time not-Tharja was able to finally confess her love.)

But as said, the English localization, for whatever reason, changed the same sex support conversations so that they were just identical to those of opposite sex romances. It was weird.

Anyways, this is a bit of a tangent, just felt like clarifying.

animenewsnetwork.com/bbs/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=3038349

Very first post in this thread was praising the change, among others. Or just go browse sites like ResetEra and GamerGhazi for five minutes

Again, the fact so many people are focusing on "LGBT games are targetted too!" sounds like people are more upset that they got caught in the crossfire of Steam banning pervy games aimed at straight dudes. To that, all I can say is, people shouldn't push for platforms and businesses to regulate sexual content in media if they aren't prepared for... platforms and businesses to regulate sexual content in media.

I'm sorry, but I'd like to understand exactly where we draw the line at "personal insults".

I'm personally not trying to insult any specific individual, at least not in the sense of simply heaping verbal abuse at them. However when someone makes it very very obvious that they associate with a very specific group involved in multiple recent controversies associated with the video game industry, it's only fair to state my awareness of how that particular group behaved multiple times in the past.

This isn't about singular individuals, this is about the fact that a very particular anti-feminist (or rather, pro-misogynist) group has been trying to exploit this incident in an attempt to launch an attack on the feminist movement.

Chester McCool wrote:

Again, the fact so many people are focusing on "LGBT games are targetted too!" sounds like people are more upset that they got caught in the crossfire of Steam banning pervy games aimed at straight dudes. To that, all I can say is, people shouldn't push for platforms and businesses to regulate sexual content in media if they aren't prepared for... platforms and businesses to regulate sexual content in media.

One of the problems with the censorship is that what might be acceptable to one person is not quite acceptable to another so once the idea of censorship becomes acceptable it only grows worse with time. That Lupiesoft is getting defended on Twitter based on their games target demographic is curious since those of us who believe in free speech wouldn't even consider that to be a factor.

That's your interpretation. The way I saw it, I didn't see much evidence that he claimed affiliation with that group. All he really said was that the criticism leveled at that group was hyperbolic and that gamers are often falsely accused of affiliation with it. That's pretty far from claiming membership or even endorsement.

Here's the second rub:
"pro-misogynist" is how you would describe them. It is not how they would describe themselves, and calling someone that would be taken by most people to be an insult.

First of all, it wasn't "LGBT games targeted too!", rather it was almost exclusively LGBT games that were targeted.

Second, the reason we were bringing this up is because there is a long history of LGBT content being targeted, suppressed, and censored, so many of us were wondering if it was a coincidence, or if once again LGBT content was being targeted deliberately.

And finally, noting the above two points doesn't mean we're only concerned about LGBT games being removed.