Valve are easing up on what content is allowed on Steam

I wonder if the original notices were the work of a rouge employee.

You mean like a commie subversive?! ;)

This is really good. That's what real freedom of speech means. Not creating echo chambers full of people searching for a reason to be offended but a truly open place with something for everyone. Hell, I WANT to have things I hate there because that would exactly mean that something I love and somebody else hates is also welcome.

That does not necessarily follow, but in this case I'd agree chances are decent.

As a general rule, it seems quite common for authorities (government or corporate) to allow one kind of offensive content in the name of free speech while forbidding pretty comparable kinds of content without acknowledging any contradiction. For instance, near the height of the "Charlie Hebdo" thing, when everyone was waxing incredibly sanctimonious about Charlie Hebdo's free speech (which, just to be clear, is fine by me as far as it goes), some Muslim kid took a Charlie Hebdo page, substituted a few words so it seemed to be saying bad things about a different religion instead of about Islam, and put it up on the internet. The French "Free Speech R Us" authorities put him in jail. So you gotta watch people who claim to support allowing offensive stuff in the name of freedom--often turns out that some freedom is more equal than other freedom.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 7 June 2018 at 1:47 am UTC

At the end of the day, I barely rely on the Steam store page to find new games that I might be interested in. The avenues that make me curios of new games: GoL, Twitch, GOG, Co-Optimus.

I basically use GamingOnLinux. When a game is talked about here that seems like my kind of thing, I put it on my Steam wishlist. Never end up with Windows-only games that way!

Good. I'm all for a liberal attitude to what games are published on Steam. It is, after all, a content delivery platform and not a content curator. You know, it's funny, I would never have heard of the school shooter game that had people all in a lather had certain elements of the media not lost their shit over it.

Reminds me of two things.

1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h03nkvqS4Oc
2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxdVDIUsBWs

They have a near monopoly on games distribution. I am not sure I feel comfortable with a single company inflicting their personal view on what's morally acceptable on the entire world. "If it's not illegal, it's ok" is a really good way to handle it. I like it.

Shouldn't Valve be doing the opposite? the amount of shovelware and asset flips that appear on steam, they just have no Quality Assurance at all in that regard, thank god for places like GOG where they don't let any P.O.S software onto their store

GOG is far from perfect (BTW do they have finally a Linux client?). I saw several legitimate (even rewarded) games, best in their genre, to be reject without giving any explanation. I would rather have more freedom for me to choose, than having some (many) choices being denied because of arbitrary randomly applied rules.

Now if they will just realize their mistake with the CS:GO 7-day trade bans, we'll be back on good terms.

The only thing that bothers me is the cheap ass asset flip games that have no enjoyable characteristics or game-play at all. I guess its not terrible if they sell them for $1, but they are kinda deceiving.

That store needs more curation, not less. And I don't give a flying F if I miss out on one speculative piece of junk in that process. Let the junk be published in shacks outside the main stores.

The only thing that bothers me is the cheap ass asset flip games that have no enjoyable characteristics or game-play at all. I guess its not terrible if they sell them for $1, but they are kinda deceiving.

That store needs more curation, not less. And I don't give a flying F if I miss out on one speculative piece of junk in that process. Let the junk be published in shacks outside the main stores.

I don't get this problem.
Whenever I go to Steam, I simply don't see any of these shovelware games outside of the "new releases" tab. I rarely to never have them suggested to me in the queue, they do not appear in my front page suggestions and they certainly aren't recommended by curators I follow.

Even if Valve WOULD control what goes to the store, my experience would be pretty much identical.

If you're browsing deals of <5$, you obviously get what you asked for.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 7 June 2018 at 6:45 am UTC

I don't get this problem.
Whenever I go to Steam, I simply don't see any of these shovelware games outside of the "new releases" tab. I rarely to never have them suggested to me in the queue, they do not appear in my front page suggestions and they certainly aren't recommended by curators I follow.

Well, I followed the new releases filtered by OS for quite some time - and stopped doing so...

Wouldn't a company deciding what is good and bad for you also be troubling from a morale POV?

No, not per se. Eg., if they decide for themselves that they think content X is immoral and thus ban it from their store anr thus decide not to amke money with it, is not really immoral.

Personally I'd rather be disgusted by something, rather than knowing that someone got censored.

I think the impact of not-censoring is played too lightly here. Not-censoring does not just mean that some people feel disgusted. It can also mean, in the case of hate-crime related content or similar, that the discriminated against group feels even stronger oppressed because the oppression by some people gets a bigger platform. This will segregate the group even more from the non-oppressed. Additionally it somehow plays down such content, making it socially more acceptable to be immoral, and thus shapes our society, perhaps for the worse.

The impact of content we (even involuntarily) consume should not underestimated!

And, just like this discussion - people have different points of view. Different ideas, opinions. Censoring (more than required by law) would just be morally correct for the person deciding what's good and bad.

Well, kinda. But we can and should demand people to behave morally correct. This gives them a free-way to just ignore any morale-related issues.

Also many people criticized Valve for their Greenlight project because it had not enough curation. This is another restriction gone, which will mean many low-quality games might try get on there and make it difficult to find anything.

Content standards and quality standards are two completely different things. Banning anime tits isn't gonna do anything to stop asset flips.

It's just one additional point, also, while this is true, it makes managing a store like this much more difficult. Yes, they're different kinds of content, but if more content of some sorts is released, usually the barriers for others go down too, even if not intended so.

There's always a downside in having a more open store, with that I agree, but what we saw from Valve's previous policy is legitimate games getting reviewed by actual humans and being sent notices of removal.

But just because it was really bad before shouldn't mean we should congratulate them for doing something that *might* not be much better. It's the most primitive solution they chose, and it's perhaps a too easy way to really solve the problem.

Before sucked, but it's not "naturally the best thing to get rid of it" as often claimed, even in articles.

This is really good. That's what real freedom of speech means.

No, not really. Freedom of Speech means that you cannot be taken by law or whatever for creating the content. It does not mean that we need to give such content a platform. It does not mean that the media have to cover something. That's *not* freedom of speech.

Freedom of speach/expression also means that people are allowed to attack you somewhat for distributing the content. It also means that people are allowed their own judgement and act after it. The same goes for Valve.

I wonder when we can expect adult games then. I know valve has mentioned this once before.

They certainly should have a adult content section, just age verify it with credit card details perhaps?

Of cause some parents give their kids full access to their credit cards for some reason. Credit/Debit in case of emergency? Either way you need to be careful who sees such content!
THINK OF THE CHILDREN, GOD forbid if they learn about the birds and bees from anything other then their perverted mates at school! (I learned about it from an Atari-2600 video game, HILARIOUS!)


Last edited by TheRiddick on 7 June 2018 at 7:10 am UTC

I don't get this problem.
Whenever I go to Steam, I simply don't see any of these shovelware games outside of the "new releases" tab. I rarely to never have them suggested to me in the queue, they do not appear in my front page suggestions and they certainly aren't recommended by curators I follow.

Well, I followed the new releases filtered by OS for quite some time - and stopped doing so...

That seems to be an extremely inefficient method of looking for games.
I mean... even if Valve filtered non-games like asset flips, there would still be a dozen or so new games per day, if not more.

There are simply too many new games - and proper games, too - coming out to be able to check them all out.
I really don't see an alternative to a filter based on curators you follow and games you already own and played.

You cannot seriously expect Valve to not allow those games just because most among them aren't YOUR taste.

Take the recent Active Shooter that was taken down, according to Valve they have done many asset flips on Steam in the past. These are not games, things like asset flips exist purely to grab money from the foolish.

There are always two people to blame.
He, who rips off.
And he, who is stupid enough to be ripped off.
Both deserve each other.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 7 June 2018 at 7:51 am UTC

I wonder when we can expect adult games then. I know valve has mentioned this once before.

Exactly. Not that I mind a good porn flick. I'm no prude, nor am I particularly thin skinned. I do not get that easily offended, but everything has its place. And the Steam client is something I consider to be "main street" of gaming. A client I can install on my kids computer too. A client that can be up and running alongside my regular other software, at work for that matter. We all do during the holiday sales, don't we? :)

Cause that's the reality, the outcome for no curation: Speculative junk. Porn, shovelware, fraud attempts, hate mongering, racism, extremists political and religious agendas, and so forth.

And please note, This is content that I do not say should be BANNED - they just do not belong on the main street.

I love Steam as a game store/content delivery, but I must admit, their client UI and website looks a bit outdated. I wish they would do something about it. itch.io looks a lot better(their website).

Also, I use steam since 2007 I think, and I have gathered a lot of game since then, I would love an option to delete a game if I don't want it anymore(not hide it, delete it).