Steam Is Banning Sex Games With Young-Looking Characters - Sensationalist Headlines

It is illegal in a lot of places around the world though and it's unpleasant trying to make a stand on ethical grounds that it should be in those countries. If it we're about homosexual relations and Russia and China bitched, absolutely the place to refuse to remove them and make an ethical stand. Countries don't want sexual art of kids? Ehh, you can sit that one out

Then just block these games in certain regions? Valve has already encouraged doing this with some of the other porn games released.

It's a big enough issue and widespread enough that the path of least resistance, and of least ethical questionability, is just a widespread ban.

What "resistance" and "ethical questionability"? I haven't seen much evidence of Valve getting in a significant amount trouble for this stuff. And as I said, if Valve is fined because of the content in a game being sold in a region that disallows it, the devs are the ones to pay the price.

No, Valve pays the price in that case. They're the ones who are ultimately distributing a game that features illegal content. The devs may get something to, but Valve facilitated it and is therefore subject to it as well.

What I meant by "paying the price" is that fines that Valve may be hit with are passed down to the devs. That's a pretty good incentive for the devs to block their games in some areas if they don't want to be in massive financial trouble, and Valve wouldn't get hit much by these situations at the end of the day.

I don't know if laws allow people to pass fines onto other entities. Additionally, the developers probably wouldn't or couldn't pay these fines.

Valve can't just pass it down to the devs like that, that isn't how it works. Trying to could get them in to even more trouble. By making it policy that content like that won't be allowed then they can help mitigate the risk of being fined themselves and gives them at least some ground to argue the devs owe compensation if they are fined.

The devs of Negligee (those behind the first uncensored adult game on Steam) said they are in a contract where they are liable for fines that could come at Valve's way, so it probably applies to other companies. '100 Per Cent Uncensored' Sex Game Now Out on Steam, But Only in.. "Several of the restricted countries banned the game [before release], which prompted us to realise that we can’t release it under the radar,” the studio wrote. “You might think that it is ludicrous, but Dharker Studios is a company. If we release a game in a country where the content is illegal or could be considered illegal, then potentially we could suffer. If they fined or targeted Steam as per our agreement with Steam, we would be liable for it. Therefore sadly we must err on the side of caution. And that determines the restrictions."

They can agree that with Valve but that doesn't mean the regulatory bodies will accept it. Valve themselves are still responsible for paying the fines. Even if they have a contract stating the developer would pay it, that's wholly between Valve and the developer -- and whether or not Valve is able to recoup the cost of the fines, Valve still has to pay.

Even so, it's a pretty big incentive for these companies to play ball and if they don't, it could lead to said companies being in deeper shit than they otherwise would have. Not to mention, Valve already risked themselves in opening a big can of worms by allowing adult content on their site to begin with.

I just don't see how you think it's feasible for Valve to allow content that is illegal in a large amount of countries that they operate in. Fines can't always just be paid. Punishment isn't always just fines.

If Valve could receive exuberant consequences despite proper restrictions by country, then yeah, maybe I'd understand (and hell, maybe that's the case, but I haven't seen proof of this nor has Valve hasn't communicated that clearly so idk). If not, then if they find a game in violation of this policy, I can't imagine banning it only in certain places would be much harder than banning it outright other than requiring some preparation and legal knowledge from their side.

"muh cod lets u kill people r u gonna ban that too???" argument is fucking stupid stop using it cod/battlefield/violent war games: not designed for you to jack off to nekopara/sakura-whatever/loli vns with upskirts and bathing scenes with convienent fog: absolutely intended for you to jack off to

Ok, so? both are fictional and not real.

Anecdotally I can say, as someone who has witnessed (and promptly reported and etc) cp images on imageboards in the distant past, loli and actual cp is worlds apart. Even the most fucked up loli porn my friend posts in discord (he's fucking weird lol) doesn't give me the same visceral feeling in my gut that just remembering those few relatively softcore images that were seared into my brain gives me. I realize my experience may not be the norm, but based on my own experiences I can only hazard a guess that the kind of people who say "loli is cp" have never actually seen cp before. It seriously fucks you up.

If you can't make the distinction between dedicated porn and not porn, you aren't qualified to debate porn ethics. Whether it's fictional literally doesn't matter, but lol if you're going to be willing to listen to an argument that doesn't conform with your closeted perception of reality.

Does it matter if one is pornographic and the other isn’t? they’re not real. It’s all fake, and there is no proof it turns people into “degenerates” or whatever.

Whereas you have no perception of reality.

If someone gets off to a drawing of a non-furry, straight-up animal, are they not in any way a zoophile? And if someone likes Yaoi, is that completely irrelevant to thier orientation by virtue of being drawn?

I'm not sure those comparisons are valid.

Sorry to interrupt the loli conversation, but has this been posted? Steamworks Partner Program What you shouldn’t publish on Steam: Adult content that isn’t appropriately labeled and age-gated Libelous or defamatory statements Content you don’t own or have adequate rights to Content that violates the laws of any jurisdiction in which it will be available Content that exploits children in any way Applications that modify customer’s computers in unexpected or harmful ways, such as malware or viruses Applications that fraudulently attempts to gather sensitive information, such as Steam credentials or financial data (e.g. credit card information) Apparently Steam does NOT have an anything-goes publishing policy, if anyone is still worried about Valve pulling incoherent strings.

Point is I don't think you can dismiss something and a drawn version of something as entirely seperate entities. Stylizing something doesn't make it utterly unrecognizable.

Ye, it's not like, at least for most people, them liking regular hentai has no connection to liking irl women; the former is a stylised representation of the latter. Tho there are peeps who unironically can't get it up to real women, only 2d women, which is all sorts of messed up on its own.

Is there a limit to this excuse? Is there anything that shouldn’t be allowed in Steam?

One calls it excuse, another calls it artistic freedom.

Instead of semantics let’s focus on the actual point I made, shall we? What’s the limit? Should “Hyperrealistic Fetus Murder and Rape Simulator VR” go on Steam? It’s just a fantasy after all, or what? I’m sorry that I have to come up with gruesome examples here, but it seems to me that people are simply ignoring the limitations of the argument “it’s just fantasy, so it’s okay”. Either you’re A-okay with titles like the above, or you’re saying there is no line, but in reality there is one - you just think it’s on the other side of loli, without really arguing why.

You coulda just said "Do you want Agony on steam"

https://www.reddit.com/r/visualnovels/comments/a514ce/valve_will_reportedly_address_steam_game_bans_at/ From one of the developers affected: So everyone knows, we were contacted out of the blue today by a liaison who has told us they reached out to us - and various other studios similarly affected - to essentially what boils down to mediating a response to Valve, who - as we all know - is infamously hard to get in direct touch with. They've given us specific name(s) as to who has been contacted and who to expect a response from. The person in question has requested to remain anonymous. The email they sent us was pretty positive in nature/tone, but I guess we'll see what happens - no promises or anything. We were just told to expect a response by the end of the week. Whether this is a final response or not was unspecified for now. We'll keep everyone updated here and on social media as it progresses.

I think you're running into a problem here, because this thread is tackling the question on like three different fronts at the same time: Should it be allowed on steam? Should it be illegal? Is it morally okay? My answer to all these for the hypothetical title would be 1. That's up to Valve, banning it is fine and likely a good idea. 2. No, no fiction should be illegal. 3. It's a reprehensible fantasy, but if morals are based on how others are affected, then this (and any) fantasy is morally acceptable. I'm having a hard time buying this, at least not that it's the vast majority. It's interesting to me that you describe being almost completely indiscriminate about it, "If it's anime, I'm probably into it". I really don't think that's the norm - although if it is, then your claim makes sense. But loli character designs use traits that are directly associated with real children, such as large eyes, large heads, short stature, narrow hips, etc. If they don't even resemble children, then it doesn't make sense that the stylization is used overwhelmingly to represent children in anime, and that the characters are generally easily recognizable as children. I don't dispute that some (or even many) can be attracted only to the stylized version, but I think there's a high likelihood of being attracted to both the real thing and stylized versions. Also when considering adult anime characters, when they're sexualized it's usually done by exaggerating traits that are both youthful and commonly sexually attractive, such as wide hips and large breasts. I would say the stylization changes it, yes, but it's still real human traits that make the characters attractive. Even in the case of monster girls, I would note that exactly what makes them able to be attractive is that the 'monster' traits are downplayed, such as the decaying flesh of a zombie being represented as basically blue skin. I think you're right that loli probably won't be able to deter someone mentally unwell enough to want to molest children, but I certainly think that many non-predatory pedophiles would rather consume harmless and legal material. So in that sense, I think potential child porn consumers can be deterred if loli is available and legal, whereas if it both child porn and loli is equally illegal, the incentive to use the latter won't be as big. And on top of that, if all outlets are illegal and banned, those people may feel vilified and outcast, and will be less likely to communicate about mental health problems, and more likely to become isolated and hostile. In that way, I think having a legal and accepted outlet can increase the mental health of those people, and thus have a preventive effect.