In a rather shocking announcement post, Valve has announced that they will stop trying to police users and developers in regards to what they should be allowed to purchase or create and will instead allow any and all games to be on their platform (a policy already all too evident in the quality of titles on the platform).
The news spontaneously came in the form of a blog post, which detailed that Steam’s recent debacle regarding censoring visual novels on their platform caused a debate inside the company – and ultimately they decided that they should not be trying to decide what consumers can and can’t buy and what developers are allowed to create.
Perhaps the most crucial snippets of the post:
Naturally they have also clarified that accepting a controversial game does not necessarily reflect the views of Valve or Steam; fans though will no doubt be overjoyed to know that a big games company is willing to listen to criticism (for once), let alone admit to their mistakes and take a risky position involving common sense and fairness.
I’m impressed. And very surprised. But mostly very impressed.
A blog post with a disclaimer noting that no changes will be made anytime soon does not impress me.
“In the short term, we won’t be making significant changes to what’s arriving on Steam until we’ve finished some of the tools we’ve described in this post. As we’ve hopefully managed to convey, navigating these issues is messy and complicated. Countries and societies change their laws and cultural norms over time.”
Sounds like they hope the blog post will be enough to make people forget about censorship, then they can take their time “finishing some tools” and justify future debacles by saying the issue is “messy, complicated and changes over the time.”
Yeah. All Steam did is just sweet talk and now everyone going into trance, celebrate, and forget everything they did before this to happened. Dumb people never learn.
How about being rational, wait, and see if they going to keep their words and do exactly what they have said or not.
They are keeping their word b/c if they purge certain content they lose developer’s trust and most importantly money from both gamers and devs. What’s the point in having game ratings when Valve is going to be our parents on what’s available to buy?
How is that sweet talking, though? They literally came out with a statement explaining everything.
The tools will be made in valve time
It’s good because they have their minds and priorities set for letting people choose what they want to create and play as well as looking into games with more serious issues.
GABEN SAMAAAA!
whos gaben? tell me more about your lord and saviour
He will give you such joy, most of which you will never enjoy.
And oh, are his blessings a pain upon thy wallet, but blessed is he who weathers His Summer Decrees!
Joy to the world, the Lard is cum
You don’t need to know. Just shut up and suck his dick like everyone else.
yeah but still no l♥♥i games most likely : (
They said they will stop censoring s♥♥t unless it’s outright illegal. Is l♥♥i hentai illegal? I think not.
in Canada, yes its ilegal
depends where you live…
Regional locking. They already do that for other kinds of content…
They said unless they “deem it is illegal.” Basically “if we think it’s illegal, it is so.”
What happened to inclusion? A large percentage of the population are lolis, but they are greatly underrepresented in pornographic media! This is plain discrimination!
Very much depends where you live, Steam already has “not for sale in your area” blocks so I’d expect that would be used.
Those are more for “NO NAZI’S EVER, WHAT WAS WORLD WAR 2!?!? WE KNOW NOTHING!!!” Germany or Australia’s “A gun? BANNED, THEY DON’T EXIST!!!”
That’s still bullshit. We are all born equal and deserve equal access to delicious l♥♥i irrespective of nationality!
All hail our Lord and Savior, Gaben!
sure sure. Makes CS 20 times a year cheap as f*ck…then sheds crocodile tears why everone is cheating. And why again does he needs my phone number for me to trade s♥♥t? Gestapo Gaben confirmed I say.
First of all, Gabe is CEO. he isn’t developing CS. that is just a game studio under valve.
and cheaters are a big fucking problem for game companies, it turns players away from the game, so it is retarded to say they wouldn’t care.
Adding phone number for extra security.
and no where i found any information on having to add your phone number for trading. maybe you are just mistaken and don’t actually read any of the guides they provide.
I have never needed a phone number to trade anything.
I only linked my phone number when I wanted to play CSGO in prime matches.
And how about bringing back anime mods for CS and other games, like it was back in the day, where one of the reason CS got huge, was due to anime mods which drew in gamers from other genre.
lol thats literally the same reason why Left4daead2 is still popular to this very day.
Pretty foolish of them to cut that off in CS
the 2 step verification via the steam app for trading is necessary, as people start getting large inventories, hackers can come in and trade that all that s♥♥t to a junk account, sell it and then buy a game as a gift for their main account.
I love how people freely give their phone number to Facebook and Twitter but when it comes to Steam, it’s suddenly too much. Classic ignorance. <3
nope. Not on skullbook or skitch. I hate social intercourse. Kind a waste of time. You are a good example why.
“Something you hate and wish didn’t exist.” could honestly be applied to everyone that can’t get along, tbh… Good to know Steam is being mature about this. As long as they put up warning labels and sufficient parental controls in case, things should more or less run smoothly…
I someday hope we will be able to get more VNs on steam as well. I look forward to anything of Nitroplus.
There are already games on Steam I wish were not there that is just there way of saying don’t worry SJWs we are being bullied into acting like we will allow this on steam because they still have to “finish” their tools first which probably mean lots of “prove your an adult” pop-ups