Varios desarrolladores han comentado en las redes sociales que han recibido una advertencia de Valve sobre el contenido sexual o erótico de sus juegos en Steam, con la amenaza de retirar estos títulos a final de mes si no son censurados.
Aparentemente la tienda de distribución digital habría enviado estos avisos a estudios que trabajan principalmente en novelas visuales o juegos con estética anime, como Huniepop -Huniepot- o Tropical Liquor -Neko Works-.
- IMPORTANT NOTICE -
I've received an e-mail from Valve stating that HuniePop violates the rules & guidelines for pornographic content on Steam and will be removed from the store unless the game is updated to remove said content.— HunieDev (@HuniePotDev) 17 de mayo de 2018
We have been informed that adult content in Tropical Liquor must be censored by the end of this month or the game will be removed from Steam. We are working on this issue.https://t.co/Cs3VxVARQy #steam— NEKO WORKs@OVA配信中！ (@nekopara_pr) 18 de mayo de 2018
¿Doble vara de medir?
La situación es extraña, puesto que Huniepop ya había sido censurado en Steam y su contenido original sólo se podía recuperar mediante parches.
El desarrollador de Mutiny!!, Lupiesoft, ha publicado una serie de mensajes en Twitter sobre esta situación, asegurando que su juego respeta las actuales normas de Steam. También señala que la propia Valve había confirmado que el contenido ecchi -sexy, pero no pornográfico- estaba aceptado en la plataforma.
Uno de sus comentarios destaca que al parecer los juegos afectados son todos de estética anime mientras que títulos occidentales, mucho más explícitos, no parece -por el momento- que hayan recibido advertencias. Entre estos superventas encontraríamos a la saga The Witcher o Conan Exiles, y ni CD Projekt RED ni Funcom han hecho comentarios sobre las exigencias de Valve.
In fact @Lupiesoft has been one of the strictest developers in terms of following Steam's guidelines, and absolutely nothing in Mutiny!! violates their guidelines. After our Steam publisher @MangaGamer met with Valve in person, they were told that ecchi content was fine on steam.— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) 18 de mayo de 2018
It seems this new change violates what Valve agreed to before, and the entirety of the Visual Novel genre on Steam is feeling the effects of this nuclear option. Every developer big & small, no matter how much they followed Steam's guidelines to the letter is having games pulled.— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) 18 de mayo de 2018
From Huniepop, to SonoHanabira, to Mutiny!!, the message is clear, if your game has sexy anime-inspired art in it, get it gone, while western games which are 100x more pornographic content escape unscathed. One rule for them, and no rules for us.— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) 18 de mayo de 2018
This puts @Lupiesoft in a bad situation. while funding for #DizzyHearts is secure, Mutiny!! was our biggest title, this threatens our future when a platform like @steam_games can decide on a whim to just pull our games even when we follow their guidelines.— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) 18 de mayo de 2018
This is not normal, this is not okay. Games are being pulled simply because they look a certain way and there is a stigma behind the look of a game. In the future this could easily extend to anyone who even makes visual novels no matter how 'sexy' they might appear to be.— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) 18 de mayo de 2018
We are not sleazebags making horrific pornography, we're a strongly queer VN studio that makes sexy games, that is not wrong, that is not pornographic, nudity is also not wrong as a massive amount of Steam's library has nudity, and Mutiny!! follows those content guidelines!— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) 18 de mayo de 2018
This threatens the future livelihood of any developer even wanting to work on Visual Novels in the future, this threatens the very fabric of the medium itself, when THE largest sales platform can just pull your game without justification or reason at any moment.
Speak up.— Lupiesoft (@Lupiesoft) 18 de mayo de 2018
