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Valve says it won't publish game about raping women, after 'significant discussion'
Valve has at last responded to a mounting controversy concerning an indie game designed entirely around the violent sexual assault of women. The statement, posted to the Steam Blog earlier today, makes clear that Valve will in fact not distribute the visual novel, which was called Rape Day and scheduled for release in April through the company's Steam Direct distribution channel. The declaration marks a quizzical few days of silence from the video game developer and marketplace owner, which has taken varying, occasionally radical stances to moderation on Steam in the past few years.
In a policy change announced last year, Valve said it would let basically anything onto the platform so long as it was not illegal or very obviously trolling to illicit negative reactions from the general public. So far, the only category to meet that definition included visual novels and other games featuring the sexual exploitation of children, which Valve banned last December. In this case, Valve says Rape Day posed "unknown costs and risks," without clarifying which rule it broke.
Developer's website. Also at Ars Technica, Business Insider, and Kotaku.
Previously: "Active Shooter" Game on Steam Sparks Uproar
Valve Still Lives in the Waking Nightmare of Web 2.0
Valve Attempts to Define "Troll Games" in Order to Ban Them on Steam
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Thursday March 07 2019, @05:28PM (3 children)
Our priorities are American and fucked up. But we deal with the world we live in, not the one we want.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 07 2019, @05:42PM (2 children)
We deal with the world we live in, which currently includes murder simulators that glorify war in ways that are convenient to both of the capitalist parties. The parts of war that those simulators don't include are permanent handicaps, physical (limbs blown off) and emotional (PTSD), lost time on deployment putting one's life on the line to protect the profits of a small elite that won't even fund one's healthcare when one returns a shell of a man.
Our murder simulators don't include rape, which is something that happens in war. So they are incomplete war simulators.
From that standpoint, why should we not have rape simulators as well as murder simulators? Do you honestly think that we can magically sweep certain violence like rape under the rug while glorifying only violence that is directly useful to the capitalist class?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Thursday March 07 2019, @06:07PM
Hey now, don't go thinking rape isn't useful - along with pillage, it's traditionally been one of the primary ways of paying soldiers in the field. Works great - lets your victims pay your soldiers instead of having to do it yourself.
And considering how little effort is made to prevent either today, it's still considered at least an acceptable form of combat bonus by those calling the shots.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday March 07 2019, @06:20PM
You need glorification of war, because otherwise it's pretty hard to get people to sign up to get shot.
Glorifying rape in your war simulator could help recruit some people ... and harm recruiting others you need.
Anyway, you can't have explicit stuff in a US mass-murder-legit-cause-bad-guys-sim targeted at teens
Headshot good. Nipple shots bad.