Publishing Non-Adult Game Version on Steam - Recommended Tags & Survey Answers

[Totally Pure Games]

Hey f95.

I'm currently working to get the Steam page set up for my first game under this persona. I've done a bunch of commercial games before, so the process is all too familiar.

However, I was wondering if you have some recommendations when it comes to "best case practices" to responding to Adult Content Survey & Tags for the game.

For example, I've seen there are a bunch of games on Steam, that have a tag "Sexual Content" but they are not classified as an adult game. Does it mean that basically as long as you don't have porn in your game and don't click the "Adult" content survey you are fine?

If anyone has the experience to share that would be great - don't want the game to be accidentally classified as an adult for the clean version.

And yeah, I know that you are not allowed to display adult preview images or lead to your website that has adult stuff - that part is handled. Advice is appreciated. I tried searching the forum, but I didn't find any such topics that relate to the content survey.

 

[anne O'nymous]

However, I was wondering if you have some recommendations when it comes to "best case practices" to responding to Adult Content Survey & Tags for the game.

While not experiencing it firsthand, my recommendation would be to not have too much faith in the result.
Many adult game devs shared a rely bad experience with Steam team, that can be summarized by: You've to met their definition of what is permit or not, without them telling you what is permit or not.

For example, I've seen there are a bunch of games on Steam, that have a tag "Sexual Content" but they are not classified as an adult game. Does it mean that basically as long as you don't have porn in your game and don't click the "Adult" content survey you are fine?

I guess that "Sexual Content" apply the instant there's nudity, and possibly some ambiguous intimacy scenes. Like by example the end scene of the romance in the Mass Effect series or the Dragon Age series. What is shown is more cuddling than sex, but I guess still too mature for too young players and too butt stuck parents.

There's also something that probably enter in count, the language, or more precisely the dialogs ; what movie classification call "mature language".
Not having explicit, nor even implicit, sex scene is one thing. But I guess that if every now and then there's a character that say things like, "my god, I would bang that ass all night long, so hard that she'll not be able to walk for a whole week", it will fall under the "Sexual Content" tag.

 

[Totally Pure Games]

While not experiencing it firsthand, my recommendation would be to not have too much faith in the result.
Many adult game devs shared a rely bad experience with Steam team, that can be summarized by: You've to met their definition of what is permit or not, without them telling you what is permit or not.

I am surprised to hear it since my overall experience with Steam has been good with other games. Guessing they treat those differently.

I guess that "Sexual Content" apply the instant there's nudity, and possibly some ambiguous intimacy scenes. Like by example the end scene of the romance in the Mass Effect series or the Dragon Age series. What is shown is more cuddling than sex, but I guess still too mature for too young players and too butt stuck parents.

There's also something that probably enter in count, the language, or more precisely the dialogs ; what movie classification call "mature language".
Not having explicit, nor even implicit, sex scene is one thing. But I guess that if every now and then there's a character that say things like, "my god, I would bang that ass all night long, so hard that she'll not be able to walk for a whole week", it will fall under the "Sexual Content" tag.

Language on Steam has always been a weird thing. Like, you can have an extremely violent scene, but then Steam raises an issue because, in that graphic display, you used the word "fuck" or "cunt"

Anyways, your description of what they classify under the "sexual content" tag clarifies things for me, thanks. I wish they'd make things clearer, it's always more about trial and error with them. Or just asking ppl.

 

[Satori6]

You should submit a ticket to get the dev tag (assuming your game is published here) which will give you access to the dev forum, where you'll get answers from people who have published on Steam or who are in the process of doing it.

 

[MissFortune]

I am surprised to hear it since my overall experience with Steam has been good with other games. Guessing they treat those differently.

Only time you're going to have a bad experience is when you're skirting the rules. That and waiting 5 days for them to respond to each simple fix for a game build. Which I did go on a bit of a rant about:

Language on Steam has always been a weird thing. Like, you can have an extremely violent scene, but then Steam raises an issue because, in that graphic display, you used the word "fuck" or "cunt"

Anyways, your description of what they classify under the "sexual content" tag clarifies things for me, thanks. I wish they'd make things clearer, it's always more about trial and error with them. Or just asking ppl.

Not sure if it'll be especially helpful to you at the moment, but this guide is super helpful for everything but SteamPipe:

You must be registered to see the links

 

[Totally Pure Games]

Only time you're going to have a bad experience is when you're skirting the rules. That and waiting 5 days for them to respond to each simple fix for a game build. Which I did go on a bit of a rant about:

Lol, and if you get unlucky with your assigned reviewer and they suddenly don't like your builds - it may escalate into weeks/months, issue at a time.

Not sure if it'll be especially helpful to you at the moment, but this guide is super helpful for everything but SteamPipe:

You must be registered to see the links

anne O'nymous clarified a similar thing that is described in the Adult section of that file.

Seems like they distinguish it as explicit (depiction and description which does NOT include insinuation) and non-explicit (sexual content may be lightly insinuated, but non-explicit content can be depicted and described as much as needed).

And when it comes to tags, it doesn't matter much, because even the ones like 'sexual content' apply to non-explicit content. It doesn't seem like Steam pays that much attention to those, mostly the users.

At least that's how I understood it.

 

[Totally Pure Games]

Thanks for the help everyone, the game was approved for Steam on the first try

Which never happened to me before, and I published a bunch of games before with lots of struggles.

Tadaa:

You must be registered to see the links

Let me share a couple of things in case it is useful for a passerby that wants to publish a game as non-adult:

• Do not use the word adult anywhere / use words like non-explicit when describing your content
• Do not link to any adult development websites. There needs to be 2 degrees of separation (aka the links can lead to your website which needs to be clean - but the website can lead to adult spots). However, to be safe, only have links to safe content on your website
• You can use Game Tags like Sexual Content, NSFW, etc. - it doesn't mark your game as adult
• In the Adult Survey - take the safest possible responses. A bit of nudity is fine - but focus on all non-explicit content items. Don't lie, obviously, it will have to be this way.
• Based on what I heard from a couple of people, and some personal experiences, if Steam randomly doesn't like something, especially thinking your game has too much adult material - they will keep requesting builds before approving your game for wishlists. If you ever get to this point... good luck.

Smth like this, maybe it helps someone.