Steam moving forward with plans to allow explicit games

[GuyFreely]

As you probably saw in some other posts,

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that they would be allowing games with explicit content onto Steam. To that end, they have been developing changes to the platform to support it. The basic indication is that once these and other upcoming changes are in place, the platform will open up to the new content. You can read the full post

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. It seems, for now, that they don't plan to back down on their previous statement, which is a good sign. I'm sure there will still be some debate over allowing ALL content on Steam, but we shall see. Their only major caveat so far was nothing illegal, but that begs the question illegal where? Will it be managed by country? We'll have to wait and see how it pans out.

Some excerpts:
"The second is an Adults Only filter, which allows you to filter out games that feature explicit sexual content."
"We're also now requiring developers of games with violent or sexual content to describe the content of their game"

Unrelated tidbit: "Q: Why do you KEEP asking my damn age throughout the store?

A: We're with you on this. Unfortunately, many rating agencies have rules that stipulate that we cannot save your age for longer than a single browsing session. It's frustrating, but know we're filling out those age gates too."

 

[robbinrobbie]

This is a very good sign but Im still wondering how successful explicit steam game will be. I certainly dont want my steam friends to logon and see Im currently jaggin off to Dating my Daughter

 

[GuyFreely]

This is a very good sign but Im still wondering how successful explicit steam game will be. I certainly dont want my steam friends to logon and see Im currently jaggin off to Dating my Daughter

Yeah, I think I mentioned a similar sentiment before. Several people said basically you shouldn't care. It's not always that simple, though. I think people who care might just set up a secondary account. I don't think that Steam will care enough to put in extra privacy features. Would need things like "Don't include in my games list" and "Don't share on my activity feed." I mean all these things could be wrapped up into one setting like "Private Game" or something, I just don't know if Valve would bother.

 

[thecardinal]

I have my sibling on Steam. No chance in hell am I getting them find out what I'm into.

 

[DarthSeduction]

I mean, I'd probably just do the same thing I do for reddit in that case. Have a steam profile for adult content and a steam profile for non-adult content.

 

[uradamus]

There are privacy settings on your profile to decide if people can see what games you are playing/own/how many hours you've played. Also you can just not log into the steam chat while playing if you don't want notices sent out to friends that you are playing a game, as that only happens when you're signed into chat and if you have the privacy settings set to let friends see what you are playing. Personally I don't care if people know what I play, but I don't like being bothered while I game, so I tend to log out of Steam's chat when I want to seriously get into a gaming session.

 

[DarthSeduction]

There are privacy settings on your profile to decide if people can see what games you are playing/own/how many hours you've played. Also you can just not log into the steam chat while playing if you don't want notices sent out to friends that you are playing a game, as that only happens when you're signed into chat and if you have the privacy settings set to let friends see what you are playing. Personally I don't care if people know what I play, but I don't like being bothered while I game, so I tend to log out of Steam's chat when I want to seriously get into a gaming session.

I can see that not being enough for some people, especially forgetful people. Steam would either have to default to adult content games not being shared, or we'd have to create new accounts.

 

[Ryahn]

I can see that not being enough for some people, especially forgetful people. Steam would either have to default to adult content games not being shared, or we'd have to create new accounts.

I will probably make a new account

 

[baneini]

Theres a difference between games that have explicit sexual content and games about explicit sex content.
AO games can mean some jap titles with 1% scenes being explicit and the pure porn games never get on the platform. At least I haven't seen any so far.

 

[Ryahn]

Theres a difference between games that have explicit sexual content and games about explicit sex content.
AO games can mean some jap titles with 1% scenes being explicit and the pure porn games never get on the platform. At least I haven't seen any so far.

If a life selecter games on steam. We are all doomed. Games like SpacePaws, Babysitter and few others all start off without a sex but lead up to it. Sure there may be some nudity here and there but I have seen a few games that have that.

 

[DarthSeduction]

If a life selecter games on steam. We are all doomed. Games like SpacePaws, Babysitter and few others all start off without a sex but lead up to it. Sure there may be some nudity here and there but I have seen a few games that have that.

I mean, we'll likely not make Life Selector money, sure, but there's no reason we can't attract an adult audience looking for a "Life is Strange" or "Dreamfall" or (Insert telltale games title here) type game with more adult content. I know I would have been even more interested in LiS if it had had it. That's kinda my goal with Seraphim Academy, is to tell a larger story based game with adult themes and content rather than straight up useless fap material that leaves me wanting.

 

[Trasher2018]

They need to add a selector for specific games not to show that they are currently played ^^

But I think Steam Early Access could be a nice possibility for Developers of adult games...

 

[uradamus]

I think the most favorable solution would be for them to incorporate per game privacy settings, so you can flag games you don't want to show up publicly in your library and recently played listings, as well as stopping the currently playing notifications for those titles (possibly switching you to busy instead of playing game in those situations). At least as far as dealing with friends goes. If you've got to hide what you do from family or roommates then that is something else entirely, though being dishonest with such people probably isn't among the most healthy of decisions to begin with, but I can understand why most wouldn't want to get into such things and a second account might make sense as long as they don't have access to your system in the first place, lol.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Their only major caveat so far was nothing illegal, but that begs the question illegal where? Will it be managed by country? We'll have to wait and see how it pans out.

I don't know exactly how they achieve it, but they already deal with this, since games like the Wolfenstein serie are illegal, as it, in Germany, and still you can buy them on Steam ; at least outside of Germany, but it seem that the censored version can also be bought on Steam. So, for me the answer to your questions is that they'll deal country by country ; probably waiting to receive a legal notice since they probably don't know all the laws of all the countries.
But there's the problem of gray areas. To keep a classical example, incest is illegal in (more or less) half the world, but it doesn't mean that a game depicting incest is illegal and/or must be seen as illegal. So, will they just comply, or will they try to dig a little to see if the illegality of the act also apply to it depiction in game/fiction, is what is still to know.

 

[GuyFreely]

Yes, the simplest solution is to make a categorical distinction of "hidden" games on your account. This would make it: not show up in your list, no public achievements, no 'now playing', no activity feeds, basically nothing public about the game on your account. Given how long they took to even introduce invisible mode, these sorts of things seem to be of low priority to them.

I don't know exactly how they achieve it, but they already deal with this, since games like the Wolfenstein serie are illegal, as it, in Germany, and still you can buy them on Steam ; at least outside of Germany, but it seem that the censored version can also be bought on Steam. So, for me the answer to your questions is that they'll deal country by country ; probably waiting to receive a legal notice since they probably don't know all the laws of all the countries.
But there's the problem of gray areas. To keep a classical example, incest is illegal in (more or less) half the world, but it doesn't mean that a game depicting incest is illegal and/or must be seen as illegal. So, will they just comply, or will they try to dig a little to see if the illegality of the act also apply to it depiction in game/fiction, is what is still to know.

I would say this could lead to some interesting legal precedents, but realistically this might not happen. Valve doesn't seem like the kind of company to go to bat for a developer when it's much easier to just remove a game than fight for it to be allowed. Also, the developers for a lot of explicit games, like the ones here, are small groups or individuals without the funds for a big legal battle. So I think Valve will err on the side of caution in any grey areas if pressed, most likely.

One thing that I do hope might come out of all this is a certain legitimacy given to adult content. The more commercial success games see on a large platform like Steam, the more interest bigger developers will take in it. I don't know that anyone currently making AAA titles will take the risk, but we might see some offshoots. I mean I could see some people from Telltale breaking off to make a sexier VN game. I would love it if some of the devs behind the larger open world games set out to make a more explicit game. I feel like a lot of them are riding the line on what we'll call decency right now. There are strippers and prostitutes in GTA, sex scenes in the Witcher, things like that.

 

[uradamus]

The way they deal with localization for different regions and such is through their depots system. Devs can add pretty much as many as they need to get things done. For instance games released on multiple platforms will have a depot for each platform, even different architectures, and as already mentioned they can be region locked to offer different versions of the game to specific regions.

They can even have locked depots that require you to opt into an optionally password protected beta in order to access certain depots, which is very helpful for testing new versions of games before pushing them to your main public depots and it can allow you to let certain people join in as temporary testers and just get rid of the depot or change the credentials when you want to boot people out of the testing when you are done.

You can find out a fair bit about any game on Steam by checking out the

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page and searching for a game's title. The listings include all the various types of keys a game has, the depots in use, regional pricing data, basic playtime charts and a bunch more.

 

[random.person]

I don't know exactly how they achieve it, but they already deal with this, since games like the Wolfenstein serie are illegal, as it, in Germany, and still you can buy them on Steam ; at least outside of Germany, but it seem that the censored version can also be bought on Steam. So, for me the answer to your questions is that they'll deal country by country ; probably waiting to receive a legal notice since they probably don't know all the laws of all the countries.
But there's the problem of gray areas. To keep a classical example, incest is illegal in (more or less) half the world, but it doesn't mean that a game depicting incest is illegal and/or must be seen as illegal. So, will they just comply, or will they try to dig a little to see if the illegality of the act also apply to it depiction in game/fiction, is what is still to know.

Incest is the lesser problem. Countries with modern criminal systems punish objectively, they criminalize actions and not intentions or expression. So even if incest is illegal in a country it's implausible for depiction of incest to be illegal too, unless said depiction is objectively capable of advocating incest, which could then fall under a more general crime of instigating other or certain crimes.

The real issue would be lolicon content, because there's an international legal framework pretty harsh on it and some countries might go as far as criminalizing sexual depictions of minors even when virtual. In my country for instance iirc even 3D realistic depictions count, but a court clarified that they need to depict a real minor's likeness.

Btw, as a trivia, in my country we have a peculiar criminal law on incest: it's not a crime if there is no public scandal.

 

[DarthSeduction]

ncest is the lesser problem. Countries with modern criminal systems punish objectively, they criminalize actions and not intentions or expression. So even if incest is illegal in a country it's implausible for depiction of incest to be illegal too, unless said depiction is objectively capable of advocating incest, which could then fall under a more general crime of instigating other or certain crimes.

In the US, for instance however, there are vague laws on the books. One such law, regarding what the legal term is "Obscenity" allows the courts to make an individual decision on what is and isn't too obscene. A few years back they attempted to completely ban even virtual depictions of fictional minors, from loli to realistic 3d, but that law was struck down for being against free speech. So now it only protects real children and depictions thereof. However, because of the obscenity law, they can and have gone after some people with it. It carries lesser penalties, I think just fines, no registry or jail time iirc, but it's still enough to stop a developer or Steam from being willing to cross those lines. That's generally, aside from the worry in regards to the high risk, why even major porn studios avoid rape, and outright incest. You may notice that Porn Hub doesn't have an Incest tag, just a "Step-fantasy" tag.

 

[Tataro]

Hopimg for it real hard. Though I think the biggest issues will be pricing. Most games produced here are worth around 5$. But i doubt creatora that ask their patreons for 20 to 30$ a month to play the newest version will be OK with selling their entire game for 5. And we have to keep in kind that AAA titles are 60$

 

[anne O'nymous]

Incest is the lesser problem. Countries with modern criminal systems punish objectively, they criminalize actions and not intentions or expression. So even if incest is illegal in a country it's implausible for depiction of incest to be illegal too, unless said depiction is objectively capable of advocating incest, which could then fall under a more general crime of instigating other or certain crimes.

Didn't said that it was a major problem, just that it's the most common subject took as example here. And despite what you think, there's modern countries where Law don't make difference between an illegal act and its depiction, even if this depiction isn't an apologia. It's by example the case for incest in many countries where it's illegal. It's also the case for pedophilia. There's even countries where, as long as the girl look like underage, it will be illegal. This whatever the story, the context, the nature of it (pornography Vs eroticism) , and even her real age when it's photography and not 2D/3D cg. The only exception being educational/medical publications, and content prior to the law.
As far as I remember, there's also few case in the US Law.

Btw, as a trivia, in my country we have a peculiar criminal law on incest: it's not a crime if there is no public scandal.

Yeah, when I did research on the subject, Italy was the country with the must strange law regarding incest ; neither really legal nor really illegal. Another weird law is Spanish and regard bestiality ; it's illegal to practice, produce, import, sell and buy anything that is or depict bestiality... but legal to own it.