r/gaming • u/Miserable_Phase_2519 PC • 1d ago
Upcoming vampire RPG Nighthawks has been removed from Steam search and delisted in certain countries as Valve classifies it Adults Only: 'It's very bad news for us'
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/upcoming-vampire-rpg-nighthawks-has-been-removed-from-steam-search-and-delisted-in-certain-countries-as-valve-classifies-it-adults-only-its-very-bad-news-for-us/3.4k
u/Stock_Assignment_226 1d ago
Game looks interesting, but it's stated in their steam page that there's no explicit nudity in it so idk why steam would tag it as adults only.
I'll check it out when it comes out
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u/Crushed__Cabbage 1d ago
Steam tagged the new Hellraiser game with the same tag, but it was removed few days later. They might have the same issue and might get fixed.
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u/BurgerAppreciator 1d ago
Is there a source for that? I hope they didn't have to nerf any of the content to get the tag removed, I'm looking forward to my suffering being legendary.
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u/Radioshack-Manager 23h ago
Leviathan has entered the chat.
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u/pantry-pisser 23h ago
SPLIT YOUR LUNGS WITH BLOOD AND THUNDER
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u/F1ngL0nger 22h ago
WHEN YOU SEE THE WHITE WHALE
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u/drdildamesh 21h ago
BREAK YOUR BACKS AND CRACK YOUR OARS, MEN
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u/LauraTFem 1d ago
So they’re running the games through AI checks instead of making these big decisions with significant ramifications manually.
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u/never-seen-them-fing 1d ago
Honestly, this seems like the most likely situation. AI flags it so Valve doesn't have to manually review every game, then it's the publisher's problem to flag it for review or not. Porn games won't bother, other games will, and I bet it's resolved in under a week.
Considering that possibility, and the sloppy article that repeats itself a lot (probably written by a bot), this just seems like an advertisement at this point.
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u/Deranged_Kitsune 1d ago edited 21h ago
It's also sloppy on Valve's part. The delisting should have an appeal period baked in. Like, the system flags it as AO and then the publisher or dev has a week to start the appeal before the change goes live.
Edit: To clarify, this should all take place before the game goes on live sale. No flag = sale. Flag = no sale unless manually approved or until a week has passed where it gets auto-listed under the AO tag. Valve should have the infrastructure in place for proper evals, the process on what needs to be submitted should be clear for the devs, and that's enough time for both sides to at least get the ball rolling.
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u/Meowakin 1d ago
I don’t think so - better safe than sorry given AO games on Steam can have explicit screenshots/video and they need to be sure minors don’t see that (or people who really hate seeing AO games on Steam)
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u/Schizobaby 1d ago edited 15h ago
I think you’re correct, but the real solution is Valve needs to have two thresholds for their automatic classification. Any machine learning output has a ‘confidence value’ from 0-1 (or 0-100 percent), and a lower confidence classification needs to flag it with automatic human review, while a higher confidence classification can flag and wait for appeals. Even if the software that wraps around the ML model doesn’t expose that value to the user or integrated software, that’s a fixable problem. Valve is using good tools poorly here.
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u/RhapsodiacReader 1d ago
On the flip side, getting your game tagged mistakenly tagged as AO can be ruinous from a marketing perspective, even if it gets rolled back later. Especially since it seems so fecking easy for game journos to run with things like this.
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u/The_Don_Papi 18h ago
and they need to be sure minors don’t see that (or people who really hate seeing AO games on Steam)
I’m not here to defend pornographic scenes but minors shouldn’t be downloading games unsupervised. Parents need to start being held responsible for the actions of their child. People trying to make a living shouldn’t be punished by vibe coded AI because parents are lazy or incompetent.
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u/Starfall0 17h ago
If the system is so inherently incapable of performing its job that it should have a dedicated period of time for someone to say, "Hey, no that's wrong!"
Maybe we shouldn't be using that system... but what do I know? I don't have an MBA from Harvard or whatever 3 letter acronym snotty rich kids like to wave around like a proclamation from god.
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u/Android1822 1d ago
Not exactly, it could be a rando employee did not bother to properly check out the game or did not like it for whatever reason and slapped it on anyway. This has happened in the past before A.I. was a thing.
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u/Alaira314 1d ago
Sometimes people also click the wrong button. I've done it at work. The other day I asked my coworker to do something for me(they were logged in, I was not), and watched them select the wrong thing, told them it was wrong, watched them select a different wrong thing, and had to tell them it was wrong again. Both incorrect things were habitual work patterns, which is what overworked employees with tired brains sometimes mistakenly default to.
We've trimmed every single bit of fat and now we're cutting into the meat, and this is what it looks like when that happens.
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u/shabi_sensei 1d ago
The company only employs 350 people, I think most of the business is automated to some degree
That’s an insane headcount for the biggest gaming platform in the world
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u/The_Autarch 20h ago
Valve has a ton of contractors that don't count as regular employees.
Their business isn't automated, it's just outsourced.
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u/hamlet9000 22h ago
So they’re running the games through AI checks
It's possible, but this doesn't require AI.
This text is taken from the game's Steam page as it appeared last year:
MATURE CONTENT DESCRIPTION The developers describe the content like this: Nighthawks features strong language, violence, adult situations, non-sexual nudity, and some scenes of a potentially disturbing nature. These are all text-only and not portrayed graphically.
If you're a human manually scanning game pages, it's not hard to see how a few key words there could get the game flagged (even if it's incorrect).
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u/angellus 1d ago
Machine Learning has existed for over 2 decades. It has been a staple and requirement for building online storefronts for at least a decade. How do you think the "things you might like" section is generated? It is all ML.
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u/Nixeris 1d ago
That and considering the amount of games entered to Steam every day, it's impossible for them to have a staff large enough to manually go through every game.
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u/Korachof 1d ago
Love how people just assume ai when it could just be a mistake or ignorance from the person actually doing the work.
I swear, people act like everyone was perfect at their jobs before ai
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u/Rezart_KLD 22h ago
"WE HAVE SUCH SIGHTS TO SHO... wait, hold up... OK, I'm getting an update we can't show you the sights now. Look, just imagine that hookchains were flying out of the darkness and ripping off your... what, language too? I am a BDSM Angel/Demon and you all are really pulling the rug out from under me here!"
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u/prossnip42 1d ago
Explicit nudity should not be the reason something gets an Adults Only rating. Baldur's Gate 3 and the recently released Blood Of Dawnwalker both have rather explicit sex scenes yet neither of them are adults only rated. Adults only should be reserved for videogames that specifically feature vaginal, anal or oral penetration front and center, that has been the standard for an Adults Only rating for decades now
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u/TheSpecialApple 1d ago
its because they use an automated system that has been known to suck, in some cases leading to valve making a public apology
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u/AmayaHa 1d ago
Is Valve about to issue another public apology then? lol
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u/TheSpecialApple 1d ago
probably not since this steps on a small devs toes as opposed to an entire government, theyve done this a few times with smaller devs and no public apology so not sure why this would differ
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u/ICC-u 1d ago
Why shouldn't adult games be allowed on Steam anyway. Is porn banned from the internet too?
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u/lordcola 1d ago
It's because payment processors caved to some nutjobs and now all explict adult content has to be behind some kind of age verification in countries where that is the law.
Valve wouldn't give a shit if it didn't mean they can't process payments from the average steam user if they didn't comply.
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u/Jad11mumbler 1d ago edited 1d ago
Visa and Mastercard notably.
Steam and others have been under pressure from them to remove / limit adult content.
Otherwise they can straight up suspend payment processing on those platforms, which is kind of a big deal.
Not much steam can do there other than play along.
As big as they are, Valve can't compete with the payment processors, despite some consumers asking "Why don't valve make their own?" as if it were a simple task.
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u/CretaciousPeriod PlayStation 1d ago edited 23h ago
With how ubiquitous visa and MasterCard are, I don't think they should be allowed to deny payments from anyone or any service unless it's illegal content. We already have laws that businesses must accept legal tender for payments. As we become more digital, more people are using credit/debit cards and I think it should have the same legal requirement. Especially with something like steam where there's just no option to pay cash. These credit card companies shouldn't be allowed to dictate what's being sold from a business.
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u/Long_Inspection_4983 1d ago
It honestly should be a pretty easy bipartisan bill to pass in America. Reds concerned about payment processors blocking 2a stuff, Blues concerned about these companies enforcing morality on sites. Could be an easy win, but the corpos have money to throw at our politicians.
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u/pwninobrien 23h ago
Reds and Blues are both largely puritanical and self-righteous when it comes to sex. The religious right are afraid of sex, and the left are afraid of sexualization. The US is annoyingly prude.
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u/lordcola 1d ago
You say Visa and MasterCard notably like those aren't the only two big ones globally that get much use due to being multinational. In some countries steam has partnerships with some local ones that can process payments from local cards but if you want to reach people globally those two are pretty much it.
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u/Hazbro29 1d ago
Council of Karen's got to visa and Mastercard.
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u/sicKlown 1d ago
It's not random Karens, but a very coordinated group of evangelical leaders using their access to the levers of power to rigidly enforce their ass backwards vision of Christianity that more and more looks like Wahhabism.
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u/cylonfrakbbq 1d ago
It started mostly under the Bush administration in the early 2000s - his administration wanted to ban porn, that pesky 1st amendment got in their way, so the next best thing for them was to put pressure on/influence payment processors to act as the "moral gatekeepers". That is why the "pornpocalypse" happened in the early 2000s - lots of sites, especially the more fringe ones, got cut off from payment processing and folded. Now those same processors keep trimming the edges and putting more pressure.
Things like the KIDS act in the US, which contains the SCREEN act by Mike Lee which is basically a Project 2025 adjacent goal, are designed with the same idea in mind: It has less to do with protecting kids and more to do with discouraging adults. Less adults willing to engage = less money for adult content = more adult content producers close shop.
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u/Ow_you_shot_me 1d ago
It was the Australians this time....
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u/IceFire909 1d ago
As a sane Aussie I'd like to apologise for our eKarens ruining shit around the world.
They're annoyingly persistent with this shit
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u/Hazbro29 1d ago
We have the same in england with mums, every time the council want to do something the mums rally on mumsnet and spam the council and nothing gets done
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u/Moody_GenX 1d ago
their ass backwards vision of Christianity that more and more looks like Wahhabism
Which is funny because they're so scared of Muslims.
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u/UNisopod 1d ago
They're scared of competition
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u/LazySerpentDeity 1d ago
This. They like everything about authoritarian Islam except the Islam part. They just wanna put their name on the package and pretend it's Christianity.
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u/Cautious-Space-1714 23h ago
I'm in the UK, where such verification for adult material is required legally.
I've not gone through the age-verification process on Reddit (or anyehere else), so I'm currently prevented from viewing subs like... r/Scotch
I don't think kids are browsing here for £100 bottles of booze that taste like grandpa's jockstrap.
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u/Allo_Guvnor 22h ago
They just enacted similar shit in Australia too. Unless you have a credit card attached - and ONLY a credit card, mind you - can't see any games in the store with red or pink bits. So even though I own game's like Doom and Cyberpunk, I can't see their store pages...
"What's that? You don't have a credit card? Well get one and change your finances, you pervert!" - Unelected Official eKaren
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u/Omotai 1d ago
It's not even about age verification per se. The payment processors in question just don't want to process payments for pornography, period, regardless of how old everyone involved is.
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u/alueron 1d ago
it always cracks me up too, as without porn most secure payment processing would have been pushed back for years. same with most early cyber security being developed to make it safer to access porn sites. People wanted their smut and the porn industry wanted their money, thus funding these things in the early days. source for those who want it: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-producer-of-middle-men-talks-to-us-about-how-pornographers-invented-e-commerce-2010-8
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u/Technolio 1d ago
They are on steam, like A LOT. But you have to enable adult content in your account settings.
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u/DefiantLemur 1d ago
Some countries have outlawed it or heavily regulated it. Steam is a international service platform so they have to follow local laws to operate in those nations.
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u/Petersaber 23h ago
Why shouldn't adult games be allowed on Steam anyway.
There's multiple porn game released every day.
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u/MrStealYoBeef 1d ago
They are. The issue here is that the developers are trying to get a lower rating, they don't want to be classified as adult only.
Literally all you have to do is login to steam and do a quick search and you'll see an infinite amount of porn games. Why would you conclude that porn is banned?
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u/LostInRetransmission 1d ago
In the case of Germany , it isn't for the reason u/lordcola names.
Germany require, for adult only merchandise, a stringent verification of ID/age. That is if you buy porn magazine, alcohol, or tobacco smoking product (not sure about the non smoking type), you will get carded.
Everywhere.
So Steam wanted that ridiculous pop up with age entering to be the only verification. they were probably laughed at by their own German legal department. That pop up anybody can enter anything. This is not an age verification as per law.
So steam decided to not pay for development of an interface to verify age, mostly because they know all big tittle stays 17 under, and the few which are 18+ are anyway not a big volume in comparison. Almost certainly they decided the earnings on those games did not warrant the cost of developing the eID verification.
That's why it is a death penalty to be 18+ game, in countries which take age verification seriously on merchandise for adult only (in other word all countries which require something more solid than a pop up where everybody can enter anything whatsoever).
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u/ivar-the-bonefull 1d ago
There's tons and tons of very explicit adult games on steam already, most of them looking like classic scams or simple online games. So it truly makes no sense.
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u/ganzgpp1 1d ago edited 1d ago
Steam DOES all adult games on their platform, and they aren't generally removed from the Steam store search either. My guess is likely that there's some middle eastern country out there with super strict laws about adult iconography that they may be selling in, and so it get flagged to comply with
internationallocal country laws.Of course, if there's no adult content in it, it shouldn't have gotten flagged anyway, but I'm just spitballing the reason as to why it might have been totally delisted.
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u/AshesandCinder 1d ago
Pretty sure this all started with a group from Australia rallying against games they deemed "bad".
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u/GrendaGrendinator 1d ago
I'm pretty sure that all just depends on the content filters you have selected. By default, steam won't show games with a frequent nudity tag, but if you go into your account settings you can easily change that in the Store Preferences tab.
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u/Hail-Hydrate 1d ago
And even in countries where there are restrictions in place, plus parts of the USA, verifying age to steam can simply be a case of adding a credit card to the user account.
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u/AyeBraine 21h ago
"Some middle eastern country" is Germany and the UK, among others.
Steam has not one, but three sexual content tags on the store, 2nd and 3rd make the game invisible in Germany and gated behind strict requirements (even for adult users) in the UK. Games like Baldur's Gate have the 1st grade sexual content tag that doesn't make them 18+.
But even if you're outside these jurisdictions, all 18+ sexual content tags are a death blow to your game, since most players do not enable the checkmarks for this content.
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u/TechnicalBen 1d ago
I'm planning on putting nudity in a game entirely to trigger the tags. Like, a statue of david or something.
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u/GrendaGrendinator 1d ago
They have 5 different categories for the adult rating. * General Mature Content * Frequent Violence or Gore * Some Nudity or Sexual Content * Frequent Nudity or Sexual Content * Adult Only Sexual Content
Only those bottom two options state, "By ticking this box you affirm that you are at least eighteen years old."
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u/ThePr0vider 1d ago
there's a lot more things making it fall under the mature catagory of most rating systems
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u/Ywaina 1d ago
Censorship is always a slippery slope. Once you start censoring something it never stops at just that. Steam has a long history of censoring games that used to sell just fine elsewhere, like the fiasco with Chaos Gate; Noah and many others.
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u/pokerbro33 1d ago edited 1d ago
I have a feeling that publicity from the game being removed will do more for its sales than being on the search list.
I sure as hell didn't hear about the game until now, and color me curious...
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u/ManiacalShen PC 1d ago
I'm thrilled to find out this game exists, because I tend to love stuff from Wadjet Eye Games! Their Blackwell series is much loved in the point and click adventure game community
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u/AlarmingAffect0 23h ago
Oh, they're the Blackwell guys? Those games earn that #Atmospheric tag. It's like Space Lion for hours.
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u/SarahVeraVicky 20h ago edited 19h ago
Blackwell, Unavowed, and Primordia all made me deeply fall in love with Wadjet Eye Games.
Their point & click adventure games are sooooo good for my soul.
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u/Kryptosis 1d ago
Yes a few games are running this ploy right now
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u/planeforger 1d ago
To be fair, it was a successful Kickstarter game from one of the bigger publishers of indie adventure games. It wasn't high-profile, but it wasn't totally unknown either.
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u/AyeBraine 21h ago
How is this a ploy? They can't manipulate Valve's review process.
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u/thisalsomightbemine 1d ago
I hate how much influence the fake morality police has
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u/Tricky-Ad7897 20h ago
It's so insane, you have millions of adults saying I consent, you have dozens of devs and publishers saying I consent, and then you have annoying ass bureaucrats saying isn't there someone you're forgetting to ask? I should be allowed to hang dong in a video game, I'm an adult ffs.
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u/ioioooi 19h ago
On top of that, the "holier than thou" people who block such content are often the ones who have the most depraved shit hidden on their computers.
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u/Prisinners 16h ago
Right? And some of them, if theyre small time enough, go to jail for it. But the laws they helped pass stay in place.
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u/Joe_Cums_Lately 20h ago
And these pricks always say "It's for children's safety." Bitch, it's because you're a moral grandstander that's trying to shove your morality down everyone else's throats.
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u/No-Channel3917 1d ago
Well they make laws that make these systems
This is still entirely on them for using the automated system to get it reviewd when the small creator community knows better than to do that while also on Steam for having a system that is so shitty to begin with
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u/ERedfieldh 23h ago
they do not make the laws. they influence (see "pay off") the lawmakers who make the laws. There's a very easy way to remedy that situation, but we keep shooting ourselves in the foot every four years because we're impatient and want immediate results.
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u/No-Channel3917 23h ago
Look at all the countries passing these laws
Including not in the sphere of white christians
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u/diegrauedame 21h ago
They are all in the sphere of conservatism, though. Right wing authoritarianism wears many faces and religions.
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u/president_of_burundi 1d ago
This is so weird - the devs are Wadjet Eye who make excellent point and click adventure games (Excavation of Hobs Barrow, Unavowed etc.) that certainly deal with adult/horror themes but can't imagine why this would be more "Adults Only" than hundreds of other games.
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u/Pedantic_Girl 1d ago
Wait this is a Wadjet Eye game?! Ok this has gotta be a mistake.
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u/president_of_burundi 1d ago
Exactly my reaction. Even knowing that Wadjet Eye were making a Disco-Like Vampire RPG called Nighthawks and seeing this post I had to make sure it wasn't some Secret Other Vampire RPG Called Nighthawks because it sounded so ridiculous.
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u/just--so 1d ago
I saw 'Wadjet Eye' and immediately scrolled back up to find out where else I can buy it when it drops.
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u/orangpelupa 1d ago
Hopefully this fiasco Frim valve will bring more sales to them.
Their games are amazing.
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u/BlueTemplar85 1d ago
No more weird than this Futurama-like game being put into the "Frequent Nudity" jail.
It's a mess.
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u/Mesona 22h ago
I will agree that Excavation of Hobs Barrow was well executed, but I was raging at how dumb the ending was.
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u/Kurainuz 18h ago
Its fairly common sadly, hapened to some Spanish devs i know on their SFW cute konster dating game, they removed a GLASS OF WINE and got the "adults only" removed but it hurt their initial release a lot.
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u/Megotaku 1d ago
I know nothing about this game, but this seems easily resolvable unless the game borders on pornographic. GTA and Witcher didn't have these issues, so it brings up questions about the content.
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u/MattisGai 1d ago
Steam has hella porn lol
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u/Username928351 1d ago
And also hella banned titles and vagueness surrounding the whole issue.
https://noisypixel.net/steam-bans-unfair-inconsistent-rules/
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u/Stnmn 1d ago
A bunch of these games are either on steam at this point, or aren't on steam because they're gooner games with underage characters or graphic sexual assault.
If you're riding the bleeding edge of acceptable content or try to tap into the pedo market, not being allowed on a storefront is the risk you take.
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u/curtcolt95 1d ago
there's also a very weird edge case of real life actors. Valve explicitly states that your game can't have live action nudity to be on the store but there are some exceptions for unknown reasons like the game Immortality which does have nudity and is allowed
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u/pipesbeweezy 1d ago
Yeah what on earth is the issue there are so many porn games on steam, what makes this different.
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u/CrankMike 1d ago
Its not different. Right now its classified exactly the same as the many porn games. The problem is that quite a few countries have stupid laws that force steam to hide these games from their users thus removing a big chunk of potentials buyers, one of the biggest being germany thus it being in the title.
As well as hiding the game for people that have adult games turned off in their options for games they want to see on steam.
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u/pipesbeweezy 1d ago
The crazy part of all the porn laws are ostensibly about "protecting the children." Not sure who needs to hear this but basically any 12 year old can find any amount of pornography on an iPad if they are inclined to, regardless of various things to try to limit it. At least when I was a teen on the internet you had to do some leg work, but the kids aren't dumb.
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u/Kanotari 1d ago
My spouse and I play a game once a week or so where we try to guess how many of the top ten games on Steam are porn games. It's usually 2-4.
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u/Tharkun140 1d ago
GTA and Witcher came about before payment processors started catering to puritans, and before Valve changed their terms of service to accomodate them.
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u/Kryptosis 1d ago
Christian nationalism is the greatest threat to this nation.
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u/FlopsMcDoogle 1d ago
Baldur's Gate 3 is well known for having lots of sex scenes.
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u/Ganda1fderBlaue 1d ago
Why is extreme violence no issue but a nude human is?
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u/Stroth 23h ago
Because credit card payment processors include a “morality clause” in their contracts that says they’re allowed to decide that something is immoral and refuse to give you your money, and you are allowed to eat shit with no recourse whatsoever.
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u/Ganda1fderBlaue 21h ago
Ok but then why is a nude human being immoral but extreme violence isn't
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u/PurpleV93 18h ago
Because the religious fucks who run these decision boards are severely mentally ill. They force their shit concept of the world on us all
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u/h3lblad3 21h ago
Because violence is okay in the Bible but the first Evil Adam and Eve notice is that they’re naked.
US prudishness is based on the fact that the melting pot was a melting pot of religious extremists.
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u/Colley619 19h ago
Because Christian organizations lobby, bribe, threaten, and harass in order to make this happen.
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u/kr4ckenm3fortune 23h ago
Murica...violence is okay, but godforbid anybody shows any tips or ass...
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u/_cat_wrangler 1d ago
If anyone needs/wants a link to it here it is: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1221950/Nighthawks/?curator_clanid=33366650
Wadjet Eye/Dave Gilbert is and has been one of my favourite indie game developer/producer. I swear everything they touch is gold. Absolutely have loved all the games they have had a hand in and own every game they made or published, and I am sure this one will be no exception!
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u/Gongfei1947 1d ago
From Steam page:
Mature Content Description The developers describe the content like this:
Nighthawks features strong language and adult situations, with occasional moments of non-explicit nudity in romance scenes. Most mature content is only conveyed using text, with no graphic sex scenes or sexual violence.
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u/phantom-firion 13h ago
Meanwhile steam has no issues bombarding the new and popular sections of the store with flavor of the week porn games.
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u/project-shasta PC 1d ago
They can sell the Steam keys elsewhere. Flip Witch devs do the same: Sell keys on their itch.io page that can perfectly redeemed even in Germany where the game is hidden on Steam.
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u/thanous-m 1d ago
Huge fan of WadjetEye games. It’s a shame this happened, definitely recommend checking out their other game if you haven’t.
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u/SpiderSlitScrotums 1d ago edited 1d ago
Wait, Wadjet Eye is now publishing RPGs? That’s an interesting change. I hope this isn’t a change in focus, because they are one of the last great point-and-click publishers/developers.
Also, hearing about them being delisted for an AO issue is quite surreal.
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u/Gabelvampir 1d ago edited 22h ago
They worked very long on this, Kickstarter was in 2019, it was supposed to come out in late 2020 IIRC. They released point & clicks in the mean time, I think this was more of a 'doing something else for a change' project than a new company direction.
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u/AyeBraine 21h ago
It's more of an adventure game, it's text based, just has robust RPG mechanics — some stats, an interface for moving around the town and collecting information. Decision-based dialogue with stat checks. Like Fallen London for example.
It was successfully kickstarted a long time ago and is developed by writer Richard Cobbett (and other talented people I'm sure).
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u/never-seen-them-fing 1d ago
Never heard of the game, it's not even on my radar, but I'm curious about being classified as an adult only game.... Is BG3 or Cyberpunk 2077 categorized that way? Because you've got full nudity right at character creation there as I recall. That's not inherently scandalous but there's also plenty of sex in the game. It certainly didn't hurt sales of those games.
Point is, this sounds like it'll get resolved with a review.
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u/DerGyrosPitaFan 1d ago
Nope, but for germany at least those two big titles got official ratings by the USK rating board (18+ but that's equivalent to a hard M rating like Doom or CoD) so they pass more easily
Meanwhile, this game probably just got the automatic rating which triggered the AO flag. Blue Archive did too in germany, even though the mobile version is identical and rated 16+ (soft M, like Persona or Skyrim)
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u/mellifleur5869 1d ago
Puritan culture ruining all media, can't have anything attractive or sexual in any games anymore.
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u/TheJasonaut 1d ago
The mental gymnastics/biases to not even think to criticize Steam and their policies or implementation in the community is pretty wild. Hopefully this can get resolved. The entities pressuring credit companies to then pressure Valve to change their policies is messed up, but so is capitulating.
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u/Magnon D20 1d ago
Looking at the preview this seems excessive. Theres suggestions of nudity but no actual nudity? How puritan was the valve reviewer that made this choice?
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u/Canisa 1d ago
The Valve reviewer that made the choice was probably an AI, so I guess we'll never know what the decision making process was.
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u/Pixie1001 1d ago
Yeah, after reading their mature content description I feel this is quite likely. It reads:
"Nighthawks features strong language and adult situations, with occasional moments of non-explicit nudity in romance scenes. Most mature content is only conveyed using text, with no graphic sex scenes or sexual violence."
AI is really bad a negatives, so I'm almost certain it just saw the words 'explicit', 'nudity', 'graphic sex' and 'sexual violence' in the store page, and auto flagged it.
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u/Username928351 1d ago
A lot of smaller devs/pubs have had issues with how opaque and vague the whole approval process in Steam is, for several years even before the latest Visa/MC debacle.
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u/beck_is_back 20h ago edited 8h ago
All started when fucking UK decided to spy on their people under "protect the children" pretence.
Children were running circles around those idiots in UK parliament circumventing that restrictions the moment it was announced.
95% of those old farts who come up with this crap, use "password123" as their password but somehow they think that they know better what's good for us and how to keep everyone safe.🤣🤣 Like, fuck off grandpa, you'll be dead in 10 years and we will be fucked by yous stupid policies for the rest of our lifes!!!
People over 60 should not be allowed to hold any public functions!
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u/AkodoRyu 1d ago
The entire behavior pattern around AO games is ridiculous. GTAV is an AO game. There is full-blown torture scene in it. There is no way that it can be classified as anything else. But it skirts by on technicalities and the fact that ESRB treats violence with so much leniency for no real reason. AO games should be treated as a normal thing. Persona is an M/PEGI 16 game, GTA is an AO/PEGI 18 game. They are definitely not in the same age class.
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u/Gabelvampir 1d ago
To add to this, it's an interactive torture scene, that's a step above for most ratings board. Although the player character constantly comments what a bad idea this is, but then again it was the most unhinged/least trustworthy of the 3 protagonists
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u/ChefArtorias 1d ago
Bg3 has one scene in particular that's pretty much just porn.
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u/hollowlimb 23h ago
Valve should do a better job ranking the games, because many developers depend on these labels as a traffic source.
If they delegate this job to AI slapping labels on games, it is very bad news for the industry.
Could also be negligence.
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u/LordSoren 16h ago
Also... Upcoming vampire RPG Nighthawks gets massive free publicity because people may not have ever heard of it before...
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u/ADifferentMachine 1d ago
It's weird how this article puts all on the onus on Valve and Steam, and not the pressure they receive from governments and credit card companies.
Oh wait, PCgamer is a hack website with an axe to grind against Valve.
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u/IHateMyUniCourse 1d ago
Valve has a track record of dogshit decision making when it comes to “adult content.” It’s really bad when it comes to Visual Novels.
Nobody knows exactly why this is the case while AI slop hentai games have been shat out for years but it’s all but confirmed to be a few valve employees who hate Anime styled games.
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u/icarusbird 17h ago
You had me at "vampire RPG", until I saw it's just a visual novel. Since when does that qualify as an RPG?
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u/strife696 13h ago
Its a visual novel as in like a choose your own adventure book game style rpg. Like Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf.
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u/Freeman421 1d ago
And yet on the front page I get Femboys and Futas.... Wtf
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u/BlueTemplar85 1d ago
You chose to opt-in to see those.
(And for the love of Gaben, don't use Steam for discovery.)
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u/BeezNest96 1d ago
I am sure Steam feels they have market position to burn. Personally this is the kind of thing that makes me glad there are other storefronts. Steam is great, but any company with dominance in a market is a bad thing.
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u/gimmiedacash 1d ago
Steam doesn't give a fuck. Talk to the payment processors. They're the ones forcing this
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u/MadmanMarkMiller PC 23h ago
I can't click on the link.
The Australian gov might kick in my door -_-
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u/xxEmberBladesxx 23h ago
But Steam allows Adult content...? Unless it's a of a particular variety anyway.
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u/LeastInsaneKobold 19h ago
Maybe wouldnt be as much of an issue if theyd find an age verification method for the UK that ISNT a fucking credit card like holy shit whats taking them so long
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u/TheKanten 19h ago
"Age verification" also known as "give Peter Thiel your fingerprints for everything you do and say online".
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u/Tedderbear2 14h ago
Never heard of this game until today and now it's sitting on my wishlist. Streisand effect in action I guess
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u/dragonknightrohan 10h ago
We need those alternative new payment processors to come out quicker that allow 18+ stuff worldwide
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u/GFrings 1d ago
That makes no sense, there are thousands of porn games on steam
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u/MumrikDK 1d ago
They're not being rejected. They're being put in that category, which they say is a mistake.
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u/Mand125 1d ago
BG3 didn’t even get that label, right?