Valve threatening to remove VNs with adult content from steam?

[Darklord Rooke]

7 hours ago, tymmur said:

I called GOG as the new outlet way back on page 4, but that was quickly shut down as GOG will not have anything to do with VNs.....

People have been calling for GOG to include visual novels for over 5 years now ( https://www.gog.com/forum/general/why_is_gog_refusing_visual_novels/page1 ). Their policy has consistently been "we're not putting them up". Maybe MG and Sekai just wore them down through rugged persistence or something ...

[phantomJS]

2 hours ago, Darklord Rooke said:

People have been calling for GOG to include visual novels for over 5 years now ( https://www.gog.com/forum/general/why_is_gog_refusing_visual_novels/page1 ). Their policy has consistently been "we're not putting them up". Maybe MG and Sekai just wore them down through rugged persistence or something ...

One possible logical reason is that this is a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity. Personally, I see little reason to pass this great opportunity up as it will probably not appear again

Anyway it's great news for us; DRM and discrimination-free Visual Novels? YAH!

Edited May 23, 2018 by phantomJS

[Templarseeker]

GOG.COM finally releases some of their few first visual novel titles!!!! 

I thought I was dreaming or something that GOG.com would ever consider publishing VNs on their store but here it is. The world is changing so fast

Perhaps the situation isn't so bleak after all since this is GOG.com we are talking about!

 

Edited May 23, 2018 by Templarseeker

[tymmur]

57 minutes ago, phantomJS said:

One possible logical reason is that this is a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity. Personally, I see little reason to pass this great opportunity up as it will probably not appear again

That's why I said GOG. Entering an established market is tricky. You need to spend time and money on marketing and hoping to get some awareness and attention in order to get a even a tiny fraction of the market. Right now the VN community is flaming Steam and people talk about a doomed VN future (or risk of it). GOG shows up and get hero status by ensuring VNs can still be purchased in the future. This spreads as fast as the Steam bashing and threads like this one ensures everybody knows that GOG has started selling and what has GOG done in regard of marketing for this? One twitter post and one post on their forum. Simply put the timing appears to have allowed them to conquer a market overnight without marketing expenses.

This is why I said GOG would start to sell VN now despite never having made that claim before. Timing is everything.

[tymmur]

Quote

KILL IT WITH FIRE!

The filth has been purged by Steam and it is now trying to find refuge here at GoG. DO NOT LET IT SPREAD, KILL IT WITH FIRE SO IT DOESNT REPRODUCE

(3 of 112 users found this helpful)

Looks like the VN haters already figured out VNs ended up on GOG and made a review. However the main story here is how many found it helpful. It shows it's just a few people. Loud, but not many. Just to show much loud this person is, she (or he?) reviewed every single VN and is the only one to provide negative reviews. It says a lot about Steam if they acted based on people like that.

[phantomJS]

1 hour ago, tymmur said:

That's why I said GOG. Entering an established market is tricky. You need to spend time and money on marketing and hoping to get some awareness and attention in order to get a even a tiny fraction of the market. Right now the VN community is flaming Steam and people talk about a doomed VN future (or risk of it). GOG shows up and get hero status by ensuring VNs can still be purchased in the future. This spreads as fast as the Steam bashing and threads like this one ensures everybody knows that GOG has started selling and what has GOG done in regard of marketing for this? One twitter post and one post on their forum. Simply put the timing appears to have allowed them to conquer a market overnight without marketing expenses.

This is why I said GOG would start to sell VN now despite never having made that claim before. Timing is everything.

True, GOG seems to be profiting without doing much of anything themselves.

I'll rather see things from the bright side though; Compared to the Valve situation, the above scenario is much more preferable don't you think?   

[Hetzer123]

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Edited October 2, 2019 by Hetzer123

[tymmur]

1 hour ago, phantomJS said:

I'll rather see things from the bright side though; Compared to the Valve situation, the above scenario is much more preferable don't you think?   

I didn't say it as a bad thing. It's more like an objective observation. I have nothing against people or companies profiting as long as it's without exploitation of people and I see no signs of exploitation here.

19 minutes ago, Hetzer123 said:

GOG: Just as planned

I'm quite sure GOG didn't plan this. Just think about what we know. Some VN companies have tried to get GOG to sell VNs. This will most likely have provided GOG with contact info like direct phone numbers to CEOs. GOG will also most likely have playtested the VNs themselves during past negotiations, hence having a pretty good idea what it's all about. Now Valve messed up and the English VN market is free for the taking. Odds are that whoever comes first will get the majority of the market, possibly even close to monopoly.

In other words other companies had provided GOG with the means to add VNs to the store in a matter of days and they might have been in that situation for quite a while. Valve then basically said "act now" and they did. Seems like it's the company version of getting the winning Lotto numbers.

 

If GOG planned this, it would mean they somehow managed to make Valve act like idiots, hence some sort of corruption. I really don't think that's the case because I can't really see GOG acting like that and even if they did, I don't see how they could do it. Besides Valve have on multiple occasions revealed that they are able to make stupid decisions without external help. GOG was just at the right place at the right time and they knew how to make the best of it, but they did not have control of the reason why it was the right time or even if the right time would ever turn up.

[Hetzer123]

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Edited October 2, 2019 by Hetzer123

[sanahtlig]

The "why now" with GoG still isn't clear to me, and especially how open they're being about their policy towards ero patches.  For some reason, they've decided that they want to be in on the action.  VN sales are just a drop in the bucket.  I don't think that's a primary motivating factor.  Free publicity and attention for their platform?  Could be.  Or maybe they want to sell other games to VN fans.  But perhaps the most compelling reason is that they want to distinguish themselves from Steam, and this isn't about VNs at all per say.  They want to say, "We want to work with developers, not against them.  We're a friendly place for up and coming indie devs.  Come and sell your wares with us."

It could also just be that, having made highly sexual games like the Witcher, they're sympathetic to sexualized games and think they can provide a better platform for them.  Maybe they want this to be part of their brand.

[Dreamysyu]

4 hours ago, Hetzer123 said:

No idea why. Some of them argue whether VN are "true" game or poor quality.

People love to harass things they don't understand. That's all there is to it, really.

[TheCrimsonFucker]

17 hours ago, Dreamysyu said:

People love to harass things they don't understand. That's all there is to it, really.

More like some people think their opinion are fact and everyone else who thinks differently are trash. Not to mention when they put titles on themselves like "I'm a gamer" they feel their opinion matters more. Funny since it doesn't actually matter -.-'
 

18 hours ago, sanahtlig said:

The "why now" with GoG still isn't clear to me, and especially how open they're being about their policy towards ero patches.  For some reason, they've decided that they want to be in on the action.  VN sales are just a drop in the bucket.  I don't think that's a primary motivating factor.  Free publicity and attention for their platform?  Could be.  Or maybe they want to sell other games to VN fans.  But perhaps the most compelling reason is that they want to distinguish themselves from Steam, and this isn't about VNs at all per say.  They want to say, "We want to work with developers, not against them.  We're a friendly place for up and coming indie devs.  Come and sell your wares with us."

It could also just be that, having made highly sexual games like the Witcher, they're sympathetic to sexualized games and think they can provide a better platform for them.  Maybe they want this to be part of their brand.

There can be one to a million reason "why now". From a business standpoint they may see a "future" in VNs, maybe they are leaving a door open for the chance that VNs get more popular in the west. I'm leaning towards, that they want to distinguish themselves from Steam as you said

Edited May 24, 2018 by TheCrimsonFucker

[tymmur]

1 hour ago, sanahtlig said:

The "why now" with GoG still isn't clear to me, and especially how open they're being about their policy towards ero patches.  For some reason, they've decided that they want to be in on the action.  VN sales are just a drop in the bucket.  I don't think that's a primary motivating factor.

Sometimes companies get in on niche markets because being small they are easier to conquer/dominate. What they hope is that the market will grow while they maintain their market shares and eventually it will pay off when they maintain their share in a big market. Apple did that with iTuneStore and maintained their share of 84% of online sales once it got big. However for every success story in this regard, there are plenty of investments in markets, which never catch on. Maybe GOG predicts VNs will become big, or at least it could happen and if it doesn't, they will not get stuck with a huge bill.

Getting on GOG is likely the best shot VNs have at becoming big, meaning GOG is more like trying to create the market than just hoping that it will appear by itself.

It's also worth mentioning that when GOG started, people were like "that will never work. Way too few people are interested in outdated games, which people have already downloaded for free, They won't last long". They took a chance of something and it went much better than predicted. Maybe they think they can repeat that with VNs, or at least it's worth the risk, which seems to be close to non-existing.

1 hour ago, sanahtlig said:

Free publicity and attention for their platform?  Could be.  Or maybe they want to sell other games to VN fans.  But perhaps the most compelling reason is that they want to distinguish themselves from Steam, and this isn't about VNs at all per say.

Maybe it's their goal and maybe not. Either way it is the outcome.

1 hour ago, sanahtlig said:

They want to say, "We want to work with developers, not against them.  We're a friendly place for up and coming indie devs.  Come and sell your wares with us."

I think that message was created when they made the surprise move of accepting Wasteland 2. However this time is indeed different because to my knowledge it's the first time they actively accepted something relatively new, which Steam rejected. It certainly doesn't hurt to repeat the message that it's the right place for indie developers to start out if they have something worth adding.

1 hour ago, sanahtlig said:

It could also just be that, having made highly sexual games like the Witcher, they're sympathetic to sexualized games and think they can provide a better platform for them.  Maybe they want this to be part of their brand.

Steam seems to only think of profit and control. GOG on the other hand seems to be ruled by ideology as well. The whole concept they started out with is more ideology than regular business. Their attitude towards DRM is ideology, though it is also marketing towards customers with the same ideology. It's entirely possible the answer to "why now?" is ideology. Some sort of feeling sorry for the VN community for being screwed big time.

 

The real answer to why and why now is likely a combination of everything mentioned and possibly some other factors as well.

[YukinoMiko]

27 minutes ago, tymmur said:

Sometimes companies get in on niche markets because being small they are easier to conquer/dominate. What they hope is that the market will grow while they maintain their market shares and eventually it will pay off when they maintain their share in a big market. Apple did that with iTuneStore and maintained their share of 84% of online sales once it got big. However for every success story in this regard, there are plenty of investments in markets, which never catch on. Maybe GOG predicts VNs will become big, or at least it could happen and if it doesn't, they will not get stuck with a huge bill.

Getting on GOG is likely the best shot VNs have at becoming big, meaning GOG is more like trying to create the market than just hoping that it will appear by itself.

It's also worth mentioning that when GOG started, people were like "that will never work. Way too few people are interested in outdated games, which people have already downloaded for free, They won't last long". They took a chance of something and it went much better than predicted. Maybe they think they can repeat that with VNs, or at least it's worth the risk, which seems to be close to non-existing.

I don't personally think it's about the market getting big in itself, since the appeal of the medium is small enough that it's clearly never going to hold a candle to the major sellers on either Steam or GOG. However, GOG have already had some success as an outlet for Japanese games (Tokyo Xanadu was a chart-topper there despite being a fairy mediocre title), and visual novels have an overlapping market with such Japanese titles.

If I had to guess, then, part of the point is to be visibly welcoming to a certain demographic, while also indirectly snubbing Steam. It's poor "optics" with respect to some of the population, but if GOG are betting on the idea that those people (approving of censorship, and so forth) are more likely to be Steam-loyal than to share their no-DRM ideology, then it would be quite a strong way of boosting their presence as a freer and more consumer-friendly alternative, in the business of giving all customers their desired product without putting unnecessary obstacles in their way.

So, they get to increase their appeal to the Japanese-content-loving demographic, and also increase their appeal to the libertarian demographic (more or less their core), at the same time. Win-win for them, really.

[tymmur]

1 hour ago, YukinoMiko said:

I don't personally think it's about the market getting big in itself, since the appeal of the medium is small enough that it's clearly never going to hold a candle to the major sellers on either Steam or GOG.

I meant it as relative to the current market share. Surely they will never be big compared to AAA titles. I guess growth potential would be a better term.

1 hour ago, YukinoMiko said:

So, they get to increase their appeal to the Japanese-content-loving demographic, and also increase their appeal to the libertarian demographic (more or less their core), at the same time.

I stopped using the word liberal because there are parties in multiple countries all claiming to be liberal. It would be ok if they were always the most liberal party, but that's not the case. Feminist wanting to ban VNs likely view themselves as liberal. Just look at the US politics. It's the liberals who wants regulations and centralized power while the conservatives are the ones who are pro free speech, making the republican party more liberal than the democratic party (the democratic party supporters are often called liberals). This many uses of the word liberal makes the word useless because the writer and the reader might not agree on the meaning.

I agree with your statement though as I assume you refer to liberal in the dictionary sense as in people are free to do as they like and nobody should be restricted by DRM. The linux kind of liberal ideology. People who aim for DRM free software for ideological reasons are most likely also the kind of people who just ignores software they don't like instead of flaming it for no apparent reason. In other words this move should make GOG more appealing to people feeling suppressed by Steam DRM.

Edited May 23, 2018 by tymmur

[Decay]

This looks opportunistic of gog because of the timing, but it's my understanding that this has been in the works for a while. SP actually announced ages ago that they were entering into a partnership with gog to sell stuff on their store. The timing is largely coincidental, though I wouldn't be surprised if there was an early rollout to capitalize on the current events.

Edited May 23, 2018 by Decay

[sanahtlig]

6 hours ago, YukinoMiko said:

So, they get to increase their appeal to the Japanese-content-loving demographic

But isn't this Japanophile demographic also likely to look down on VNs, particularly the eroge variety, as trash?  That's certainly how it's typically been with mainstream anime fans and heavily sexualized shows or H-anime.  Proximity to a marginalized culture often results in strong antipathy due to the social need to distinguish oneself.

[YukinoMiko]

15 hours ago, sanahtlig said:

But isn't this Japanophile demographic also likely to look down on VNs, particularly the eroge variety, as trash?  That's certainly how it's typically been with mainstream anime fans and heavily sexualized shows or H-anime.  Proximity to a marginalized culture often results in strong antipathy due to the social need to distinguish oneself.

I'm actually one of those who looks down on heavily sexualised anime (especially because the quality of everything else but the sexy bit generally suffers), but I don't have any issue with most eroge, let alone non-H VNs.

I can only speak for me on that, though. It's just... sort of like the difference between a softcore porn movie (most sexy anime) vs. a proper film which happens to have a couple sex scenes (quite a few eroge).

Edited May 24, 2018 by YukinoMiko

[tymmur]

1 hour ago, YukinoMiko said:

I'm actually one of those who looks down on heavily sexualised anime (especially because the quality of everything else but the sexy bit generally suffers)

I agree and disagree with you on that one. I think it would be more correct to say that the features, which makes a great anime (storyline, characters etc) is needed regardless of sexual contents or references. The problem is when they add sexual contents to compensate for shortcomings in other areas, which is sadly not uncommon.

[YukinoMiko]

5 minutes ago, tymmur said:

I agree and disagree with you on that one. I think it would be more correct to say that the features, which makes a great anime (storyline, characters etc) is needed regardless of sexual contents or references. The problem is when they add sexual contents to compensate for shortcomings in other areas, which is sadly not uncommon.

I'm not sure they do add it to compensate (all the time). It feels more like they decide they're going for the market which will jump for anything sexy, and then cut corners elsewhere because they know they've already reeled in the demographic they want.

I'd say it's part of the more general problem of producing things specifically to be marketable/sell, rather than trying to create the best product possible and then thinking about how to sell it after.

[Plk_Lesiak]

Valve released a new staff blog post, basically confirming their "anything goes" stance when it goes to what's allowed on the platform.

They explicitly stated that the latest mess was not connected to any kind of outside pressure and pretty much suggested it was done by some overly-eager employee (most likely someone with a serious bias against VNs/anime stuff, considering the games targeted).

They also openly called out anime games as something many of their users hate and want filtered out of their feeds, suggesting that they're working on tools that will make that doable. Which is slightly messed up, but I guess it's still a win. At least for VNs. Because I'm not sure if Valve's "hands-off" approach will benefit them in the long run.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Plk_Lesiak

[Zander]

6 minutes ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

They also openly called out anime games as something many of their users hate and want filtered out of their feeds, suggesting that they're working on tools that will make that doable. Which is slightly messed up, but I guess it's still a win. 

How is that messed up? It sounds like a good compromise to me. If people don't want to see anything of a certain tag they should be able to remove it from their own feeds, in my opinion. I hate bullet hell / twin stick shooters with a passion, for example, so I will probably hide those games with this same tool. 

[tymmur]

Quote

Taking this approach allows us to focus less on trying to police what should be on Steam, and more on building those tools to give people control over what kinds of content they see. We already have some tools, but they're too hidden and not nearly comprehensive enough. We are going to enable you to override our recommendation algorithms and hide games containing the topics you're not interested in. So if you don't want to see anime games on your Store, you'll be able to make that choice. If you want more options to control exactly what kinds of games your kids see when they browse the Store, you'll be able to do that. And it's not just players that need better tools either - developers who build controversial content shouldn't have to deal with harassment because their game exists, and we'll be building tools and options to support them too.

I can't see this as a bad thing. What I read here is that once the tool is in place, whenever I encounter something I realize is a genre, which isn't for me, then I disable the genre. This could make their recommendations useful in finding something worth my time. Right now almost all of my steam purchases are based on knowing the game from other sources because finding a random good game on steam of a certain genre is near impossible.

I don't read this as something specific against "anime games". It's more like all games have to have at least one genre it matches (usually one) and if you filter on genre, you can pick any genre.

[Plk_Lesiak]

23 minutes ago, Zander said:

How is that messed up? It sounds like a good compromise to me. If people don't want to see anything of a certain tag they should be able to remove it from their own feeds, in my opinion. I hate bullet hell / twin stick shooters with a passion, for example, so I will probably hide those games with this same tool. 

Yeah, of course I don't mean the tools themselves, I'm all for that kind of customisation and it will definitely lead to less conflict over the abundance of anime games reaching Steam. I just meant Steam singling out anime stuff like that in an official post. ;p

Edited June 6, 2018 by Plk_Lesiak

[Zander]

22 minutes ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Yeah, of course I don't mean the tools themselves, I'm all for that kind of customisation and it will definitely lead to less conflict over the abundance of anime games reaching Steam. I just meant Steam singling out anime stuff like that in an official post. ;p

Oh, I apologise, I misunderstood you. I do think they have reason to single out anime stuff, though, considering it seems to be the source of all of the recent tension over what should and should not be on the store, as well as their propensity to include sexual content.