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Valve blocks the Steam release of Shining Song Starnova until the implementation of new filtering tools, gives no timeline


Plk_Lesiak

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This is something I've posted on Reddit earlier, but I thought I might as well spread the awareness of Valve's BS here too. After a month of keeping the release build in review (SSS was made by Sunrider's developers, Love in Space and is published by Sekai), Valve said that it will not let the game on the platform (even though it seems to have a proper all-ages version and an adult patch, just like Maitetsu, released at the same time by the same publisher) until their new filtering tool, basically the way to make the waifu games invisible for those that are scared of them, are implemented. The problem is, they don't give even an approximate of when that might be. The tools might arrive next week, or next year and devs that put the work and marketing towards their releases this summer might get stuck in limbo for who-knows-how-long. I guess long, because the tools will most likely go live as beta feature and stay like that for a while before they're fully implemented. It seems that SolPress' Newrin is in the same situation, although that company didn't invest their last two year into this one project and can probably live with an indefinite delay.

All in all, Valve is a f***** shitty company as always, I at least hope they won't wait another year to implement those filtering tools and that they'll actually make them useful. Then they can go back to not caring what people what people upload on their storefront - that way they'll at least not actively screw over decent developers. :wafuu:

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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3 minutes ago, adamstan said:

Does that mean that all incoming VN Steam releases are in danger? Why now? And, considering that, how in the hell did Maitetsu get through? :P I'm actually waiting for SolPress' releases - Yotsunoha and Sakura Sakura.

It seems yes and as usual, there's no consistency or transparency in how Valve decides this stuff. Looks like they target whatever feels like too much of a "waifu game", after all Maitetsu also have an h-patch (and what an h-patch that is! Love in Space's porn is actually always very vanilla :p).

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By the title alone, we can see you also posted this on reddit :meguface:

Well, Valve's being Valve again. This time they created quite a sneaky but working way to ban "waifu games" without actually banning then. Say that you'll develop a filtering tool, and release it together with Half Life 3. In the meantime, VNs will be forever hidden for everyone. And then there's Maitetsu, it's a surprise it's still there considering what happened with Key to Home.

So guess it's a good time to everyone here to learn how to use Mangagamer's store, Denpasoft, Fakku, itch.io and any other alternative and jump ship. I remember seeing some people celebrating that we won the "waifu holocaust" but, as imagined, we lost it. 

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14 minutes ago, MaggieROBOT said:

So guess it's a good time to everyone here to learn how to use Mangagamer's store, Denpasoft, Fakku, itch.io and any other alternative and jump ship. I remember seeing some people celebrating that we won the "waifu holocaust" but, as imagined, we lost it. 

Yeah, I think this will further push VN devs for diversifications... Hopefully, GOG will gradually accept more high profile VNs too. I've heard there's also a huge Chinese distributor entering the Western market?

I would still like for Valve to get their shit together though. Nothing can and nothing will be able to give the kind of sales Steam does in near future, devs have no choice but to rely on it as their main platform, even if not the only one. And I don't even know why Valve bothers to do this, I can't imagine them losing any of their mainstream userbase over allowing a few more anime games in, considering there's already a zillion of them on the platform. :vinty:

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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I'm kind of surprised Steam allowed Maitetsu at all... that game is one I don't think should have been localized in the first place, for the sake of the community.  I'd feel the same way if someone tried to localize Monobeno, for the same reason... the games are tailor-made to cause a major lolicon debate in public here in the US.  I have to wonder if people realize just how thin a line the Western eroge (localization and making both) industry is walking...

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7 minutes ago, Clephas said:

I'm kind of surprised Steam allowed Maitetsu at all... that game is one I don't think should have been localized in the first place, for the sake of the community.  I'd feel the same way if someone tried to localize Monobeno, for the same reason... the games are tailor-made to cause a major lolicon debate in public here in the US.  I have to wonder if people realize just how thin a line the Western eroge (localization and making both) industry is walking...

Yeah, the fact they didn't at least decide to make the Steam version exclusively all-ages is scary. People often post porn CGs in the Steam community etc., it takes one idiot or one crusader to make it into a disaster. If it didn't happen already, it might never do though. I guess that's one time we should be seriously thankful for how the internet information bubbles work.

The contrast with how actually inoffensive the games they blocked are would be quite hilarious if it wasn't depressing. :amane:

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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3 minutes ago, Clephas said:

I'm kind of surprised Steam allowed Maitetsu at all... that game is one I don't think should have been localized in the first place, for the sake of the community.  I'd feel the same way if someone tried to localize Monobeno, for the same reason... the games are tailor-made to cause a major lolicon debate in public here in the US.  I have to wonder if people realize just how thin a line the Western eroge (localization and making both) industry is walking...

Maitetsu got  steam approval before all that VN banning drama transpired.

I am more concerned about how long this will take.. i really wanted to read Newton and the apple tree among other releases..

Lets hope this get rectified before Sanoba witch releases in October but i wouldn't worry about it since NekoN got their own store page..same cant be said about Solpress and the likes

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Just now, Wildbreed said:

Maitetsu got  steam approval before all that VN banning drama transpired.

 

I know.  I was simply stating my opinion.  This is one case where there shouldn't be an h-patch, regardless of what the fanboys and the anti-censorship people want.

 

1 minute ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Yeah, the fact they didn't at least decide to make the Steam version exclusively all-ages is scary. People often post porn CGs in the Steam community etc., it takes one idiot or one crusader to make it into a disaster. If it didn't happen already, it might never do though. I guess that's one time we should be seriously thankful for how the internet information bubbles work.

The contrast with how actually inoffensive the games they blocked are would be quite hilarious if it wasn't depressing. :amane:

The thing that most people who are new to the community don't understand, not having lived through that period of time, is that periodically, some Japanese eroge catches the attention of someone in the mass media for extreme objectionable content.  When that happens, you suddenly see entire otaku sites go down, DDOS attacks on anything related to VNs, etc.  The Rapelay incident was one of them, but Maitetsu has the possibility of being an even worse threat to the community, because lolicon is the one non-violent Japanese fetish that could cause the authorities to move against VN localization companies. 

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2 minutes ago, Clephas said:

 Maitetsu has the possibility of being an even worse threat to the community, because lolicon is the one non-violent Japanese fetish that could cause the authorities to move against VN localization companies. 

I think that is why SP keeps deleting discussions threads on the steam store page of Maitetsu.

Especially because of recent events that took place you really dont want unnecessary attention on "Loli aspects" of that VN..

small ripples can easily give rise to big waves as they say..and you definitely want to avoid that..  Even a small mention of nudity and the whole topic gets deleted.

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47 minutes ago, adamstan said:

And, considering that, how in the hell did Maitetsu get through?

It got lucky, I guess. SSS just probably happened to be handled by another overly zealous employee who wanted to save honest buyers from another disgusting anime "game".

3 minutes ago, Kiriririri said:

Bigger developers can probably release whatever because Valve trusts them (Sekai's Maitetsu case)

Or maybe that, yeah.

 

Well, to be honest, it's not a situation where quick solution exists. Small companies need Steam because it gives them large extra revenues from people who only buy their games on Steam. Well, monopolies are always shitty by default.

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20 minutes ago, Dreamysyu said:

It got lucky, I guess. SSS just probably happened to be handled by another overly zealous employee who wanted to save honest buyers from another disgusting anime "game".

Or maybe that, yeah.

 

Well, to be honest, it's not a situation where quick solution exists. Small companies need Steam because it gives them large extra revenues from people who only buy their games on Steam. Well, monopolies are always shitty by default.

Shining Song Starnova is also published by Sekai Project.
As has been mentioned before, Maitetsu was approved for Steam before they took a slightly more definitive stance of implementing filtering tools. It was not through arbitrary luck that one got approved and the other did not.

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  1. You're not limited to Steam as a release platform.
  2. VN devs finally need to stop abusing Steam.

If they need porn that badly, maybe they should change their market. There's both Fakku and Nutaku available as well.

Steam doesn't allow porn, simple as that. The non-steam patches are only a half-assed grey zone band aid to circumvent the inconvenience, Steam never really approved.

At the same time, Steam is ready to actually allow sexual content in vns, providing it has either artistic or intellectual merit. Guess what - vast majority of 18+ vns don't have that - it's either porn or fan service for the heck of it, despite what community thinks. Adult visual novels could easily have more value to them, but so far most devs constantly prove otherwise through their own actions. It's plain hypocrisy and I'm honestly fed up with it. I'm not surprised at all they refused to publish Starnova as it stands now - it's meant to be an edgy, weeb-pandering porn game involving idols, lol.

Complaining about this in general - especially as a developer - is just silly. Most devs got what was coming at them.

Steam is not a platform to release porn games and 18+ visual novels. Period.

 

Edited by Narcosis
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4 minutes ago, Mr Poltroon said:

Shining Song Starnova is also published by Sekai Project.

Actually, yeah.

3 minutes ago, Mr Poltroon said:

Maitetsu was approved for Steam before they took a slightly more definitive stance of implementing filtering tools.

Well, I really doubt that it would be above Steam to suspend the games they originally approved if they were actually serious about this.

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1 hour ago, Narcosis said:

Steam is not a platform to release porn games and 18+ visual novels. Period.

Well, that would be the ideal state of affairs IMO. Steam that respects its own rules and brings the all-ages VN experience to weirdos like myself, that prefers those versions in the vast majority of cases and would be happy about originally all-ages titles being in a less sketchy environment.

The problem is, it was Valve's desition to be consistently lenient towards the 18+ patches and porn sneaking its way on the platform, make some explicit rules on how it should be done (keeping the patches off-steam, not discussing/directing to the porn in the community spaces etc.) and then asks devs who operated under a rather stable set of rules for a long time to wait for possibly months after months, with no timetable (which means no possibility for proper planning/reacting to this setback) and apparently no workarounds that could mitigate the costs of such a delay.

Devs are actually pretty quiet about it, as they know they're in "sticks vs nukes" situation against Valve. I just find how shitty the Steam administrations acts pretty inexcusable - no matter what ideal scenario we might come up with, I'm pretty sure Valve won't do much about it, as it would require them actually making some desitions and then curate stuff to a minimal extent. Now they're just stalling, making other people's lives miserable in the process until they make some filters that they hope will make the problem sort itself out. I'm not channelling devs' outrage here - I'm channelling my own, because all sides deserve a storefront with some kind of consistency and responsibility behind it. The only thing Valve does is making sure they're not responsible for anything.

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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1 hour ago, Clephas said:

The thing that most people who are new to the community don't understand, not having lived through that period of time, is that periodically, some Japanese eroge catches the attention of someone in the mass media for extreme objectionable content.  When that happens, you suddenly see entire otaku sites go down, DDOS attacks on anything related to VNs, etc.  The Rapelay incident was one of them, but Maitetsu has the possibility of being an even worse threat to the community, because lolicon is the one non-violent Japanese fetish that could cause the authorities to move against VN localization companies. 

Rapelay is mentioned frequently as a nightmare scenario, but I wonder how many people actually know it other than "the worst case scenario". It starts out in an intro with the protagonist groping a girl. She reports it to the police, protag is fined/jailed/whatever and afterwards he seeks out the girl, her sister and mother to get revenge rape. That's it for the story and it's told in 100 lines or something. After that it's a sex simulator, something like select girl and place and then you control how to rape her in some 3D realtime rendered stuff. The girls are kept as sex slaves through threats and blackmail. The goal is something like crushing the spirit/mind of the girls to make them allow everything without fighting back. It's very dark without any hint of comedy or other positive feelings.

Despite having an attitude, which more or less says everything goes, I actually support a ban on Rapelay. It's not like it's a story, general gameplay or anything. It's nothing but repeated raping. From time to time people claim video games causes violence, shootings, dangerous driving or whatever, usually without any hint of evidence or explanation why other than "it's present". Rapelay seems different. It aims to be realistic and it has a point system, which pushes the player to go further and further. If your mind is in a gray zone regarding rape, Rapelay could very well be what pushes you over the edge. If your mind isn't in the gray zone regarding rapes, then you will not play it (unless you want to see what the fuss is all about and then quickly regret doing so).

It might be possible to find screenshots, which makes Rapelay look like a VN, but it's clearly not. 99%+ of the time is about interactive 3D rape.

 

Whenever anybody compares a VN to Rapelay, I feel like he/she is missing the issue with Rapelay. Explain Rapelay in one sentence "you rape 3 girls as many times as possible". Explain Maitetsu in one sentence "You are on a quest to help a girl locate a steam locomotive". If somebody makes a fuss about it, people can look it up on steam, read a description of the contents and it sounds ok. It doesn't scream sick contents like Rapelay does.

Still it's possible that VNs like Maitetsu will cause an outcry. It's possible with any release, even all age. The truth have never stopped a public outcry. Fight something, which wasn't there to being with and when investigation reveals it's not present, declare victory by claiming credit for the removal. A lot of the public rage is not about the goal, but rather some leader(s) having power to make other people upset. If they can control a group of people by lying, then lying it is to gain such a power. I'm not more concerned about a public outcry regarding Maitetsu than I am for so many other VN titles. Such things strike semi randomly.

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11 minutes ago, tymmur said:

If your mind is in a gray zone regarding rape, Rapelay could very well be what pushes you over the edge. If your mind isn't in the gray zone regarding rapes, then you will not play it (unless you want to see what the fuss is all about and then quickly regret doing so).

If your mind is already in grey zone then you should get help. Literally any movie, book etc. that features rape could push you over. That is like saying any porn pushes you further to more hardcore stuff.
This same could be applied to lolicons too and I'm sure a person like you won't admit it lol.

Lots of people will play Rapelay without interest to rape because 3D porn simulators are all good fap material.

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27 minutes ago, Kiriririri said:

Lots of people will play Rapelay without interest to rape because 3D porn simulators are all good fap material.

That's the kind of gray area I referred to. If you can enjoy something like that, then you build up a tolerance towards rape and even if you don't actually do it yourself, you start to be more indifferent towards it. Unlike rape bad end or whatever, Rapelay sets it as a goal and it becomes a good thing. If you are constantly told something like that, it can stick to even normal people. Look at Germany in the 30s. A group of people were pointed out as bad people and it made other people able to do normally unthinkable things to those bad people because the concept of normal got warped, but I'm sure an ally of Germany (like you) won't admit it lol.

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58 minutes ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Well, that would be the ideal state of affairs IMO. Steam that respects its own rules and brings the all-ages VN experience to weirdos like myself, that prefers those versions in the vast majority of cases and would be happy about originally all-ages titles being in a less sketchy environment.

The problem is, it was Valve's decision to be consistently lenient towards the 18+ patches and porn sneaking its way on the platform, make some explicit rules on how it should be done (keeping the patches off-steam, not discussing/directing to the porn in the community spaces etc.) and then asks devs who operated under a rather stable set of rules for a long time to wait for possibly months after months, with no timetable (which means no possibility for proper planning/reacting to this setback) and apparently no workarounds that could mitigate the costs of such a delay.

Devs are actually pretty quiet about it, as they know they're in "sticks vs nukes" situation against Valve. I just find how shitty the Steam administrations acts pretty inexcusable - no matter what ideal scenario we might come up with, I'm pretty sure Valve won't do much about it, as it would require them actually making some decision and then curate stuff to a minimal extent. Now they're just stalling, making other people's lives miserable in the process until they make some filters that they hope will make the problem sort itself out. I'm not channelling devs' outrage here - I'm channelling my own, because all sides deserve a storefront with some kind of consistency and responsibility behind it. The only thing Valve does is making sure they're not responsible for anything.

As much as I agree with mention of Steam's inconsistency to provide a reasonable ground for business, it's only the devs' fault for wanting to sell porn games in an inappropriate environment. If they would stick to producing all-ages vns, instead of trying to circumvent issues with off-store adult patches, everything would be fine. It's also a perfect sample to show their vns have little to no merit in terms of sexual content, other than delivering smut. Truth to be told, only those games seem to actually sell on Steam, while the actual story-driven vns end up quickly forgotten and with poor sales numbers.

Life is harsh, people don't read and porn always sells, I'd say.

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