The group is proof that there are always people that are bigger losers in the world than you.

The Australia-based anti-pornography group and so-called "radical feminist organization" called Collective Shout have claimed that they are the ones responsible for forcing Valve to remove several adult titles from Steam and for the more strict content guidelines enacted on Steam at the same time. Basically, this group applied pressure to payment processors who, in turn, forced Valve to make the change or risk losing access to those payment processors through Steam.

The reveal that Collective Shout were the ones to apply pressure to the payment processors and Valve came originally from Vice's Waypoint and written by Ana Valens. Collective Shout publicly shared through their site that they instructed their followers to "email payment processors and call them to stop facilitating payments and profiting from these games on Steam."

Furthermore, the group also sent a letter to "senior executives at payment gateway companies including Mastercard, Visa and PayPal." This letter included the signatures from multiple pro-censorship groups such as the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) and Exodus Cry. As Waypoint's article pointed out, Collective Shout's allies also include anti-porn groups such as the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and CEASE. "Both NCOSE and Exodus Cry have previously encouraged the removal of certain online content they deem harmful, with NCOSE in particular taking a strong focus on Steam."

NCOSE went after Steam back in 2018 when they tried to get several adult visual novels pulled from Steam. Valve briefly went along before reversing its decision. This reversal actually opened up the doors for adult content on Steam. In the seven years since that reversal, it would be neigh impossible to find an article from NCOSE where they don't mention Steam.

As for Exodus Cry, that group went on a pretty big campaign against PornHub back in 2020, which resulted in some equally big changes to the platform. This group even whined about how online searches for phrases such as "video games," "Fortnite," and "Pokemon" could lead children to sexual content. According to Mike Stabile from Free Speech Coalition, Exodus Cry could be best described as "a faith-based activist group that believes all pornography and sex work should be banned."

In total, Collective Shout claims they successfully went after roughly 500 titles on Steam and were left with just 81 titles left that they will continue to campaign against. However, even that claim seems to be a lie. According to PCGamer, there were 456 titles that were delisted from Steam, in total, during the period where the adult titles were removed. That list of 456 titles includes several duplicates, listed once as "Retired" and another time as "Removed." That list also includes individual pieces of DLC as well as demos. It also includes a handful of completely unrelated titles that were pulled from Steam at the same time. A far cry from the count that Collective Shout claims to have had delisted.

Now, the titles that were removed from Steam this past week all seem to fall under the "incest" fetish of adult content. However, Collective Shout appears to have also intentionally lied about what is depicted in those games that they campaigned against. They claim that the games depicted "child abuse." The group did not actually specify which, if any, of those titles actually included this particular subject matter.

Valve already has a pretty hard stance against games that depict underage characters in sexual situations. Valve has previously blocked games that featured characters that simply looked underage, despite developers claiming that the characters were 18 or older. Valve even briefly pulled a visual novel because it included a hidden file showing an adult scene with a character that Valve felt was underage. The game's publisher denied Valve's claim of the character being underage. The game was allowed to return to Steam only after that hidden file was removed.

In 2014, Collective Shout succeeded in getting Grand Theft Auto 5 banned from retailers Target and Kmart in Australia. The group claimed that the game "encourages players to commit sexual violence and kill women." To them, Grand Theft Auto 5 apparently let players "enact their fantasies of committing extreme violence against women, including punching women to the point of unconsciousness, killing them with a bat, gun or machete, running them down with a car, and setting them on fire as they continue screaming."

Anybody who has actually played Grand Theft Auto 5 can tell you that this is neither the intent nor the focus of the game. While there are legitimate issues that can be brought up about the game's depiction of sex workers and sex work, the claims by Collective Shout are without any merit.

Collective Shout previously attempted to get Detroit: Become Human pulled because they claim it depicted scenes of "child abuse."

Collective Shout began back in 2009 and was co-founded by self-described "pro-life feminist" Melinda Tankard Reist. The group self-describes as a "grassroots campaigning movement against the objectification of women and sexualization of girls in media, advertising, and popular culture." In addition to their campaigns against games, the group also tried to ban performing artists Snoop Dogg and Eminem from Australia. The group also successfully campaigned in 2015 to stop Tyler the Creator from touring Australia.

Following last week's removal of several titles on Steam, Collective Shout co-founder Melinda Tankard Reist made some incredibly defamatory statements on Twitter. She later created a long Twitter thread patting herself and Collective Shout on the back for getting the games banned from Steam.

As already suggested previously, do not be surprised to see that any game featuring adult situations such as sex or even softcore nudity become the next target for fringe groups such as Collective Shout. It's exceedingly clear that they will lie, say, and do anything to get anything they find objectionable banned. They seem to be the modern era Jack Thompson, only now disingenuous groups like Collective Shout, NCOSE, and Exodus Cry can use social media platforms to more easily pull in support from gullible individuals that don't know any better.