It took some time, but Valve has finally decided that a visual novel "game" about raping women during a zombie apocalypse maybe isn't a good fit for Steam.
The game is (was?) called Rape Day and the premise is pretty much what I said in the line above. The game glorified verbally harassing women, killing them, and raping them throughout the story. The game was under review from Valve and, after multiple articles went up about the game, did Valve see fit to pull its existence from Steam.
To be clear, Rape Day was never up for sale on Steam. It had a Steam Store page that was publicly visible to those that were logged into Steam and said that they were okay with seeing "adult" games. As it was under review from Valve it was unable to be sold until that process was complete.
Yeah, the creator is probably a piece of shit, you're right. The Rape Day website is still up even if Valve pulled the game from Steam. Included on the site is a bizarre Q&A with the developer. One such question and answer can be found below.
Q: Books and Games Like this should be illegal.
A: If we ever come to the scientific conclusion that committing crimes in video games, significantly increases the chances of committing crimes in real life, then at that point we as a society will have to decide if we want to ban committing some or all crimes in fiction. But you can’t reasonable consider banning rape in fiction without banning murder and torture. Murder has been normalized in fiction, while rape has yet to be normalized.
At some point in the future, game historians will look back on visual novels such as “rape day†as game historians look back on games such as “grand theft auto†now or even the first time nudity was shown on television. Moral out rage does not stop the entertainment industry, it slows it down but in time society progresses and realizes that the purely fictional things they thought would cause moral decay and widespread lawlessness in fact do not.
A: If we ever come to the scientific conclusion that committing crimes in video games, significantly increases the chances of committing crimes in real life, then at that point we as a society will have to decide if we want to ban committing some or all crimes in fiction. But you can’t reasonable consider banning rape in fiction without banning murder and torture. Murder has been normalized in fiction, while rape has yet to be normalized.
At some point in the future, game historians will look back on visual novels such as “rape day†as game historians look back on games such as “grand theft auto†now or even the first time nudity was shown on television. Moral out rage does not stop the entertainment industry, it slows it down but in time society progresses and realizes that the purely fictional things they thought would cause moral decay and widespread lawlessness in fact do not.
Q: What is up with the baby killing scene?
A: This scene has been removed. I am sorry to anyone whom this scene’s existence caused distress. I am learning to find my artistic balance between producing the games I love, and not causing avalanches of outrage.
A: This scene has been removed. I am sorry to anyone whom this scene’s existence caused distress. I am learning to find my artistic balance between producing the games I love, and not causing avalanches of outrage.
Back in September, Valve issued a status update stating that they have banned a number of games from Steam that were straight up trolling in nature. They even put up a Q&A in a Steam announcement that attempts to clarify what they mean by games that are outright trolling.
Q: What do you mean, in practice, when you say you won't ship games that are "outright trolling?" That seems vague.
A: It is vague and we'll tell you why. You're a denizen of the internet so you know that trolls come in all forms. On Steam, some are simply trying to rile people up with something we call "a game shaped object" (ie: a crudely made piece of software that technically and just barely passes our bar as a functioning video game but isn't what 99.9% of folks would say is "good"). Some trolls are trying to scam folks out of their Steam inventory items, others are looking for a way to generate a small amount of money off Steam through a series of schemes that revolve around how we let developers use Steam keys. Others are just trying to incite and sow discord. Trolls are figuring out new ways to be loathsome as we write this. But the thing these folks have in common is that they aren't actually interested in good faith efforts to make and sell games to you or anyone. When a developer's motives aren't that, they're probably a troll.
Our review of something that may be "a troll game" is a deep assessment that actually begins with the developer. We investigate who this developer is, what they've done in the past, their behavior on Steam as a developer, as a customer, their banking information, developers they associate with, and more. All of this is done to answer the question "who are we partnering with and why do they want to sell this game?" We get as much context around the creation and creator of the game and then make an assessment. A trend we're seeing is that we often ban these people from Steam altogether instead of cherry-picking through their individual game submissions. In the words of someone here in the office: "it really does seem like bad games are made by bad people."
This doesn't mean there aren't some crude or lower quality games on Steam, but it does mean we believe the developers behind them aren't out to do anything more than sell a game they hope some folks will want to play.
A: It is vague and we'll tell you why. You're a denizen of the internet so you know that trolls come in all forms. On Steam, some are simply trying to rile people up with something we call "a game shaped object" (ie: a crudely made piece of software that technically and just barely passes our bar as a functioning video game but isn't what 99.9% of folks would say is "good"). Some trolls are trying to scam folks out of their Steam inventory items, others are looking for a way to generate a small amount of money off Steam through a series of schemes that revolve around how we let developers use Steam keys. Others are just trying to incite and sow discord. Trolls are figuring out new ways to be loathsome as we write this. But the thing these folks have in common is that they aren't actually interested in good faith efforts to make and sell games to you or anyone. When a developer's motives aren't that, they're probably a troll.
Our review of something that may be "a troll game" is a deep assessment that actually begins with the developer. We investigate who this developer is, what they've done in the past, their behavior on Steam as a developer, as a customer, their banking information, developers they associate with, and more. All of this is done to answer the question "who are we partnering with and why do they want to sell this game?" We get as much context around the creation and creator of the game and then make an assessment. A trend we're seeing is that we often ban these people from Steam altogether instead of cherry-picking through their individual game submissions. In the words of someone here in the office: "it really does seem like bad games are made by bad people."
This doesn't mean there aren't some crude or lower quality games on Steam, but it does mean we believe the developers behind them aren't out to do anything more than sell a game they hope some folks will want to play.
Over the past week you may have heard about a game called 'Rape Day' coming soon to Steam. Today we've decided not to distribute this game on Steam. Given our previous communication around Who Gets To Be On The Steam Store?, we think this decision warrants further explanation.
Much of our policy around what we distribute is, and must be, reactionary—we simply have to wait and see what comes to us via Steam Direct. We then have to make a judgement call about any risk it puts to Valve, our developer partners, or our customers. After significant fact-finding and discussion, we think 'Rape Day' poses unknown costs and risks and therefore won't be on Steam.
We respect developers’ desire to express themselves, and the purpose of Steam is to help developers find an audience, but this developer has chosen content matter and a way of representing it that makes it very difficult for us to help them do that.
Much of our policy around what we distribute is, and must be, reactionary—we simply have to wait and see what comes to us via Steam Direct. We then have to make a judgement call about any risk it puts to Valve, our developer partners, or our customers. After significant fact-finding and discussion, we think 'Rape Day' poses unknown costs and risks and therefore won't be on Steam.
We respect developers’ desire to express themselves, and the purpose of Steam is to help developers find an audience, but this developer has chosen content matter and a way of representing it that makes it very difficult for us to help them do that.
They talk only about the "costs and risks" about a game like that on Steam. It's not that they condemn the game or what it stands for. I guess that's a bridge a bit too far for a company to do? This is about right up there with THQ's response to their AMA. It's a hollow statement.
How many characters have you ever killed in a video game? If you had to put a number on how many npc's you've killed, that you've 'shot' with some gun like object and killed, or you jumped on their head and killed, could you give a ballpark estimate?
Not counting games where you 'knock them out' and they lay down and go to sleep. Actual kill. Actual death. This thing is no longer alive. Maybe it'll respawn or another will come and replace it, making your murderous action have no consequences in the long term. Even more, how many times have you 'killed' another player's character in PvP?
What's the defense for that? Why are you so murderous in fiction?
Why is rape different?
And that's the thing. If rape is bad, murder should be worse. Why isn't murder worse? How did we get to the point where nobody cares about murder in video games except jack thompsons of the world? Why do we refuse to let rape get to that point?
Do we pull back on murder or push forward on rape? Why are they different? Why is one inherently worse than the other? What's wrong with making them match? If you can't pull back on murder because it's ingrained too much into video game culture, then why NOT add rape to it? Why is rape worse than murder? In real life we certainly punish murder much more harshly than we punish rape.
I remember all the way back to the days of Quake where I originally didn't want to play a 'first person shooter' because I thought it was too violent and I wouldn't like it. After actually seeing people play the game, I got over that and enjoyed it. Now I'm playing Assassin's Creed Syndicate driving through town not even caring which npc's I run over because they literally don't matter to the plot and there's no consequences of any kind, and those are the 'innocent civilians' and not even armed enemies that I have probably killed over a couple thousand of in this game alone.
So again: What's so different about rape? Have you forgot how much murder there is in video games? Why think about murder in video games one way but rape in video games a different way?
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So, I have a counterargument to this which answers the question but I'm curious to see if anyone else does.
AzaleaBC I don't agree. Valve only issued any sort of statement after this picked up traction at numerous sites. And when they did it was largely hollow. It wasn't dismissed because, well, it's a fucked up game. Instead they dismiss it simply because, basically, it might hurt their bottom line.
They give a boilerplate response that is about as generic and, as I said, hollow, as a company can give. They should condemn such a game because it goes against their values, not because it might hurt their bottom line or upset their "business partners." It's not that hard to do. They should apologize for even allowing a game like that on to their platform in any capacity. And I could maybe agree with you if I didn't see the exact same sentiments to mine echoed by other people in the industry.
My stance on the matter is idealism versus practicality. Whether murder should be normalized or not, have to accept the fact that it is. Rape isn't. Also, people know killing is wrong. Apparently even today there's still people who try to question or fudge the line on rape, with victim blaming being almost more common than rape itself. Normalizing it would just encourage it in a way that murder in games doesn't encourage murder. That's my two cents anyway.