
Steam store to sell VR porn video games - pmoriarty
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/steam-store-vr-porn-virtual-reality-valve-video-games-a8387331.html
======
DuskStar
Good on Steam for doing this. Quoting from the announcement [0], "Valve
shouldn't be the ones deciding this. If you're a player, we shouldn't be
choosing for you what content you can or can't buy."

I feel that total inclusionism is the only long-term stable policy. Excluding
things based on morality is inherently an unstable position - "why do you
allow _this_ but not _that_? Don't you know _this_ is literally killing babies
in Africa?" where _this_ and _that_ could be nudity, gore, violence, rape,
women's suffrage, blasphemy, political incorrectness or any number of other
topics. Well, I suppose hosting no content at all would also be a stable
policy... But it's not one that many storefronts are going to support.

[0]
[https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail...](https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1666776116200553082)

~~~
flashman
Valve are taking a stance that every major open-access digital vendor has
backed away from. Apple, Google, Facebook, Patreon, Zazzle, Amazon... they'll
let you sell anything you want with no pre-moderation (except Apple) and rely
on community moderation to bring things to their attention.

I don't think this will end well for them. They've declared open season for
the internet's worst people to push the boundaries of acceptability, for which
they'll earn a cut of a tiny number of sales, and reams of negative press.

------
DanAndersen
Good decision by Valve. Considering the sway they have on the industry (if
your game can't be on Steam, suddenly you have a lot less exposure), this
hands-off stance is the most fair and respectful both to devs and players. We
don't need any more "curated app stores" by tech companies that want to be
petty tyrants.

It's a smart move for Valve, as only an explicit commitment to principles of
neutrality have any hope of shielding them from the ever-growing Culture Wars
where various outrage-groups weaponize platform rules to chip away at others'
ability to enjoy content on their own terms.

~~~
oddity
I agree with you, but I think this is a perfect example of a failure to
successfully handle branding.

For a long time, Steam was distribution platform where the distributor was
also the curator. Granted, this curation mostly resolved to "is this an AAA or
someone peripherally in the Big Boys club," but it was a certain level of
curation that consumers came to expect.

Now that Steam is the de-facto app store of the PC platform, Valve is strongly
incentivized to make sure that any game you can buy, can be bought through
Steam.

Combine this with their general unwillingness to scale their employees to
match the size of the business they have (which is IMO a silly thing on
Valve's part, but I'll avoid this discussion for now), and the shift away from
Valve-as-a-curator makes sense.

But Valve hasn't sold this as providing Steam's distribution platform as a
back-end service to curators/other "stores", they've sold it as Steam and
damaged their own reputation in the process.

There's a reason why large businesses have so many different brands that are
hard to associate without a lot of digging, and Valve's handling of Steam is a
good example of why.

------
aphextron
Steam is going to become the worlds most profitable, largest distributor of
hardcore pornography overnight. I'm really not sure how to feel about this. On
one hand free speech is obvious. But allowing porn fundamentally changes the
nature of your online service. Not being prude, it just tends to discourage a
certain type of person, and encourage another.

~~~
hellbanner
Allowing murder simulators fundamentally changes the nature of your online
store. Not being squeamish, it just tends to discourage a certain type of
person, and encourage another.

~~~
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Do you think Grand Theft Auto is a murder simulator?

How about Assasin’s Creed?

~~~
flashman
No, those are fine. But how about "hunt and kill thinly-disguised versions of
prominent feminists"? We will see someone push that limit, and probably this
year.

~~~
AstralStorm
That is actually illegal due to privacy protections in most places - so would
be taken down. If not, then the author will be sued and it will be taken down
until proceeding is done most likely.

------
tadfisher
The words "VR" and "porn" do not appear in the source:
[https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail...](https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail/1666776116200553082)

Beware of sensationalism.

~~~
lifeformed
They're allowing everything that's legal now, so that would count.

------
lopmotr
The previous generation of parents already fought against porn and violence in
video games, movies, and music. And they lost. Now their kids are re-fighting
the same fight. Why? Didn't we already establish that these things don't turn
people into serial killers and rapists? Isn't that a solved question?

A school shooting game is no more offensive than a driving sim where you run
people over or a war shooting game. The only reason people are offended is
because real life school shootings are popular exciting news so they also come
to the forefront of people's minds as something they're supposed to get
offended by.

~~~
DanAndersen
Much of the moral outrages of previous decades came from groups that might be
labeled 'moral majority' or 'religious right'; think of the panics about D&D
being 'satanic'.

In the current era, the urge to censor is increasingly coming from elements of
the Left, where socially or politically "problematic" material becomes the new
"blasphemous". From the quoted article:

>"Unfortunately this also means they'll likely be taking a similarly hands-off
approach regarding wildly sexist, racist or homophobic content."

That's my guess as to why this isn't yet a "solved question" \-- the fringes
of both sides have to get their attempt at busybodying in before a stable
synthesis can result.

~~~
flukus
> That's my guess as to why this isn't yet a "solved question" \-- the fringes
> of both sides have to get their attempt at busybodying in before a stable
> synthesis can result.

That's optimistic. My prediction is that the pendulum will switch all the back
once sexbots become affordable.

------
nickthemagicman
Why is this an issue? I don't understand. Is it based on practical reasons or
moral reasons?

~~~
Someone1234
People feel that video games should be held it a different (more conservative)
standard to other formats (books, video) with vaporous reasons like "you're
controlling the character" (while entirely ignoring the POV in a book).

For example people in this thread are talking about the potential for rape-
fetish materials being in a video game while ignoring that most major
bookstores or even Walmart sells tens of books about the same subject with no
age restrictions at all.

I mean Game of Thrones (several rapes, sexual fetish scenes, under-age) and 50
Shades of Grey are literally sold at the checkout line.

PS - Not arguing for books to be age restricted/banned, just pointing out the
hypocrisy.

~~~
sincerely
I would guess that it's less about "you're controlling the character" than it
is about the impression (regardless of whether or not it is true, which i
don't think it is) that a large portion of the population have of video games
being nearly exclusively for children/teenagers.

However I don't know for a fact because I haven't seen a decent opinion piece
or anything about this, just tweets

~~~
John_KZ
It's both about the extreme difference in immersiveness, the feedback loop
(you're the one that's conditioned to choose to rape for more points for
example) and the age of the target group.

Movies and books present a story. I haven't seen any movies or series
portraying rape as desirable rape lately, but even if they do, you don't have
to identify with the protagonist. In VR, you _are_ the protagonist, always,
and actions are presented as if they're actually yours, trying their best to
trick your mind into thinking they are.

So yeah, many differences, nothing good about them.

~~~
nickthemagicman
Its funny that people have been actually making these types of arguments since
the beginning of recorded history. The argument that entertainment overrides
some rational instinct in people and separates them from reality to think
entertainment is the same as real life.

It used to be illegal to make movies with a man and a woman in the same bed
together because it was thought to create uncontrollable carnal desires in
people. Music and television and books used to be heavily censored due to all
their corrupting ideas. Dungeons and Dragons was considered satan worship and
evil as well. See the Comstock Law. See prohibition of alcohol...

The problem with all of these arguments is that they have ALL BEEN PROVEN
WRONG every single time. Porn, beer, cursing in music, violence in movies,
playing an immersive tabletop game where you make the decisions... have never
once ever throughout all of human history caused your average person to lose
their minds. Normal people are capable of receiving new ideas and using them
to build a richer world perspective instead of turning into slathering immoral
animals at the first chance.

Another infinitely better argument is that this type of entertainment is
cathartic and beneficial. People fulfill desires through a fantasy instead of
reality, thereby decreasing the behavior and actually making the world a
better place. But that would requiring viewing people as responsible, self-
aware, reflective, adults who are capable of thinking for themselves.

------
megaman22
I struggle to see how this is different in kind rather than degree, from
content that has long been on steam. Bioware PC games, for instance, have long
had suggestive sex scenes and dialog. So have weirder things like relationship
simulators and Japan-esque graphic novelelly things (Lady Killer in a Bind has
turned up in several sales, at least).

The Steam marketplace has had, e.g. nudity Skyrim mods forever.

------
maym86
The Independent is presenting this in a surprisingly sensational and tabloid
style. Has the paper changed in recent years? I remember it being a reasonably
well respected news source.

~~~
LocutusOfBorges
Yes, unfortunately. "The Independent" isn't a newspaper anymore- the print
version was shut down in 2016, and most of the staff were laid off.

The "i" has replaced it in print (highbrow tabloid)- independent.co.uk has
been reduced to a website that drives traffic towards itself largely through
clickbait/tabloid-style reporting.

It's still on a different level to dreck like the Daily Mail, but it's long
since slipped from its old status as a respected broadsheet.

~~~
maym86
Thanks. That's a shame. Left the UK 6 years ago.

------
zawerf
I wonder if they will still ban the more controversial ones?

Almost all games by Illusion (japanese 3d porn company) involves rape. Search
Playclub VR on youtube to see examples.

Not kink shaming or anything but I can see this crossing a line for a good
chunk of people. Especially when they realize you can physically roleplay a
homeless guy raping an underage school girl in that game (not even talking
about using mods, this is one of the default scenarios).

~~~
lopmotr
How is that worse than every single FPS game where you can roleplay murdering
someone? Unless you're also concerned about that, or you believe that rape is
worse than murder, then you're suffering from miscalibrated worry.

~~~
dingo_bat
Most FPSes do not involve murder. Soldiers kill enemies. No murder occurs. If
it were true, then we'd be jailing all of our soldiers.

~~~
megaman22
In e.g. Mass Effect, I have innumerable opportunities to go renegade and waste
some guy for no reason.

------
anothergoogler
Make millions on games where you run around with a machine gun blowing
peoples' heads off? No problem! Better not sell any smut though.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Interesting anecdote, Robert Yang made a game called "The Tearoom"[0] about
blowing men in a public bathroom. In order to keep it from being banned on
twitch, he replaced all the penises with firearms, reasoning that if twitch
still banned it, it would be the first time the games industry had ever banned
a game for depicting guns[1].

[0] [https://radiatoryang.itch.io/the-
tearoom](https://radiatoryang.itch.io/the-tearoom)

[1] [https://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2017/06/the-tearoom-
as-...](https://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2017/06/the-tearoom-as-record-of-
risky-business.html)

------
randop
Valve have probably done market research on this. And you know, that this
numbers are favorable for them. They have age profile of its userbase and they
also have age filter on their catalog. This is a business decision choice
rather than morality.

Will this increase VR adoption?

~~~
beauzero
Probably. Seems like a betamax vs vhs decision/turning point to me. After
reading this...I realize I am old.

------
swampthinker
Completly disagree with Valve's desicion on this. While I personally don't
care about porn on Steam, Communities cannot police themselves, even with the
best of tools. I think Reddit and HN are iconic examples of this.

~~~
ShabbosGoy
HN has a way higher standard for comments than Reddit. Definitely attributable
to the mod team and their tooling. I think the tools still aren’t there yet,
though. Tying karma to money or monetization will lead to higher quality. For
example, you don’t have crude people who swear at a country club.

~~~
pietroglyph
Country clubs, and anything that requires a large up-front cost for membership
excludes a wide swath of people from participation. A wide range of viewpoints
will result in better content over all, even if it lets some low-quality
content get in.

------
empath75
They’re abdicating responsibility for their own platform and it’s probably not
going to turn out well for them.

------
wiradikusuma
Just curious, for those in favor of this, how do you feel if you have small
kids who use Steam? What measures do you take to prevent them from accessing
such (racist/porn/etc) content? Or, if you don't have any measures, why do you
let them access such content?

~~~
d4l3k
Is this any different from letting them use a web browser? If they want to
access that stuff they probably already can.

------
lackbeard
There seems to be a spike in negative press about Steam lately. I wonder if
this is some kind of coordinated PR hit. I can imagine a few large companies
who would be happy to see such a successful independent distribution platform
fall on hard times...

------
dogma1138
So when is Incognito mode coming to Steam? IIRC you can’t set visibility on an
app level and I don’t think people would like showcasing that they are playing
Sexy Nurses VR to their friends list.

------
matte_black
Is engaging in VR Porn with a virtual character infidelity? How do you explain
it to a wife?

------
reilly3000
... under a subsidiary called Steamy.

------
tty7
Bravo, @steam_games!

------
flyingfences
_nice_

~~~
dang
Please don't do this here.

