Not wanting to sell a product isn’t censorship of the product. That’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what censorship is.

The majority of countries where Steam sells games have strict laws regarding the depiction of minors in any kind of situation which could be considered sexual, whether it’s a real child or not. It’s a very strange hill to die on when the devs clearly identified that was the issue and removed it from their game.

Whether you believe a platform should get backlash for platforming something in questionable taste and legality is entirely separate to whether they actually will.

Sure but you must realise that if Steam were to platform a game featuring a child riding a naked adult in a horse mask, a sequence that the devs have removed in order to have the game on any platform for sale at all, Steam would face a significant amount of backlash and potential legal action for doing so. Why should Steam be obligated to publish a game?

There’s already been extensive discussion about this already; the whole thing stinks of the dev trying to get extra publicity because the fucked around and found out.

Have an X rating doesn’t absolve you of criticism or protect you from backlash when you include a sequence involving a naked adult and a child.

do you honestly expect the average 13-year-old (or younger) to be capable of anything other than performative activism relating to the genocide in Palestine?

Children can still protest, fundraise, and engage in other forms of direct action. Children are not helpless or incapable.

Given that it’s being allowed on multiple different platforms now that the “child riding a naked person in a horse mask” sequence has been removed, it definitely stinks of spin from the dev trying to get more publicity.

Even rating it X/AO/Whatever, calling a sequence where a young child rides around on a naked masked person who is forced to comply “contentious” is putting it mildly.

The article details how the refusal to platform the game was before the calls for games to be pulled by that weirdo conservative Christian group whose name I can’t remember.

The refusal to sell the game on Steam was apparently before all the champing and gnashing of teeth which lead to a bunch of games being pulled; having a young child ride around on a naked masked person who is forced to comply would be contentious either way.

Whilst children may not be able to help in the same way as adults, I believe that children absolutely can help in material ways. Children can still protest, fundraise, and engage in other forms of direct action. Children are not helpless or incapable.

That would be practicing what you’re preaching instead of just leaving comments online.

I mostly leave comments online whilst taking breaks from things like transporting donations to local secular food banks, volunteering at an initiative for rehousing displaced Ukranian people, and my day job; your magnanimous faux concern about how I spend my free time when not making a direct difference to important causes isn’t appreciated.

. . . it’s about to venture into even stranger, darker territory with Horses, an unsettling first-person narrative horror adventure set on a farm whose livestock consists of naked masked humans.

“While we strive to ship most titles submitted to us,” Steam’s automated response read, “we found that this title features themes, imagery, or descriptions that we won’t distribute. Regardless of a developer’s intentions with their product, we will not distribute content that appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor. While every product submitted is unique, if your product features this representation—even in a subtle way that could be defined as a ‘grey area’—it will be rejected by Steam.”

. . . the studio now suspects a work-in-progress scene from day six of Horses’ narrative (the game follows the player across 14 days as they work as a hired hand on the farm where the “horses” are held) might be the culprit. In the early build reviewed by Valve, day six featured a scene in which a man and his young daughter visit the farm. The daughter wants to ride one of the horses, resulting in an interactive dialogue sequence where the girl rides on the shoulders of a naked “horse” while it’s led by the player. “The scene is not sexual in any way,” the studio notes in its FAQ, “but it is possible that the juxtaposition is what triggered the flag.”

. . . notably, the final version of Horses has been reviewed and approved for distribution across numerous other PC storefronts, including the Epic Games Store, GOG, the Humble Store, and Itch.io. And while Horses won’t be launching on consoles due to porting costs, Pietro says the console makers who’ve seen Horses have said they’d be “happy to have the game on [their] platform”.

From the description of the scene which seems to have triggered the refusal to platform the game, the studio probably pushed the envelope too far.

Speaking as an activist, nothing brings my piss to a boil quicker than people essentially doing nothing and hiding behind the excuse that they were “just trying to raise awareness”. Holding a pro-Palestine candlelight vigil in Roblox, for example, whilst there are still Palestinian civilians being murdered is a woefully inadequate use of time and effort if you actually want to help.

If people read this criticism and feel hopeless or depressed, there are direct actions they can take for any cause to help which should make them feel better. It’s more difficult than changing your social media banner but doing the right thing to help is rarely, if ever, easy.

Personally, I cancelled Netflix due to a drought of content I actually wanted to watch and things disappearing from it with no notice. This combined with releasing shows weekly or one ‘part’ now and another in a month (so I have to stay subscribed) made it so it couldn’t compete with piracy anymore.

Maybe I’m old, maybe I’m just jaded… Has any kind of protest or activism in a video game lead to change outside of the game itself?

parents can be morons so don’t give them that excuse.

I promise you that they will still find a way to fuck it up. Badly.

Think about how many additional phones you could buy each year if you cancelled your Netflix subscription and didn’t eat as much avocado on toast.

Chants of Sennaar is by far one of the best games I’ve played. I had an absolute blast getting it to 100% and wish it had just a little bit more to do or vocalisations of the various languages.