A developer looking to court controversy got it when news of his game, Rape Day, hit the internet. The adult visual novel would allow players to “verbally harass, kill, and rape women as you choose to progress the story.”
“I have not broken any rules, so I don’t see how my game could get banned unless Steam changes their policies,” the developer said. “My game was properly marked as adult and with a thorough description of all of the potentially offensive content before the coming soon page went live on Steam.”
Despite not technically breaking any of Steam’s rules, Valve has said the game will not be coming to Steam.
“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.”
What’s interesting here is Valve’s wording. They’re not disallowing the game because on any sort of moral grounds, but rather because they think that allowing it on Steam might get them into trouble. It’s a little spineless, but a decision I applaud anyway because games like this shouldn’t really be on the largest PC game distribution platform. Do we really need a storefront full of interactive hate crimes?
That said, I have a feeling this game was made to push Steam’s boundaries to show how fickle the store is regarding policy. They’ve still not altered the rules though, sticking instead with their nearly anything goes policy.
Last Updated: March 7, 2019
Admiral Chief
March 7, 2019 at 09:30
Good, sanity prevailed
Caveshen Rajman
March 7, 2019 at 09:30
I’m definitely agreeing that this game has no place on Steam, but I don’t think it’s fair calling Valve spineless for making a business decision here. They *CANNOT* claim they will be hands-off in terms of subject matter and then, when the first point of contention happens, take a moral ground. The shakiest of all grounds, given half of every game involves some form of capital crime including (but not limited to) murder, theft, kidnapping, torture, etc.
A business decision makes a LOT more sense.
Gavin Mannion
March 7, 2019 at 09:37
This got me thinking, are there games out there that reward you for murdering innocents? Obviously all war games are out as they are at war, counter terrorism goes in the same boat. Hitman is the closest that comes to mind but you are killing bad people (supposedly).
My understanding of the game above is that you are raping innocent people. If there is a line, that seems like an obvious one?
Caveshen Rajman
March 7, 2019 at 11:51
Hatred. https://store.steampowered.com/app/341940/Hatred/
There are others. The Left Behind series comes to mind immediately, murdering civilians as a means of “raising them to heaven” etc.
I would personally prefer if corporations didn’t draw the line for me, though. Let me draw the line. In this case, yes I would draw it, and so would you, of course. But it’s still *our* choice to make.
Gavin Mannion
March 7, 2019 at 15:22
it’s a nice idea to let people decide for themselves, but thousands of years of history has proven that people are incapable of doing that.
Oh and as for Hatred and Left Behind, good examples and definitely answers the initial question but opens up the next one. In the crap above they have a specific innocent target, females, while in Hatred and Left Behind they pretty much target everyone (also I hate religion).
So is it okay to make a game where you murder everyone, but bad if you make a game where you only murder a subset of humanity?
HvR
March 7, 2019 at 15:22
“it’s a nice idea to let people decide for themselves, but thousands of
years of history has proven that people are incapable of doing that.”
As long as the people deciding what you, I should and everyone else should play share your political and ideological ideas, right?
Gavin Mannion
March 7, 2019 at 15:42
ideally yes but you humans complain too much so rather we are going to split you into smaller groups and make you hate each other. Much easier to control like that.
We will even let you choose if you want to be a white religious nationalist or a left leaning atheist who’s okay with killing babies. It doesn’t matter to us which side you pick but we will make it morally imperative that you choose so you can then be controlled.
Geoffrey Tim
March 7, 2019 at 16:06
Gavin low-key admitting he’s a lizard person.
Geoffrey Tim
March 7, 2019 at 16:06
Gavin low-key admitting he’s a lizard person.
Kromas
March 7, 2019 at 16:24
Lo-key my ass. Everyone knew for years!
Caveshen Rajman
March 7, 2019 at 09:30
I’m definitely agreeing that this game has no place on Steam, but I don’t think it’s fair calling Valve spineless for making a business decision here. They *CANNOT* claim they will be hands-off in terms of subject matter and then, when the first point of contention happens, take a moral ground. The shakiest of all grounds, given half of every game involves some form of capital crime including (but not limited to) murder, theft, kidnapping, torture, etc.
A business decision makes a LOT more sense.
HvR
March 7, 2019 at 09:37
I wouldn’t call sticking to their guns spineless. What is it with gaming journalists that want companies to be an echo chamber of their own ideologies.
We have seen what this have on platforms like Youtube and Shopify were it can ruin peoples business and lives because overnight they no longer fit in with a bunch of politically motivated arbitrary rules.
Steam approach of not having a set of big brother rules and deciding on a case on case basis on what they would allow for what is good for their business on outlier games.
Kromas
March 7, 2019 at 10:33
The main issue I have with steams policies are they don’t want to pick a side. The world is not that easy that you can sit on the fence like that. I understand the need to keep as many people happy so they can rake in the cash for zero effort but if you keep on trying to offend no one you will eventually offend everyone. Valve needs to make a clear and concise policy here and stick to it.
Admiral Chief
March 7, 2019 at 09:30
Good, sanity prevailed
HvR
March 7, 2019 at 09:37
I wouldn’t call sticking to their guns spineless. What is it with gaming journalists that want companies to be an echo chamber of their own ideologies.
We have seen what this have on platforms like Youtube and Shopify were it can ruin peoples business and lives because overnight they no longer fit in with a bunch of politically motivated arbitrary rules.
Steam approach of not having a set of big brother rules and deciding on a case on case basis on what they would allow for what is good for their business on outlier games.
G8crasha
March 7, 2019 at 09:37
There are plenty of non-mainstream sites where the market for this game thrives, so it’s not like the developer doesn’t have an avenue to sell the title.
Kromas
March 7, 2019 at 10:40
And with steam basically invoking the Streisand effect the game is going to sell more than it would.
Original Heretic
March 7, 2019 at 09:43
I hate the fact that a game like this even exists. That someone put time and effort into creating content that is downright vile.
Pariah
March 7, 2019 at 11:51
You say that, but Hentai has a lot of “vile” content too. A lot. Just because this is the first game that’s come into the spotlight for this content in a while, doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of content in other mediums out there.
Do I want this content? No. Do I think it has a place on Steam? No. But there are worse things out there already.
Original Heretic
March 7, 2019 at 12:12
I hate that all content of such a nature exists. Be it game, movie, series, hentai, I don’t care.
There are some things I feel extremely strongly about, and rape is one of them.
I don’t care what anyone says or thinks, or tries to say to justify it, this is my personal opinion and it’s not going to change. Ever.
Pariah
March 7, 2019 at 15:22
See I don’t abide by rape either. I think it’s one of the worst things on this planet. But the thing is – mediums like Hentai and games like this give an outlet for people who’ve got much more twisted minds. If they’re realising their fantasy there, then there’s less inclination for them to find more real-life avenues to express that desire. And these avenues don’t carry a cost on others’ lives.
It’s the lesser of two evils. And again, I don’t support the content personally. But content like this will always exist. It’s better that it’s a cartoon, and not a charge sheet.
HvR
March 7, 2019 at 12:27
In my own personal moral framework I feel the same as you and I’m glad Steam made a sober decision on this realizing that any of us accidentally being recommended this game might put us off their platform. I would have been equally okay with a decision to host the game as long as they could 100% ensure it would never cross my storefront (ie only made the game page accessible though direct url and not through any kind of search or recommendation algorithm)
But I will rather live in a world where the sick weirdo individual sit in his basement rubbing one out while engaging in his virtual rape fantasy versus a world where there some Sensuur Raad deciding that we can no longer play Diablo because it goes against the moral religious standpoint or no longer play FPS games because all firearms including virtual ones should be removed from society.
Gr8_Balls_o_Fire
March 13, 2019 at 11:38
It’s not opinion, it’s WRONG. There are very few truths in the universe, and this is among the top.
The only way rape is justified is as a punishment for rapists. Using pineapples.
Yondaime
March 7, 2019 at 11:25
Rape Day?…Really?!
CrAiGiSh
March 7, 2019 at 12:13
It’s to early in the day for this shit …
konfab
March 7, 2019 at 14:43
I don’t think this is a good thing.
Think about this if it were applied to an ideology that people here would be in favour of. Lets say it was a gay dating simulator:
If Steam was run by a bunch of conservative right wingers, they could use the exact arguments to ban anything they didn’t like
Pariah
March 7, 2019 at 15:03
The only people who don’t think rape is wrong are rapists. Your example isn’t taking into account the extreme nature of the content. The fact that Valve ARE stepping in to ban something this extreme is a good thing. There’s plenty of gay dating and other hentai / adult titles now on Steam if you’re into that. But some content crosses a line. To compare that to something mild is insane.
This isn’t a political thing. This is a human thing.