TLDR: There was a scene in a prerelease version of the game that depicted a young girl riding on the shoulders of a nude adult woman. Valve interpreted it as sexual, devs say it wasn’t, that the young girl model was a placeholder, and removed the scene entirely from the release build, which still can’t be published on Steam due to their ban policy.
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.
Yeah, the whole thing stinks to high heavens of the devs fucking around and then trying to shift the blame onto Valve.
It's a game where people are put in animal masks, chained up, and ridden around naked.
what the studio calls "grotesque, subversive imagery" of a ranch where nude human beings in horse masks are treated as animal livestock.
To pretend that said "grotesque, subversive imagery" is not in this case functioning on it's proximity to sexual degradation, is disingenuous imo. I don't blame Valve for not wanting to wade into an "art vs shock-sploitation" debate.
I don't understand how this scene, which is only sexual by implication, is not allowed, but Fear and Hunger, in which you can drag a little girl through a dungeon full of monsters that sexually assault you, through orgy scenes, etc., is fine. Like I'm not saying that F&H should be removed, but I am saying that based on what is currently on Steam, it does not seem like this would be over the line.
Assuming you're referring to F&H 1, that came out five years before Steam reviewed this game. It's possible they simply became more strict over time and never revisited F&H because it never came up.
Also, Steam's rules (or any other private platform's rules) are not law. Precedent doesn't really matter. They can decide arbitrarily when rules apply and don't apply (so long as they don't violate anti-competition laws and so on). One would hope they are consistent, but being an organization with likely multiple reviewers, it's unlikely they are always in sync, especially with decisions separated by years.
A different question to ask is whether the scene you described would have passed review in 2023. I haven't played F&H, but based on your description, it seems unlikely.
Not merely as sexual, but as "sexual conduct". Valve already hosts a huge number of games depicting full nudity and sex, and before the payment processors complained, that included games with r*pe in their description.
"It's just horror, bro" with the same kind of energy as "it's just a prank, bro".
I've not played the game, but "person riding another person in horse gear" is absolutely a fetish thing, intentional or otherwise.
I think it absolutely would fall afoul of kiddie porn laws. Honestly, I think any depiction of a child in proximity to nudity probably would count.
Huh. Assuming this is the whole truth, it sounds completely reasonable.
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