Poll: So Steam is not going to censor what games it will sell

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Snip

Yeah, if you think that being able to commit ethnic cleansing in Stellaris is the same as a game that's all about how you should kill non-whites are more or less the same game, you're looking at this with little nuance I find. Stellaris isn't a propaganda game saying that black people should all die.

Hm, your information on non-whites is interesting. Just not sure how it relates to anything.

*Looks at AIDs simulator* It needs quality control. I'm sorry, but just about every major retail store manages to have quality control without managing to ban everything they politically disagree with. It's not hard. And while "every message deserves to be heard" sounds great, when people start defending pro-Nazi rhetoric being sold on Steam's store front for money, carrying an unspoken word of endorsement from Valve, the only thing I can do is shake my head.

Am I ok with theocracies? No, but I'm not advocating for theocracies. Can we calm the fuck down with the hyperbole? Or are you making the comparison that any form of quality control ever is the same as living under theocratic rule?

You said:

Or have we reached such a point of hating any forms of restriction that people would be cheering if Ethnic Cleansing got put up on Steam?

So I pointed out some games that have that in them already.
You started to move the goalposts after I mentioned this.

You brought up ethnic cleansing speficially as a thing done by whites here:

Really. Please point out games where the stated, intended goal was to give the player the ability to perform ethnic cleansing. Because there's a world and a fucking half of difference between a game like GTA, which doesn't actually advocate you to go out and steal cars, and Ethnic Cleansing, which DOES advocate for the killing of non-whites, and I really shouldn't have to explain this to you.

I countered it.


Physical stores need to carefully select those games that they think will sell the best, because of limited storage space. A digital marketplace has no such restrictions.
Selling a product is not the same as endorsing it. Nor does every commercial supposedly endorse the show it is being aired in between.

Hyperbole...
Me saying that any quality control is a theocracy?
Hyperbole!

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

The GAME Ethnic Cleansing. There is a game called Ethnic Cleansing. You control either a Nazi or a Klansman and kill Hispanics, Blacks, and Jews.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_Cleansing_(video_game)

That's what I was talking about. And frankly I'd rather not see this piece of shit on Steam.

Yeah, it kind of does. I mean, it's a pleasant ideal to take a laissez faire attitude towards this kind of stuff, but that didn't work in the past when it came to Steam and Digital Homicide, and it's not really going to work now. If someone wants to sell Nazi propaganda on your storefront and you're ok with it, a lot of people are going to see that as an endorsement, regardless of whether or not that was the intent.

If you're not saying any quality control is theocracy, why did you bring up that "Would you want Christians or Muslims deciding quality control" if comparing quality control to theocracy wasn't your point?

Also, what about games that just flat out don't work? That can't run? The one of two guidelines Valve actually has for quality control (it needs to be able to launch) and it doesn't even enforce it. Or games that are bugged up the ass, or are asset flips, or just flat out stolen?

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Snip

The GAME Ethnic Cleansing. There is a game called Ethnic Cleansing. You control either a Nazi or a Klansman and kill Hispanics, Blacks, and Jews.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_Cleansing_(video_game)

That's what I was talking about. And frankly I'd rather not see this piece of shit on Steam.

Yeah, it kind of does. I mean, it's a pleasant ideal to take a laissez faire attitude towards this kind of stuff, but that didn't work in the past when it came to Steam and Digital Homicide, and it's not really going to work now. If someone wants to sell Nazi propaganda on your storefront and you're ok with it, a lot of people are going to see that as an endorsement, regardless of whether or not that was the intent.

If you're not saying any quality control is theocracy, why did you bring up that "Would you want Christians or Muslims deciding quality control" if comparing quality control to theocracy wasn't your point?

Also, what about games that just flat out don't work? That can't run? The one of two guidelines Valve actually has for quality control (it needs to be able to launch) and it doesn't even enforce it. Or games that are bugged up the ass, or are asset flips, or just flat out stolen?

That horrible game would run afoul of the illegal aspect I think. So no worries there.
What makes it horrible is that it does espouse an actual racist viewpoint that is current and rooted in real life.
Still, even if it was allowed on steam, it could be downvoted and argued against within political lines.
Show it for the garbage that it is. Not avoiding it, making it taboo or silencing it.
That only leads to making it seem that much more interesting.

I was showing you that enforcing a certain political viewpoint through quality control could backfire and that only allowing what you want or agree with is a double-standard (when it comes to politics).
The whole sentece I wrote was:

Steam doesn't need quality control. They do need to become better at sorting and categorizing games however.
Quality control could potentially be used to "disallow" games that goes against a political viewpoint.
Any viewpoint.
Imagine if christans or muslims were in charge of the quality control. Would you be okay with that?

Through better categories and sorting, you could avoid certain game tags or find just the ones you want.

I completely agree with you on games that don't work, can't run, severely buggy, asset flips and stolen.
Except for the stolen part, which is illegal, I don't see why the quality control couldn't consist of a tag/label that describes the issue and sell it as is.

 

[Erttheking]

Snip

The GAME Ethnic Cleansing. There is a game called Ethnic Cleansing. You control either a Nazi or a Klansman and kill Hispanics, Blacks, and Jews.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_Cleansing_(video_game)

That's what I was talking about. And frankly I'd rather not see this piece of shit on Steam.

Yeah, it kind of does. I mean, it's a pleasant ideal to take a laissez faire attitude towards this kind of stuff, but that didn't work in the past when it came to Steam and Digital Homicide, and it's not really going to work now. If someone wants to sell Nazi propaganda on your storefront and you're ok with it, a lot of people are going to see that as an endorsement, regardless of whether or not that was the intent.

If you're not saying any quality control is theocracy, why did you bring up that "Would you want Christians or Muslims deciding quality control" if comparing quality control to theocracy wasn't your point?

Also, what about games that just flat out don't work? That can't run? The one of two guidelines Valve actually has for quality control (it needs to be able to launch) and it doesn't even enforce it. Or games that are bugged up the ass, or are asset flips, or just flat out stolen?

That horrible game would run afoul of the illegal aspect I think. So no worries there.
What makes it horrible is that it does espouse an actual racist viewpoint that is current and rooted in real life.
Still, even if it was allowed on steam, it could be downvoted and argued against within political lines.
Show it for the garbage that it is. Not avoiding it, making it taboo or silencing it.
That only leads to making it seem that much more interesting.

I was showing you that enforcing a certain political viewpoint through quality control could backfire and that only allowing what you want or agree with is a double-standard (when it comes to politics).
The whole sentece I wrote was:

Steam doesn't need quality control. They do need to become better at sorting and categorizing games however.
Quality control could potentially be used to "disallow" games that goes against a political viewpoint.
Any viewpoint.
Imagine if christans or muslims were in charge of the quality control. Would you be okay with that?

Through better categories and sorting, you could avoid certain game tags or find just the ones you want.

I completely agree with you on games that don't work, can't run, severely buggy, asset flips and stolen.
Except for the stolen part, which is illegal, I don't see why the quality control couldn't consist of a tag/label that describes the issue and sell it as is.

Honest question, how is it illegal? America doesn?t have hate speech laws.

And no one sold it back in the day and it didn?t blow up. ?No such thing as bad publicity? is overblown. The school shooter game got taken form and people just forgot it. The ?buy games because lol triggered? crowd has a short attention span

I think we can all agree that there are certain viewpoints that don?t deserve attention. Those are the only ones I?m arguing against.

Orgsnize all you want, oversaturating the market is always a bad idea.

 

[DANEgerous]

Okay so I noted we are all talking past each other, I stand by what I said but I think the problem is, there is no good word for what happened. What is Steam not doing? Censoring? No for reason in this thread. Restricting? No, they restrict content even via age, granted the restriction is broken easily but so is police tape. Prohibit? No, for me that means "sells illegal goods" prohibition is literally banning alcohol. I think there is just no word for what such action. My suggestion angusta (or whatever is Latin for narrow) as that is easily the best fit. Yeah, this thread turned me off this argument but I think this is why in part.

 

[MrCalavera_v1legacy]

To those still arguing wether Valve has "bent to the hate mob" or "defended free speech", i have an answer.

They have picked the option that takes the least effort.

 

[Chessrook44]

Yanno why this came about?

A group of people threw a massive hissy fit over some games that were on the platform so Steam, deciding to show they were nice people, decided to take down the obviously horrible and offensive games.

Then a group of other people threw a massive hissy fit over those same games being taken down, so Steam had to backtrack and NOT take them down.

So the first group likely started THEIR hissy fit all over again...

So Steam finally had enough and just said "Fuggit, we've been dealing with this for years. If you guys can't be happy, then figure it out yourselves. If you're offended, OH WELL, us taking it down will just offend someone else. Grow a thick skin and deal with it, we're tired of not being able to win in this conversation, those games don't reflect our values."

And then everyone is throwing a hissy fit over that.

Welcome to the Internet, where no matter WHAT you do, IT'S WRONG.

 

[Silvanus]

Okay so I noted we are all talking past each other, I stand by what I said but I think the problem is, there is no good word for what happened. What is Steam not doing? Censoring? No for reason in this thread. Restricting? No, they restrict content even via age, granted the restriction is broken easily but so is police tape. Prohibit? No, for me that means "sells illegal goods" prohibition is literally banning alcohol. I think there is just no word for what such action. My suggestion angusta (or whatever is Latin for narrow) as that is easily the best fit. Yeah, this thread turned me off this argument but I think this is why in part.

Quality control?

Welcome to the Internet, where no matter WHAT you do, IT'S WRONG.

Well, of course there wasn't any course of action that could please everybody. There never is, because people have mutually incompatible priorities here. If anybody expected otherwise they were fooling themselves.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I think people need to stop using the word "censorship" because I don't think it means what they think it means.

Valve should "censor" *heavy sarcastic air quotes* because it reflects poorly on them if they don't.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

To be fair, you have to be around other people to play tabletop, board games and 99.9% of people that play those are assheads.

Board gamers are real gamers. I will say that most people who like board games probably do have an element of the control freak. It comes with the territory of being able to learn how to play a complex game with a 20-30 page rulebook in a few hours of active gameplay.

Structured, analytical, and often competitive in that it speaks to the intellect often enough to best another person.

You do run into arseholes, but honestly the best friends I've made are those I met in a game od Resistance: Avalon. Or maybe I like people who can look me in the eye, and lie to me like it was nothing. Bonus points if they manipulate me to the point I'm distrustful of who they know to be Percival to potentially pick out who Merlin is through the ensuing bickering.

That's like instant bestie.