Steam Greenlight has been billed as a way to let the community decide what makes it to the Steam store and what doesn't, but it seems Greenlight is giving a red light to the Red Light District. If your game contains sexual content, you might not even be allowed to put your work to a vote, as Seduce Me developers No Reply Games discovered.
The guidelines stated by Valve simply refer to "offensive content," without any clarification on what, exactly, that consists of. Bellard criticized the interpretation of these guidelines as being largely American-centric, as much of the rest of the world would see the content of Seduce Me as far less offensive than many of the depictions of violence seen in games already on Steam.
"I personally don't think Valve needs [to play it safe]," she asserted. "I think Valve is in a position where they could push this if they wanted to. Sure, they might lose a very small amount of their audience, but they would gain others... Why they've chosen not to is possibly that they're part of that American culture, and they view this issue with that American point-of-view."
Sex in games is an evolving issue in a relatively new medium, but it's readily apparent that nudity and sexual themes are not as tolerated in an artistic context as they are in, say, film or literature. "There's still that historical view of games being for children," Bellard said in regards to the disparity. "And even though the average gamer is now 30 yeas old it's still the gut reaction. With books, you have children's books, teen fiction, adult books of all genres. But we tend to view games as one solid category. I think things like this can just be about habit; it's just what we're used to."
Should sex in games be less stigmatized? Is Valve failing to push forward, or take its international audience into account with its policy enforcement?
