Last month, Valve had suddenly changed its policy, banning some titles labeled as sexual content, and given them two weeks to change their content, otherwise the games would be pulled from the store. Soon, it had to go back again, as the developers and fans were totally against the decision. Now, they've decided to formally announce a new policy with far fewer restrictions.
Second Erik Johnson, the president of Valve, everything that is not illegal or "straight-up trolling" will be allowed, leaving players in the hands of some tools that make it possible to manage what they want and what they don't want to see on the platform. Basically, the company is giving up on implementing content bans and moderations, to create and introduce filtering tools.
No post written by Johnson no blog by Steam, he states, "Taking this approach allows us to focus less on trying to police what should be on Steam, and more on building these tools to give people control over what types of content they see."
According to him, developers will be motivated to report content that is controversial in their games, otherwise they could be banned. On the other hand, developers will also have protection options, as according to him, "developers who create controversial content shouldn't have to deal with harassment because their game exists".
This decision is a reflection of a ban made by Valve of the game Active Shooter, when Valve uttered a few words to its creator, calling him a troll, saying that he had a history of abusing customers and publishing his material because it was protected by copyright and user review handling.
E3 2018: What to expect from the biggest gaming week of the year As pointed out by Engadget, this policy change will end up resulting in a platform with open doors for all kinds of controversial content, which according to Valve, while not being illegal or insincere, it is considered fair game to be there. Just like players have the right not to want to see them.
The blog post reads: "There will be people across the Steam community who hate your games, and hope you won't find an audience, and there will be people here at Valve who feel exactly the same way. However, offending someone shouldn't take away from you. the voice of your game. We believe you should be able to express yourself like everyone else and find other people who want to play your game."
What is really a concern for Steam users is quality control, which is not included in this new policy. This is an issue considered problematic and growing as the titles arriving on the platform grow by leaps and bounds. Finally, the final decision says that with the new policy, Valve will not change many things on the platform until some of the aforementioned tools are ready.
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