The recent attack on adult games and adult content forcing Valve and Itch to censor anything that would be considered NSFW represents a longstanding attack on creativity under the guise of protection. Every few years there is always a product or products that causes an outcry from the far-right, and every one of those times it is framed by the guise of wanting to make things safe for everyone. Good art, in any medium, needs to be free to do whatever it wants, whether you personally like it or not.
The Problem with Porn Games
Every day on sites like Steam and Itch, you will see a variety of games being released. Maybe a platformer, a visual novel, a TTRPG, or a game about having a harem of men, women, or something else. It is true that the number of adult-only or NC-17 games being released on these platforms has exploded in the past five years.
There are plenty of people out there who are constantly disgusted by seeing these games, and I’m sure they are celebrating the short-term effect of not having them on Steam anymore.
I’ve talked about the problems with trying to have a serious conversation about porn on Steam in the past. Plenty of gamers and critics are fine with sex or adult situations IF it’s the “right” kind of imagery. This takes us to this weird mindset that’s been growing that the depictions of sex in media today must be “clean”, an incredible far cry from the likes of the growing video scene of the 80s, and the entire 70s.
Elden Ring was one of the most celebrated games released this decade, and a sharp rebuke to the notion that a game needs to be designed for everyone (source: Author)
We even saw this during the 2000’s and 2010’s as developers started to go outside of comfort zones in different ways. Not only with the rise of horror, but it’s easy to forget that there was a period where the entire concept of the soulslike was considered bad. People were arguing that every game should be designed to be enjoyable by everyone, that friction is wrong, and that there must be certain things in every videogame made.
While soulslikes and porn are not exactly the same, you can see the same arguments being used — “if I don’t like something, then it must be bad and removed, because who could ever like X?” But time after time, censorship is the worst solution to any problem.
The Slope of Censorship
What we’ve seen following the decision by Visa and Mastercard has been a blanket ban on any and everything that could be considered a problem on the stores. This is nothing new; when someone tries to use censorship as a cudgel, it affects everyone, not just the original target.
When we talk about “adult situations”, what does that mean exactly? For one person, an adult situation could be hardcore sex, or it could mean talking about body dysphoria, slavery, pregnancy, and much more. Every time that people try to rally around censorship as the fix for society’s ills, what they’re really trying to do is hold everyone else back from growing and maturing. You might not like seeing your 20th porn game on Steam, or having to scroll by them on Itch, but you can’t say games are art in one breath and happy to see games being banned in the next.
Let’s take Fear and Hunger as an example of this. When the game was first put on Steam, it was not easily searchable due to the graphic imagery and content and barely got any recognition. Thanks to word of mouth and critical praise, Steam eventually allowed it to be found and since then, it has become seen and shared by prominent streamers and has developed a fan base. For mediums to evolve, there must be content that pushes things into uncomfortable or different circumstances. If there’s not, then everything becomes stagnant with creators afraid to express themselves publicly.
Defending it All
Videogames are once again art, and for art to grow and continue to exist, it must be free to be whatever it wants to be. As I’ve said, there’s no problem with not wanting to play the latest porn game on Steam, but there’s a difference between ignoring something and outright wanting it to disappear forever.
If you want to see experimental and original games released, then there needs to be an open space for all games out there (source: Steam)
You cannot say that you support the creation of games like Disco Elysium, 1000X Resist, and Fear & Hunger, without also supporting every game that has the word “MILF” or “DILF” somewhere in the title. And to that point, if we want to see those games that do break ground in terms of different topics, not just about sex, then there needs to be the space available for them to exist.
If you want to sign the petition to hopefully overturn it through the ACLU, you can find it here
