Earlier this year Valve announced that they would partly distance themselves from carefully curating Steam, allowing almost any and all games onto the platform, although they did say they'd be patrolling to see whether content is legal or "trolling".
Lately they've been cracking down on sexual content on Steam specifically, and now they're banning games which allegedly contain "child exploitation".
According to GamesIndustry.biz several visual novels on the platform have been removed, some of which contain school settings or even incest - anything that could allude to the characters portrayed being under the age of 18.
It would appear, however, that some aren't happy with Valve's verdicts. Top Hat Studios, developers behind the visual novel "Cross Love - Episode 1", said the following on Twitter:
"Hey @steam_games, do you want to explain this one to us? There is nothing in the game which could remotely be seen as having children - there are events in game which literally state the characters' ages as being over 18."
It's been revealed that because of its school setting, Valve considers the game to be about "child exploitation", as described in its official email to the developer:
"We will not be able to ship your title, Cross Love - Episode 1 on Steam. While we can ship most titles on Steam, we found this one features themes of child exploitation. Because of that, the app has been banned and cannot be rescued."
Do you agree with Steam's decision?
