Valve: no more restrictions for games on Steam

Just a few days ago we reported on the criticism aimed at Steam and the company which owns it, Valve, after the platform holder decided to remove certain games with mature content from the online store (more on that here). The situation has indeed led the company to retrace its steps, and in light of recent events, it seems as though Valve chief Gabe Newell has decided to release some new guidelines for the PC store.

Starting today, in fact, Valve has announced that it will no longer impose any restrictions on the kinds of games that will be published on the platform and any game will be welcome there. The only exceptions concern illegal games and those defined as "trolls", that is, games that don't have any meaningful content and that have clearly been made to taunt another group of players. In addition, the company announced the implementation of a new filter system that will allow users to remove unwanted content from their page. Here's what the company wrote in a long blog post:

"We ended up going back to one of the principles in the forefront of our minds when we started Steam, and more recently as we worked on Steam Direct to open up the Store to many more developers: Valve shouldn't be the ones deciding this.

"If you're a player, we shouldn't be choosing for you what content you can or can't buy. If you're a developer, we shouldn't be choosing what content you're allowed to create. Those choices should be yours to make. Our role should be to provide systems and tools to support your efforts to make these choices for yourself, and to help you do it in a way that makes you feel comfortable.

"We already have some tools, but they're too hidden and not nearly comprehensive enough. We are going to enable you to override our recommendation algorithms and hide games containing the topics you're not interested in. So if you don't want to see anime games on your store, you'll be able to make that choice. If you want more options to control exactly what kinds of games your kids see when they browse the store, you'll be able to do that.

"And it's not just players that need better tools either — developers who build controversial content shouldn't have to deal with harassment because their game exists, and we'll be building tools and options to support them too."

What do you think of the measures taken by Valve?