Valve’s hypocritical standards regarding adult-centric games on its Steam Store are evident once again with the recent banning of the adult visual novel titled “Order Us!”
Describing Valve’s game curation for its Steam store as inconsistent would be an understatement. The company’s hypocritical approach to banning games from releasing on the platform is particularly evident in its treatment of Japanese developers.
Which was made more evident in recent times with the subsequent banning of YuzuSoft’s “Angelic☆Chaos RE-BOOT!” and “Dungeon Travelers 2,” displaying a seemingly spiteful attitude towards Japanese developers.
Valve’s hypocritical actions regarding game bans often revolve around the depiction of “underage” female characters or games set in school environments. The company has explicitly banned numerous titles featuring such depictions.
For instance, “The Key to Home,” a T-rated mystery visual novel featuring young girls in a school setting but notably devoid of any sexual imagery, was banned nonetheless.
We call this phenomenon the “Waifu Holocaust” as Valve hypocritically states that they are not the so-called “taste police” and would be more lenient when it comes to game submissions so long as the games themselves weren’t “obvious trolling” or illegal.
Valve’s ongoing ban of numerous games on its Steam store contrasts with the approval of others, including titles featuring “underaged” male characters, known as “shotas.” This inconsistency suggests that Valve may have its own subjective preferences regarding adult content.
Amidst the vast array of games available on the Steam store, some are blatant asset flips with provocative titles, while others feature homoerotic content, including scenarios involving gay sexual relations with Adolf Hitler.
Interestingly, while Steam prohibits games featuring “underaged” girls, it appears to have varying standards regarding the opposite gender.
Steam permits titles like Summer Memories, Winter Memories, Succumate, and My Naughty Summer Vacation, all of which are eroge titles featuring depictions of “underaged” boys, to be available on its platform. While games such as the sequel to AliceSoft’s Evenicle was banned, despite the first game in the series still being available for purchase on Steam.
It seems that the approval of games for release on Steam may heavily depend on the personal biases of the individual responsible for evaluating them. Valve’s lack of consistent curation criteria and their reluctance to enforce set guidelines makes this scenario quite plausible.
This is especially true considering the demonization of Japanese “anime” and female characters, often labeled as “pedophilic” by Western puritans, which would explain why majority of the games banned by Valve are Japanese developed, featuring female characters that are either small or petite, or simply because they contain wholesome heterosexual romance which is apparently bigoted.
And now the latest game to join the long expansive Waifu Holocaust list is the western developed Order Us! Adult Visual Novel.
The banning of “Order Us” is surprising to me considering Valve’s apparent lack of standards regarding adult content in Western-developed titles. This is evident in their storefront, which is filled with shovelware featuring the word “Hentai” in its name.
Valve has taken decisive action against the “Order Us!” adult visual novel, as confirmed by its developers who shared their Steam Support message regarding the game’s ban. This occurred just three days before its scheduled release date, citing alleged sexual content featuring a “minor” as the reason.
Despite the entirely fictional nature of the characters in “Order Us!”, the visual novel does not take place in a school setting. Instead, it is set in a European cafe where the main heroines, “Peaches” and “Mocha,” are both legal adults as they are employees of the cafe.
The issue arises with the character “Mocha,” whose physical appearance is that of a petite woman with small breasts, which seems to be a red flag for the progressive individual who curated the game.
The reviewers apparent inability to distinguish between fiction and reality leads them to classify any character who is short or petite as a child or, according to Valve’s playbook, in a “legally grey” area.
Because of course, there’s no such thing as a petite woman in real life, we have “height of consent” laws for that specific reason, because real women are well known for having massive hooters. Genetics don’t exist, because we are all one race, the human race.
Interestingly, those who perceive petite characters as “children” also criticize video games featuring female characters with prominent breasts, deeming them symbols of sexism catering to the “male gaze.” They advocate for realistic depictions of “real women” without cleavage, which would make them a child by their own logic.
The developer of the visual novel understandably feels devastated by Valve’s decision to ban their game just days before its scheduled release date. Valve holds a dominant monopoly in digital distribution as a DRM storefront for PC games.
Which is why many Japanese developers opt to censor their games to ensure a successful release on Steam, given its storefront is financially lucrative for developers themselves despite the constant abuse they suffer by the hands of Valve’s woke curators but also dejected fans who’ve been dealt a butchered product.
The developer asserts they will turn to smaller distribution platforms. However, given the already niche market for eroge or WEGs, being excluded from the largest PC distribution platform is devastating.
Consequently, they express uncertainty about future projects, as Valve’s hypocritical standards have once again alienated the largest PC customer base from games featuring an “anime style” as Valve continues masking their fondness for little boys by shunning away fictional women that are apparently no different compared to real life children.
For the latest updates on alternative store listings, you can follow the developer of Order Us! on Twitter. Alternatively, you might find the itch.io page for the AVN sufficient which currently features a downloadable demo for the game, which might I add was released on Steam back in December 22, 2023.
