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The game "Horses" now barred on Steam, Epic and Humble Bundle (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/games@lemmy.world
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Currently, only GOG and Itch are still selling this game.

EDIT: It seems the game has returned to Humble Bundle.

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[–] 54 points 11 months ago (26 children)

content that appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor

I'm assuming they don't mean a suggestive camera pan, but actually something problematic on screen, in which case, I totally support the ban. Devs were given the opportunity to change it, and they said no. Ban away imho. The fact that this is considered controversial is pretty disturbing to me.

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  • [–] 91 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (13 children)

    It was a child doing pony play, riding a naked adult man-horse. The dev claimed it was not sexual.

    This was removed later but it's the build you send for review that gets reviewed. Other stores got a later version, hence why it passed on those.

    Dev was not given a chance to remove it as it turns out steam has a policy that anything that resembles CSAM gets denied permanently.

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  • [–] 17 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I haven't heard about the details, what's your source on that?

    As far as I recall, the developer said he didn't know the actual reason for the ban.

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  • [–] 8 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    What’s CSAM?

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  • [–] 26 points 11 months ago (5 children)

    Child Sexual Abuse Material. Legalese for child porn and adjacent things.

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  • [–] 8 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    I also was wondering why, it's always been called CP and then recently they changed acronym 🤷

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  • [–] 26 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Like the other user said, porn implies some level of consent which children cannot give. Calling it csam ensures there's no confusion about it being abuse.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Considering there website proudly shows it is banned on Steam I'm sure this was done on purpose for the publicity.

    Why did Epic ban it though? They didn't get the 'tainted' preview version and normally love to have games that aren't on Steam.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago

    Anything's possible but I wouldn't assume it was planned unless something else came up. I think he's just riding the accidental publicity, which I don't really blame him for, though the dishonesty of his spin kinda pisses me off.

    I'd like to hear epic's explanation on why the clean version was still too much.

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  • [–] 19 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

    I'm almost thru the game and I did not notice any sexual conducts with minors

    EDIT: Btw. Something that I thought was only done for screenshots, but the nudity in-game is censored/pixelated.

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  • [–] 4 points 11 months ago* (4 children)

    The devs were not told what needed to change even after asking, so they tried to remove anything that they suspected could be taken the wrong way, asked for reconsideration or clarification, but receive no response.

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  • [–] 28 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    This is false.

    https://www.eurogamer.net/its-extremely-frustrating-and-also-fcked-up-one-of-the-worlds-best-indie-studios-is-facing-shock-closure-following-confounding-steam-ban

    They submitted to steam, who asked for a preliminary build of the game (one would assume due to concerns about the content). The build provided included a small child reading a naked man like a horse.

    Steam denied the game based on the inclusion of CSAM, and advised the devs directly of this decision in what the devs call “an automated email”, as if steam is out there personally hand writing rejection letters for every failed game out there.

    The devs claim to have changed the scene, but it seems that Steam has a zero-tolerance policy on games that feature CSAM. And, I mean, Fair.

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago* (2 children)

    It seems a stretch to call (at least as far as I understand it), a naked (fictional) underage character riding a horse CSAM? Sure, it's definitely not in good taste, but... CSAM?

    CSAM is child abuse, there are no children here. Is there a clear line between someone drawing and actual real child abuse? Because, IMHO, there definitely should be.

    I agree that steam shouldn't allow such content, we don't want it, but I definitely disagree with the semantics here.

    Or am I missing something obvious??

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  • [–] 10 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    You are, it wasn't a horse in the build they sent to Steam, it was a naked man. If you have a naked girl on a horse I think that qualifies too, you have an underage character that's naked.

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  • [–] -3 points 11 months ago

    Someone who claimed to have played the game said the privates were sensored.
    The game concept feels very political, not sexual from what I am hearing.
    My guess is the AI just flagged it, and noone actually reviewed it. Now that it is news, they don't want any bad press, so they are standing by the ban, when otherwise they might have reversed it.

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  • [+] -22 points 11 months ago (3 children)

    Forming an opinion from your made up justification is a sign of poor judgement

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  • [–] 25 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    It's a direct quote from the article you're commenting on, and that my opinion is based on.

    But please, don't let me stop you from attacking my character instead of my argument

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  • [–] -5 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I was talking about your comment, not the quote. Weird that you assumed otherwise

    “I'm assuming they don't mean a suggestive camera pan, but actually something problematic on screen, in which case, I totally support the ban. Devs were given the opportunity to change it, and they said no. Ban away imho. The fact that this is considered controversial is pretty disturbing to me.”

    Devs were not given the opportunity to change it as it wasn’t there in the first place

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