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An unsettling indie game about horses keeps getting banned from stores (www.theverge.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/gaming@beehaw.org
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Horses, a first-person narrative horror game, was banned from the Epic Games Store just hours before it was set to launch on December 2nd. Then, a day after launch, the Humble store (temporarily) banned it as well. The decision shocked the developers at Santa Ragione, makers of the critically respected Saturnalia, as these storefronts were the homes they’d found for their game two years before it was preemptively banned from Steam.

Valve and Epic say Horses violates their sexual content policies. Humble hasn’t yet said why it banned the game.

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

but can that content be removed without changing the game? they already changed her from a kid to a grown woman, because it fit the story and the message better, apparently. but would removing that entirely still work?

idk, i haven't played or analysed the game. i'm guessing that it's there for a reason. but i do know that demanding content be changed because it makes us uncomfortable is not a good thing!

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

    I have played the game. There's far more pornographic games on Steam. All of the nudity is censored, there are no kids or even characters that could be mistaken for kids in the game, and it's obvious in its intent - there's nothing that I'd describe as even approaching titillating; the whole experience is clearly just intended to - and successfully so - make you feel uncomfortable and unsettled. The scene in question - the one that previously had the young girl - is particularly unsettling specifically because of how it normalizes everything else that's going on, and I agree with them that the scene works better with a grown woman than it would have with a kid. There's no reason for this to be banned on Steam.

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

    Yeah cause the content that made headlines was changed. So you won't see it by playing you had to read into why. Look, I'll get down on some Futa Femboy House. Lets go. But maybe lets not involve kids and nudity in the global community, thats a recipe for disaster. Either way, that will for sure get you delisted and you cant act surprised in this capitalist, bland-shit-to-widest-audience world. What just happened will happen to you. Maybe if they wanted it to be considered art, which I think might have gone better, present it aa that at a gallery or your own hosted site. Valve or any big corp is not going to fuck with that 100%. I'm just honestly surprised they're surprised and this is making such a big splash.

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

    Whether they're surprised or not, going public with it was a good marketing ploy because I never would have known about the game if they hadn't, and I bought it. I'm sure many more of their sales can be attributed to the same.

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