Steam, the largest digital distributor for video games to children and adults, recently approved the first “100% uncensored” porn game for sale on its platform. The decision comes not long after Steam stated it would publish all video games regardless of content, barring anything illegal. Set to release on September 14th, Negligee: Love Stories is an anime visual novel where the player makes decisions for the story characters, mainly related to their sexual activity.
Not only does the game feature full uncensored sexual activity, it also promotes sexual harassment and abuse. On the official Steam page, game developer Dharker Studios states Negligee: Love Stories includes themes related to: “pressured sexual relationships”, “abusive marriages”, and “outdoor” (public) sexual activity. Also, one of the female characters is a stripper who appears to be further pressured into the commercialized sex industry by her boss.
“Steam is willfully contributing to the cultural objectification of women with this game. It normalizes the idea that men have the right to control and abuse women according to their will, something that ought to be socially unacceptable particularly in this #MeToo era,” said Dawn Hawkins, Executive Director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation.
Content filters on Steam are also woefully lackluster. While games such as Negligee: Love Stories are “filtered” out of search, Steam notifies the user that games have been filtered out and offers a “View unfiltered search results” button. Before reaching the official game page, the client takes the user to a separate page stating the game may content “mature” content, but can be quickly bypassed by simply clicking the “View Page” button.
“Steam’s lack of effective content filtering results in easy access to extremely graphic content by 35 million minors who regularly use Steam. These types of games also train undeveloped minds to normalize sexual objectification and use of women. We are calling on Steam to reconsider the types of content they allow on their platform to protect users from degrading and harmful content,” concluded Hawkins.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation placed Steam on the 2018 Dirty Dozen List which names 12 mainstream facilitators of sexual exploitation.
