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Valve Will Stop Removing Controversial Games on Steam Unless They Are 'Illegal or Straight up Trolling' (geekwire.com)
Valve will no longer remove games from its Steam game marketplace unless they are "illegal, or straight up trolling," according to a statement from the Bellevue, Wash.-based gaming company posted today. From a report: The announcement comes a week after Valve removed a controversial game that simulated school shootings, following a nationwide outcry to ban the title. Last month it also issued warnings to developers about adult content in games. In its blog post, Valve executive Erik Johnson writes that "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," it reads. "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."
That's a welcome sudden breakout of common sense. Let's see how long it lasts!
Ezekiel 23:20
As a liberal and libertarian, I'm fine with *ADULTS* having access to any kind of content they want. If they want to take the no censorship, high road they sure as hell need to clean up their age verification system. I play counter strike and BF4(non-steam) with my 15yo. niece and I've seen his game library, and I know damn well many of his games are supposed to be over 18.
First hit of google on how to work around steams age restriction:
https://steamcommunity.com/dis...
> You can buy games on Steam no matter what age you are as long as you set your age to over 18 when a store-page asks for you DoB
So it pains me to say this, but until they fix this gigantic loophole, they are in the wrong here.
Maybe parents can check their kids ages on their accounts? I tend to be unsympathetic to the "you should be watching your kids 24/7" argument, but to verify their ages on their accounts?
Also, what have you done about your niece's game collection.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
A libertarian would say parenting is the responsibility of parents, not the market. If Steam wants to offer parental controls, that's certainly their choice, but they should be under no such obligation. And perhaps your nieces parents, who I'd imagine know the girl much better than you, have determined that she is mature enough to play some or all 18+ titles? As a left social libertarian myself, I wouldn't want Steam to try to second guess parental discretion like that.
Steam should not be a place to express a viewpoint. It's a platform to hook game devs and game players up. Nothing more.
No one is forcing you to buy a game you find objectionable.
They're really going to reap what they sow with this policy.
You have a very mistaken belief of how the bill of rights works. The 2nd amendment is simply protecting a natural right from infringement by the government. In the absence of the 2nd amendment, all people still have the exact same rights.
Even if this did happen, and the feds thought it could be enforced, we'd have a civil war trying to enforce it.
a student's odds of being killed in a school shooting in any given year are (51 million) / (13.9 per year) = 1 in 3.67 million. About 120 Americans are killed every year by deer [vox.com]. (325.7 million Americans) / (120 per year) = 1 in 2.71 million.
You must be a poor scientist, because you shouldn't compare the number of school children killed by one type of fatality with the number of ALL Americans killed by another type of fatality.
If 120 Americans are killed every year by dear, how many of those Americans are school children?
Yes, when someone has an idea, but they don't know anything about the topic, and someone else does know about the topic, an effective conversation goes something like this;
Person A: I have an idea that might work, or might spark a different idea that works, but I don't really know much about this topic. What do you think of ...?
Person B: That's an interesting idea. In my home town, we had a bus system. The way that worked ...
We have conversations like that at work. A few days ago I posted a "I don't know much about the topic, but ..." post here.
Unfortunately, since the late 1980s US political dialog is more like:
Person A: You bastard murderer, you want everyone to take their assault weapons to schools and shoot up kids! Why do you want that to still be legal!? We have to ban handguns now, and all semiautomatic machine guns! You murderous piece of shit!
Me: Wow you're an idiot. Take a Vicodin and go get a clue, please.
Some of the change is probably related to the TV news networks going full partisan in the late 1980s. We went from Walter Cronkite trying to at least appear some neutral to one network demonizing Republicans and another demonizing Democrats. Viewers moved to whichever network was aligned with their political views, and the news they see is all demonizing "the other side".
Also the change is how primaries work, in the 1950s, made a difference. Until then, the debate would be mostly *within* each party. People were arguing a particular point, but arguing with people they mostly agreed with on other things. After that, the parties became more homogeneous on issues, with Republicans taking one side and Democrats taking the other side. So now instead of debate amongst friends, people are trying to defeat the enemy.