Valve demands clear description of explicit content on Steam

Valve will impose stricter requirements on developers of games with explicit content on Steam. From now on they must indicate more clearly what makes their game explicit. Valve has also made its filters and the settings for them more effective.

After the decision in June not to ban controversial games from Steam, Valve has found other solutions for players who prefer not to be confronted with them. The company says it wants to help players more effectively search for what they want and avoid what they don’t want to see.

One such solution is a clear description of the explicit content. Developers of games with this kind of content should create those descriptions themselves. Moderators will check whether the rule is being followed.

In addition, Valve has adjusted the filters. They have become more specific and cause the store to avoid certain tags when set up that way. Instead of three tags that users can add to the filter, such as horror or sci-fi, there is now room for ten tags in the preferences. The tags include not only themes, games, or product types, but also developers, publishers, and curators.

Players will still need to re-enter their age to access pages about games with explicit content. Valve says it doesn’t allow age retention due to classification institute guidelines. A person’s age should not be kept for more than one session.

What such a description of explicit content should look like.

Valve also wants to ban developers who are “obviously guilty of trolling”. The description is intentionally kept vague by Valve, as trolling “comes in all shapes and sizes.” What does fall under the description are developers who offer ‘objects in the form of games’. According to Valve, these are: “Bad pieces of software that can barely pass for a game, but 99.9 percent of players can’t qualify as ‘good’.”

Not only are there tightened features and guidelines, but Valve has also introduced home pages for developers and publishers. Through these pages it is possible for players to keep up to date with news about their favorite developers and new releases.