Steam appears to have concluded that while depicting non-violent incest between consenting adults in a video game is unacceptable, graphic depictions of mass murder can remain their bread and butter. I have no problem with a private company choosing their own curation criteria freely. If they want to ban depictions of people who, e.g., wear glasses, that's up to them. But I'm not clear on how playing an incest game is more damaging than playing a homicide game.
gmuslera · 5h ago
Hollywood, or if you want, mass media, concluded that too, long ago. Killing individuals or multitudes, gore, and a lot of other permanently damaging activities are permitted or even glorified, while a lot of less damaging or even consenting ones are banned. Kids even grow with weapons as toys, culture see that as natural or even beneficial.
And while by far most that consumed that content didn't ended as i.e. mass murderers, some did. But somewhat is expected that the would be consumers of banned content will be less capable to distinguish between reality and fiction.
bigbadfeline · 5h ago
Allow me to explain this complicated issue. Let's assume you're right about playing an incest game being no more damaging that playing a homicide game. Then it's fair to reason that playing games involving both incest and homicide is at least twice as damaging as playing only incest games and more damaging than plying only homicide games.
To put it in french (with apologies), if a company allows us to eat a half shitcake it's bizarre to argue for full rights over the whole shitcake.
lukev · 3h ago
This presumes either of those things are damaging in the first place.
There's a difference between fictional depictions and reality. The argument is that if we can understand and accept that difference when it comes to violence, we can also understand and accept it when it comes to sexual content.
bigbadfeline · 2h ago
> There's a difference between fictional depictions and reality. The argument is that if we can understand and accept that difference
It's big if especially for the underage group who are the most involved in game playing. That group is definitely influenced by fiction, they get most of their real world knowledge from... fiction and fictional characters. Even more, since the dawn of humanity fiction has been used to express and discuss social norms and dilemmas. "To be or not to be"...
We don't have to guess, there are studies showing increased aggression in the players of violent games and a viral effect of that aggression, propagating to their acquaintances who don't even play such games [1].
It's one of the reasons why silly valley wants to kill government's ability to fund such studies which get in the way of messing up the heads of our kids.
Any source on underage being primary gamers ESPECIALY on PC platform/ steam??? Seems like a weak nonsense THINK OF THE CHILDREN argument when most gamers on steam are 30-40 yo males
puppycodes · 1h ago
The poorly written sci-fi known as "the bible" depicts child murder and incest but somehow gets a pass by these orgs protecting our children
bn-l · 7h ago
Bing wahoo AND gooning being threatened. This is truly a dark period.
This this is very similar to what happened with another prominent commentator back in the early 2010s. I specifically remember being told that people play tomb raider remake to indulge their desire to commit violence against women, whereas I, as the player was doing everything they could to stop my character from being impaled on a branch as they were dragged down a flooding river. I wasn’t very good, so it kept happening, and it felt awful.
The same person also claimed there was a mission in GTA where players had to kill as many prostitutes as possible.
on_the_train · 6h ago
Oh now it's censorship? Not "bravery" or "private companies can do what they want"? Odd how the use of the word depends on who's on the receiving end.
And while by far most that consumed that content didn't ended as i.e. mass murderers, some did. But somewhat is expected that the would be consumers of banned content will be less capable to distinguish between reality and fiction.
To put it in french (with apologies), if a company allows us to eat a half shitcake it's bizarre to argue for full rights over the whole shitcake.
There's a difference between fictional depictions and reality. The argument is that if we can understand and accept that difference when it comes to violence, we can also understand and accept it when it comes to sexual content.
It's big if especially for the underage group who are the most involved in game playing. That group is definitely influenced by fiction, they get most of their real world knowledge from... fiction and fictional characters. Even more, since the dawn of humanity fiction has been used to express and discuss social norms and dilemmas. "To be or not to be"...
We don't have to guess, there are studies showing increased aggression in the players of violent games and a viral effect of that aggression, propagating to their acquaintances who don't even play such games [1].
It's one of the reasons why silly valley wants to kill government's ability to fund such studies which get in the way of messing up the heads of our kids.
[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6790614/
The same person also claimed there was a mission in GTA where players had to kill as many prostitutes as possible.