Steam Reportedly Censoring Japanese ‘Eroge' NSFW Games Despite Audience Driven Nature Of Gaming Platform

Censorship has a difficult relationship with artists who use certain risky elements to enhance their work. Whether it's movies or video games, anything that is offered to the public is often put under scrutiny for how it might affect those who view it.

But on a gaming store/platform that was mainly created in order to give fans more control of PC games offered, what place does censorship have among fans who express desire for the "risky" content others decide they should be protected from?

Recently Kotaku released a report on a recent uptick in the offering of Japanese "Eroge" or erotic video games on the Steam gaming platform. The games however are being exported to fans in a considerably censored format. Two of the games specifically provided as examples are "Nekopara Vol. 1" and "Huniepop."

"Steam does not allow games in which a big part of the focus behind the game is sex," reads the FAQ section for the official "Nekopara Vol. 1" (via Kotaku).

Video games being censored is nothing new. A quick search of the Wikipedia page for censored video games by region reveals that games are often changed to prevent certain violent acts (like decapitation or dismemberment) from being viewed in the game. But nudity seems to have a stranger more inclusive nature in video games.

Allegedly, unless the nudity and sex encompasses the main action.

But then again, according to Games Radar, censorship largely has to do with a preconceived notion that video games are still mainly played by youth. Rather, perhaps because of the heavy censorship applied by Nintendo in days of the Super Nintendo and GameBoy, video games have now had a long standing battle to allow artistic freedom with violence, nudity, and sexual content.

All of this despite the fact that the main consumer of video games these days is about 30 years old.

Whether as a matter of history or principle, it would appear that even on a platform like Steam, where fans vote actively for the projects they want to see made available, censorship will always be present.

Tags
gaming
censorship
steam
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