Multiple game creators describe ineffective moderation on the platform, resulting in unchecked hatred in forums and targeted campaigns of negative ‘anti-woke’ reviews
This is developers who don’t like criticism whining. Yes, there is some bigotry and such in the market, but it’s not as big as they’re making it sound.
These people want Steam to step into a role of world gaming police, even though Steam have provided the necessary tools for users on the platform to vote incorrect information down into oblivion. Going further than that is asking for censorship and is as effective as paid reviews.
If you can’t cope with your product taking criticism, valid or otherwise, don’t waste your time peddling what you’ve made. We’ve seen time and time again that games find their audience, even with BS ‘criticisms’. Those who are interested will look further than the basic complaints. If there’s only those complaints, maybe you just didn’t make a very good game.
There’s a big difference between allowing people to comment and allowing people to be openly racist, sexist, and homophobic. Steam reviews, forums, and curator pages are absolutely full of the latter because of Valve’s hands-off ‘not my problem’ attitude, and it often goes hand in hand with doxxing and harassment campaigns.
Don’t be ridiculous. You’re describing criminal property damage. Of course that’s neither okay, nor the same.
I’m sorry you feel the need to be dramatic about this issue, but Steam have provided adequate tools for the userbase to handle the problem, in my eyes.
Are they full, or is there a small subsection that has them and we’re giving them undue attention? I rarely come across such things myself, though that’s obviously anecdotal, I feel that at least means there’s plenty of space that isn’t dominated by what you speak of.
Games that get declared a target by the alt-right often do become full of it. Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it’s not a serious problem.
I literally avoid anything on Steam that isn’t buying a game or launching a game because everywhere else I’ve strayed, I see bigoted shit.
Eeeeevery once in a while I’ll peek into a game I like’s discussion forum and almost without fail I find some bigoted stuff on the front page. Same deal with update/news post comments.
“If you can’t cope with your product taking criticism, valid or otherwise, don’t waste your time peddling what you’ve made.”
One of the reviews, published in 2023, read, “cringe game, made by a liar”. The other, a review of Lawhead’s game Blue Suburbia posted in 2024, said: “A women [sic] who seeks to destroy other’s [sic] career made this. It’s very poorly put together. She also probably has dual Israeli citizenship with how pointy her nose is.”
So by your standards, she should have thought about being a woman?
Some games have been targeted by Steam curators. Ethan, the developer of Coven, a first-person action-horror set in the 1600s, says he has been targeted by “CharlieTweetsDetected”, a curator devoted to recommending games based solely on whether their developers are perceived to have correctly mourned the assassination of rightwing activist Charlie Kirk.
CharlieTweetsDetected’s review of Coven, a first-person action-horror game set in the 1600s, read simply “Celebrated Sept 10th on blue sky [sic]”. This encouraged others to post further reviews and comments related to Kirk (and not the game). “I even mentioned it to Steam support,” Ethan says, “how it stemmed from that curator list, but they weren’t interested.” Instead, Steam support claimed that “off-topic” constituted “a recipe for cookies, or something completely unrelated to video games that is clearly trolling.” Reviews referencing Kirk, including one reading simply “RIP Charlie Kirk” alongside a negative rating, did not fit that criteria according to Steam; all remain in place today.
Elsewhere, campaigns chase games that include trans or LGBTQ+ characters. A trans developer included on a curation list titled “NO WOKE” cites frequent discussion threads, including one that referred to them as a “transvestite” and asked whether their game included “woke faggotry.” Plane Toast’s Émi Lefèvre points to reviews and discussions of Caravan SandWitch, a sci-fi action-adventure and driving game, which frequently approach its queer characters negatively. “Too LBGTQ [sic] … There is no future or continuation for these sad gays and lesbians,” reads one among many that remain visible on the game’s store page.
“For sure, the ‘anti-woke’ curators brought insincere negative attention to the game,” Lefèvre says. “Valve’s refusal to moderate any of this is making Steam reviews and forums the battleground for some kind of culture war, and is making them unsafe for marginalised people and regular gamers trying to simply enjoy the game they bought.”
The issue here is that I, as a gamer, want to know if developers espouse opinions that I strongly disagree with, because I don’t want to give them my money. So if a developer was (for example) in the Epstein Files, I would want to know that before buying their game. Reviews are an effective way to communicate that information, and I’d be rather upset to see them go.
You can’t reasonably allow reviews outlining some developer behavior and disallow others - that’s straight up censorship. As much as I disagree with the 'I will downvote games by someone who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s death" stance, I think it’s their right to take that stance. I’m not really sure how you reconcile those two things without just banning them both.
What Steam could do is have a separate review category (from ‘normal’ ones and ‘off-topic’ ones) to categorize character profiles of the developers, and let people opt in or opt out of having those included in the aggregate score. Alternately, they could categorize reviews by the reason (e.g. “Performance / crashes”, “Unfun”, “Too hard”, “Too Woke”, “Developer is a horrible person”), and let people choose which categories they care about.
This is developers who don’t like criticism whining. Yes, there is some bigotry and such in the market, but it’s not as big as they’re making it sound.
These people want Steam to step into a role of world gaming police, even though Steam have provided the necessary tools for users on the platform to vote incorrect information down into oblivion. Going further than that is asking for censorship and is as effective as paid reviews.
If you can’t cope with your product taking criticism, valid or otherwise, don’t waste your time peddling what you’ve made. We’ve seen time and time again that games find their audience, even with BS ‘criticisms’. Those who are interested will look further than the basic complaints. If there’s only those complaints, maybe you just didn’t make a very good game.
There’s a big difference between allowing people to comment and allowing people to be openly racist, sexist, and homophobic. Steam reviews, forums, and curator pages are absolutely full of the latter because of Valve’s hands-off ‘not my problem’ attitude, and it often goes hand in hand with doxxing and harassment campaigns.
Maybe so, but the values of free speech apply to wrong opinions too. Hit the “unhelpful” button and move on. Their bullshit isn’t worth the time.
So I should be able to go down to my local GameStop and write the same sorts of things on game boxes and put up signs saying the same things?
That’s speech too.
Just because this is digital, it does not give a pass IMO. These are private spaces still. They are not administered by the public.
Don’t be ridiculous. You’re describing criminal property damage. Of course that’s neither okay, nor the same.
I’m sorry you feel the need to be dramatic about this issue, but Steam have provided adequate tools for the userbase to handle the problem, in my eyes.
Of course that’s criminal.
Make it Post it notes, free standing signs, whatever. I mentioned signs too, for a reason.
Are they full, or is there a small subsection that has them and we’re giving them undue attention? I rarely come across such things myself, though that’s obviously anecdotal, I feel that at least means there’s plenty of space that isn’t dominated by what you speak of.
Games that get declared a target by the alt-right often do become full of it. Just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean it’s not a serious problem.
I literally avoid anything on Steam that isn’t buying a game or launching a game because everywhere else I’ve strayed, I see bigoted shit.
Eeeeevery once in a while I’ll peek into a game I like’s discussion forum and almost without fail I find some bigoted stuff on the front page. Same deal with update/news post comments.
“If you can’t cope with your product taking criticism, valid or otherwise, don’t waste your time peddling what you’ve made.”
So by your standards, she should have thought about being a woman?
Read the article before you comnent
The issue here is that I, as a gamer, want to know if developers espouse opinions that I strongly disagree with, because I don’t want to give them my money. So if a developer was (for example) in the Epstein Files, I would want to know that before buying their game. Reviews are an effective way to communicate that information, and I’d be rather upset to see them go.
You can’t reasonably allow reviews outlining some developer behavior and disallow others - that’s straight up censorship. As much as I disagree with the 'I will downvote games by someone who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s death" stance, I think it’s their right to take that stance. I’m not really sure how you reconcile those two things without just banning them both.
What Steam could do is have a separate review category (from ‘normal’ ones and ‘off-topic’ ones) to categorize character profiles of the developers, and let people opt in or opt out of having those included in the aggregate score. Alternately, they could categorize reviews by the reason (e.g. “Performance / crashes”, “Unfun”, “Too hard”, “Too Woke”, “Developer is a horrible person”), and let people choose which categories they care about.