Multiple game creators describe ineffective moderation on the platform, resulting in unchecked hatred in forums and targeted campaigns of negative ‘anti-woke’ reviews
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.
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.