Valve in uproar over "untextured polygons depicting ass and boobs"

Image credit: Molleindustria

Entertaining open world satire Future? No Thanks! has been abruptly delayed by Steam content reviewers, due to the presence of multiple seconds of "untextured polygons depicting ass and boobs". In a statement, developer Paulo "Molleindustria" Pedercini reveals that Valve's moderation teams have had the game under review for "more than three weeks", but have yet to make a call. Steamworks documentation suggests that content review should take no more than seven business days.

While probably not a case of platform censorship on par with last year's Horses debacle, it adds to the long-standing impression that Valve's adult content policies are both nebulous and arbitrarily enforced. According to Molleindustria, one reason for the delay is that Valve's reviewers won't accept videos of the "mild nudity" in question, but aren't prepared to play through what is advertised as a six-hour game to analyse the material themselves. Instead, Molleindustria says he had to submit "a special build with a 'watch the sex scene' button."

This seems a bit pathetic, and not just because of the reported short playlength. If Valve are serious about curating 'adult' material on Steam, and not just banhammering taboo games to appease their domineering payment partners, it seems important to play through games to understand the context of any sexy goings-on. After all, "features ass and boobs" approximately describes both Mass Effect and 2019's hit Steam release Love Hentai: Fap Fast, Die Young. And yet the devil may be in the detail.

As regards Future? No Thanks!, main character Harvey Huffstone has applied to be euthanised, and doing the dirty is one of the bucket list items he's required to complete to prove his commitment to, er, dying. Yes, this feels like a narrative circumstance a moderation team would want to experience in full.

Doubtless, individual Valve adult content reviewers don't have much time to spare – there are a lot of Steam releases – but this is surely an argument for hiring more reviewers, not requiring devs to let them Skip to the Sexy. In Valve's defence, it could be that they asked for this functionality in addition to playing through the game. I've asked for comment.

Hopefully, it'll all be resolved soon, because Future? No Thanks! is good fun. I do not myself particularly yearn to see Harvey Huffstone's ass, but I can't imagine it being more horrifying than any of his pick-up lines.