Why I Deleted My Steam Account

Megalith

Megalith

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An editor with Games Industry is dropping Steam after being fed up with Valve’s supposed tolerance for toxic users: he accuses the service of showcasing titles that glorify mass shootings and trivializes atrocities (e.g., Hatred) and points out a variety of “racist and discriminatory” groups in the Steam community that have been hosted for years. He also claims that there are merely twelve actual Valve employees that mod the community.

Valve offloads moderation of game-specific forums to the developers. Just like translation of its store pages or curation of its catalog, Valve seems to like nothing more to offload the work on others. That approach might be fine for some functions, but the company cannot abdicate responsibility for the community and culture that has come from its own neglect. That's why I'm terminating my Steam account.
 
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Romale23 said:
Seems like a reason to use steam vs not to.
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No shortage of Storm Front-lites on the internet so that is a pretty piss poor reason to join Steam for.

Personally I wouldn't ditch Steam because of this, I just don't look or post at those areas of the forums, but I think he is right that better moderation is needed to weed out the racists and assholes. Plenty of other places for those types to go to so its not like they're going to suffer really.
 
If it wasn't for steam games where would I shoot nazis? Also, the only reason I have found to visit the Steam forums is to get technical support for games that seem to be released and then abandoned by developers (Bulletstorm launch problems anyone?) Also, also, people are entitled to free speech just as much as you are entitled to be offended by that free speech.
 
mesyn191 said:
No shortage of Storm Front-lites on the internet so that is a pretty piss poor reason to join Steam for.

Personally I wouldn't ditch Steam because of this, I just don't look or post at those areas of the forums, but I think he is right that better moderation is needed to weed out the racists and assholes. Plenty of other places for those types to go to so its not like they're going to suffer really.
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That's not my actual point. So lets say you dont want to play with any nazis (and i don't) now i know who they are. As a general rule i don't believe in moderation
 
People whinging about content moderated by 3rd parties can always let steam off elsewhere.
 
Megalith said:
An editor with Games Industry is dropping Steam after being fed up with Valve’s supposed tolerance for toxic users: he accuses the service of showcasing titles that glorify mass shootings and trivializes atrocities (e.g., Hatred) and points out a variety of “racist and discriminatory” groups in the Steam community that have been hosted for years. He also claims that there are merely twelve actual Valve employees that mod the community.

Valve offloads moderation of game-specific forums to the developers. Just like translation of its store pages or curation of its catalog, Valve seems to like nothing more to offload the work on others. That approach might be fine for some functions, but the company cannot abdicate responsibility for the community and culture that has come from its own neglect. That's why I'm terminating my Steam account.
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Yeah, I just don't give a shit and I guess neither does Valve. I don't go to any groups, and nobody forces anyone else to. Get games and enjoy, other stuff optional.
 
scojer said:
Being a game journalist, did he pay for those games himself?

Most likely not.
So, he is losing nothing, but potentially his job.

If I was his boss: "You idiot, you just deleted your steam account? How are you going to review games? Get out."
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I would bet that they have a group org Steam account, and he just deleted his personal one to "stick it to the man". There's no way his employer keeps him around, if he's relagated to games that don't require Steam. Who the fuck would hire him for that?
 
DeathFromBelow said:
Can we ban the whiners AND the racists? Last I checked Steam was a place for... video games.
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Well, the whiners haven't killed thousands of innocent civilians like the alt-right have. So there's that.

It's not illegal to be a big, whiny baby. Parking a van full of fertiliser under a federal building is. Or mailing bombs to people that trigger your sensitivities, for that matter. Still, I'm actually a fan of these public alt-right groups. I'm a fan of keeping violent degenerates in places where they can be easily tracked, identified, and crushed out of society.

Governments shouldn't censor, but the social consequences for you conduct should always have the potential to be truly dire.

All of my pontificating aside. An article about a temper tantrum fuelled rage quit because you were exposed to idiots only makes the author look weak. Far too weak to deal with the consequences of publishing his thoughts on the internet. There will be future crying from this author, especially if he has made himself incapable of reviewing games and loses his job. Those are the sorts of tears ass holes like me want to bottle and sell.
 
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The 'article' should be titled 'Why I'm a self-serving pillar of moral awesomeness'.

I hate articles, editorials, in which the author's behavior is seemingly hoisted up on a pedestal because of X reasons. No one cares about your "me, me, me" mentality.

If you're trying to make a larger point, don't frame it from a first-person perspective. Lazy writing.
 
sfsuphysics said:
See "normal" people when they don't like something, they give it up, maybe rant a bit to someone who asks why they gave it up, but you don't write a fucking article about why you gave something up.
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This fits the very definition of an SJW keyboard warrior. He saw something that he thinks other people would be offended by that the press is saying everyone is offended by and is now using his platform to call other keyboard warriors to arms to try and force Steam to do something about this by being the loudest group of offendatrons on the internet. Best thing to do is treat these people like trolls and don't feed them by giving them attention.
zkostik said:
Yeah, I just don't give a shit and I guess neither does Valve. I don't go to any groups, and nobody forces anyone else to. Get games and enjoy, other stuff optional.
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It's not about seeing them, it's about finding out they exist in the first place. If they exist, then something must be done about them.

I like how the example presented in the article doesn't show the number of members, and the last active discussion was in 2015 with 3 replies. Meaning this guy had to do a deep search to find the thing that would offend him.

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*Needs more JPG!*

The other example given has 40 members. Steam has over 125 million active users, with over 10 million concurrent users at any given time. This isn't even a drop in a bucket.

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Romale23 said:
That's not my actual point. So lets say you dont want to play with any nazis (and i don't) now i know who they are. As a general rule i don't believe in moderation
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I take it you had the same attitude towards English class. :)

Gigus Fire said:
This is just a call for censorship.

You can't even find these groups unless you're actively looking for them.

If anything i'd like to censor the whiners. They shouldn't even get a platform to complain about nonsensical nonsense.
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I'm am actually rather curious as to what this guy's motivations are. Maybe he really does believe all the arguments he's putting out there but this sounds more like artificial outrage generation we've seen from corporate competitors than a legitimate criticism of the Steam service.
 
DeathFromBelow said:
I take it you had the same attitude towards English class. :)



I'm am actually rather curious as to what this guy's motivations are. Maybe he really does believe all the arguments he's putting out there but this sounds more like artificial outrage generation we've seen from corporate competitors than a legitimate criticism of the Steam service.
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He's hoping it gets him a hot SJW chick for his brave stance....

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"showcasing titles that glorify mass shootings and trivializes atrocities"

What in the actual is he talking about here? When I visit the Steam home page, the titles that are showcased are typically of the survival/space/horror/etc variety. You know, normal games. I've yet to see "School Shooting Simulator" or "Holocaust Henry" pop up as a recommended title...

I mean sure there are games like Hotline Miami that have extreme violence but games like that have existed for ages and I don't feel that Valve goes out of its way to push or "showcase" those titles. This guy is an oversensitive snowflake idiot.
 
Chas said:
I'm pretty sure the alt-right haven't killed thousands of innocent civilians either.

Unless you know of some sort of atrocity that's recently been covered up...
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Been a lot of lynchings, bombings, and shootings. Or are those people not "true-alt-right"?
 
Valve must be in damage control mode as these groups in the op are vanishing.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Been a lot of lynchings, bombings, and shootings. Or are those people not "true-alt-right"?
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As far as I know, "alt-right" was coined by Richard Spencer: an idiot no one cares about but the media loves to use as a scapegoat. The media then goes on to use the term for anyone slightly aping that they have conservative thoughts. So in the true sense of the term, "alt-right" is white nationalism, which hasn't been responsible for any of the extreme violence you listed here since the armed wing of the Democrat party, AKA the KKK, fought against the Civil Rights Movement 40-50 years ago. White nationalism is such a small movement that you're probably more likely to run into a true transgendered person than a white nationalist.
Chris_B said:
Valve must be in damage control mode as these groups in the op are vanishing.
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More likely that these groups were so small and inactive that the moderators didn't notice them until now.
 
So...Steam groups reflect society in general (in that there are messed-up, hateful people out there)? Is this a surprise to anybody? OK, maybe it is to the idiots.
 
I'd ask if I could have his stuff, but I'm not sure I'm interesting in playing anything that's likely to be on his account given the statements against guns and violence.
 
Guessing the author of TFA is going to stop gaming altogether as most games are going to offend someone.

Reminds me of a few years ago when Hasbro/WOTC wanted D&D to be family friendly and inoffensive. They totally missed the fact that most D&D scenarios start with the party gathering in a bar, drinking to excess, waking up in the morning, going to a weapons and magic store and getting numerous weapons of mass destruction, traveling cross country killing almost everything/one they encounter, breaking and entering a dungeon where they again kill most of the inhabitants, then steal the dead's stuff, return to town, spend loot to excess. Rinse, repeat. Good family values there.
 
Like, I just thought everybody knew the Steam Forums were like Gamefaqs? Utterly worthless beyond technical issues.
 
PaulP said:
So...Steam groups reflect society in general (in that there are messed-up, hateful people out there)? Is this a surprise to anybody? OK, maybe it is to the idiots.
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Or maybe they're just jokes. People love to joke around on the internet, but these people lack any sense of humor. The link to the Nazi group on Steam was "nazigrouperinolol." Or, "Nazi Group, I know 'laughs out loud'."

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They should cut to the chase and cancel their Internet service and/or cellphone data plan. Don't need any of them internet racist/sexist/etc bits/bytes coming into their home/phone unexpected.
 
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