In an interesting post to the Steam Blog today, Erik Johnson goes over what games get to be on the steam store. Specifically, should Steam be selling games with adult or violent content? Surprisingly, Steam does have groups of people looking at the contents of every controversial title that is submitted to steam. Instead of debating about whether or not a game with controversial content should be on Steam, Valve has decided to allow everything onto the Steam store that isn't outright illegal or blatant trolling, and allowing customers to make the choice whether or not to buy them.
Upon reading the title I thought "Great question for 10 years ago!" Back when steam was definitely an exclusive and prestigious place to have your game sold. After reading the article though I came away impressed. It's getting more and more rare for a company or store to not try and flail their opinions and politics around like an axe, cutting down everyone who does not agree with them, but instead letting the consumer make the choice. Makes me feel better about how much I've spent on Steam.
Valve is not a small company - we're not a homogeneous group. The online debates around these topics play out inside Valve as well. We don't all agree on what deserves to be on the Store. So when we say there's no way to avoid making a bunch of people mad when making decisions in this space, we're including our own employees, their families and their communities in that.
Upon reading the title I thought "Great question for 10 years ago!" Back when steam was definitely an exclusive and prestigious place to have your game sold. After reading the article though I came away impressed. It's getting more and more rare for a company or store to not try and flail their opinions and politics around like an axe, cutting down everyone who does not agree with them, but instead letting the consumer make the choice. Makes me feel better about how much I've spent on Steam.
Valve is not a small company - we're not a homogeneous group. The online debates around these topics play out inside Valve as well. We don't all agree on what deserves to be on the Store. So when we say there's no way to avoid making a bunch of people mad when making decisions in this space, we're including our own employees, their families and their communities in that.