Despite professing that it would allow everything on Steam, Valve will not allow adult games on the PC digital distribution service just yet. According to the developer of Shining Song Starnova, Valve won't add the game to Steam until it releases the tools necessary to let users block Steam from showing content. This was further confirmed by a spokesperson for the company in an email to Gamasutra.
The delay stems from a change in Valve's policy wherein it finds curation to be too difficult to execute, resulting in in it believing that the right approach to bringing new games to Steam is to "allow everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal, or straight up trolling."
For the company this approach works out because it lets it build tools to "give people control of what content" is seen by them. And those tools aren't ready just yet. Valve's Erik Johnson elaborated on what these can do in a post on the site in June.
"So if you don't want to see anime games on your store, you'll be able to make that choice. If you want more options to control exactly what kinds of games your kids see when they browse the store, you'll be able to do that. And it's not just players that need better tools either - developers who build controversial content shouldn't have to deal with harassment because their game exists, and we'll be building tools and options to support them too," he said.
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