【Pinoy Archives】

Let's be Pinoy Archivesclear about one thing up front: There is no reasonable scenario where a video game about shooting up a high school is acceptable. None.

How then did Active Shooter, a game that promised to let you play the role of a school shooter while tracking stats like "civilians killed" and "cops killed," end up with a product page on Steam? The game has since been dropped, but that it was there at all is troubling.

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Steam, for anyone out there who might not know, is an online marketplace that specializes in PC games. There are other, similar marketplaces like GOG or EA's Origin, but Valve Corporation's Steam service commands the most attention and the largest audience.

The game's existence first surfaced in the popular consciousness last week, when major media outlets discovered it. One BBC report highlighted an anti-gun charity's disgusted response, which included a call for Valve to remove the game. A separate CNN report discussed the response among parents of children who were killed in February's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

The momentum built from there, but Steam notably continued to host the game's product page until Monday, when it was finally removed. Valve confirmed it was behind the move in a statement given to Variety.

"We have removed the developer Revived Games and publisher ACID from Stehttps://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/pop/8458397/lea-michele-interview-darren-criss-tour-glee?utm_source=twitteram. This developer and publisher is, in fact, a person calling himself Ata Berdiyev, who had previously been removed last fall when he was operating as ‘[bc]Interactive’ and ‘Elusive Team.’"

"The broader conversation about Steam's content policies is one that we'll be addressing soon."

The statement went on to explain that Valve won't "do business with people who act like this toward our customers or Valve," adding -- importantly -- that the broader conversation is something "we'll be addressing soon."

It's an unusual response from Valve. The statement mentions nothing about the content of Active Shooter, taking issue instead with the past activities of the game's developer.

The darker corners of Steam are flooded with content creators known as "asset flippers." These individuals build whatever they're working on using pre-made assets that have been stitched together, with little or no original work.

Popular, heavily supported game engines -- the software tools that are the building blocks of our video games -- such as Unity feature an App Store-like interface where content creators can look for shortcuts. So instead of, say, building an art asset for a gas station or an Xbox controller profile for standard first-person shooter controls, a developer can go and download somebody else's version of the same.

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The creator of Active Shooteris, according to Valve, one of the more enduring asset flippers on Steam. So the game's removal, and the banning of Revived Games and ACID -- the developer and publisher, respectively -- isn't a response to toxic content, it's the removal of someone Valve has deemed a dishonest content creator.

The fact remains, there's no clear content moderation or curation policy on Steam. New developers can get their creation listed in the store via Steam Direct, which does lay the types of things that shouldn't be published on Steam. The list notably bars pornography, hate speech, and "content that is patently offensive or intended to shock or disgust viewers."

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

That list means very little in reality, however. Valve's review period for each new Steam listing takes no more than five days. During that time, according to the Steam Direct guidelines, "we run your game, look at your store page, and check that it is configured correctly and running as expected and not doing anything harmful."

In other words, Valve's review makes sure you're not peddling a broken piece of software. The guidelines don't say a thing about reviewing content, and plenty of listings that threaten to offend just as much as Active Shootersuggest there's no content review at all.

Waypoint explored this issue in a look at another game, the overtly homophobic Gay World, which is still listed on Steam even now. Patrick Klepek, the article's author, described the game as "a symptom of a larger disease."

He then went on to write:

Steam’s “new releases” tab is full of trash, and while you can be generally sympathetic to Valve wanting to allow all sorts of creators an easy path to publishing on their enormous platform, it doesn’t absolve them of the responsibility to make sure it’s a platform that doesn't promote hateful speech. Gay Worlddidn’t just slip through the cracks—it’s evidence Valve created the cracks themselves.

That's really the problem here. Valve's content controls on Steam aren't clear, and in fact seem rather arbitrary most of the time. Gay Worldis still there, but Valve recently removed a number of visual novels from the service because of their sexual themes (in response to claims from an anti-porn organization, as The Daily Dot revealed).

It's possible that Valve's recent activity, around both the visual novels and Active Shooterboth, relates to the company's Steam Link app, which lets Steam users turn their mobile devices into a remote streaming display for their library of games. Apple recently rejected Steam Link's listing on the App Store due to unstated "business conflicts."

Valve's content controls on Steam aren't clear, and in fact seem rather arbitrary most of the time.

Apple's Phil Schiller reportedly left the door open to Steam Link's release in the App Store, according to an email shared by a Reddit user (grain of salt time). In the email, Schiller offered a more thorough explanation of why the app was rejected (h/t BGR).

"Unfortunately, the review team found that Valve’s Steam iOS app, as currently submitted, violates a number of guidelines around user generated content, in-app purchases, content codes, etc," Schiller allegedly wrote. "We’ve discussed these issues with Valve and will continue to work with them to help bring the Steam experience to iOS and AppleTV in a way that complies with the store’s guidelines."

It's still a vague explanation. But it seems clear that Valve's own Steam policies don't exactly line up with Apple's "walled garden" approach to moderating content on the iOS App Store. Valve's recent activity around content moderation could be viewed as an outward indication of the company's ongoing conversations with Apple.

That could also explain why, per Valve's Active Shooterstatement, the broader conversation around Steam content policies will be addressed "soon" rather than right now.

Whatever's going on at Valve, Steam continues to have problems that need to be addressed at the platform and policy level. Everything that happened with Active Shooterover the past week is simply the tip of a very large iceberg.

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