With Rape Day ban, Steam shows it’s not as “hands off” as it claims

Enlarge / One of the few safe-for-work images of Rape Day offered on the game's Steam page before it was taken down.

Since last June, Valve has claimed that "the right approach is to allow everything onto the Steam Store," with only minor exceptions for content that is "illegal or straight-up trolling." But Valve's decision to block controversial upcoming title Rape Day from Steam shows its actual moderation policy is more reactive and restrictive than originally promised.

Rape Day attracted plenty of headlines over the last week or so for its pre-release description of a visual novel where you "control the choices of a menacing serial killer rapist during a zombie apocalypse." Trailers and screenshots posted to the game's (now-deleted, archived, extremely NSFW) Steam page show some very basic branching dialogue choices amid brutal static scenes of hardcore pornography and sexual violence.

Developer Desk Lamp said in a March 4 update that the game had been submitted to Steam for approval and that "the review process was taking longer than expected." Yesterday afternoon, Valve posted a short blog post stating directly that "Rape Day will not ship on Steam":

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