Valve is back in the spotlight today, but not because of its recent Half-Life: Alyx announcement or its Valve Index VR headset. Rather, Valve finds itself in a similar situation to what Blizzard experienced when it banned a Hearthstone player for expressing pro-Hong Kong sentiment on an official livestream. Valve is being accused by Hong Kong game developers of blocking Hong Kong protest-related games from the Steam platform, and that Valve is doing so in an act of censorship.
In a report from Gizmodo, two different developers have recently attempted to launch Hong Kong protest-related games on Steam and have been stymied. The two games, titled Liberate Hong Kong and Karma, have been locked in Steam's approval process for months despite Valve claiming the process taking three to five days. Valve has largely been unresponsive to inquiries regarding the holdup, though Karma's developers have been told by Valve that the game is being held up due to "Controversial and potentially illegal content."
The Liberate Hong Kong development team, frustrated and running out of patience, has escalated its concerns over Valve's actions. In a letter written to Valve, the team expressed that it is concerned Steam is performing an act of censorship so as to maintain "good terms with a certain oppressive regime to suppress democracy, freedom, and human rights." The team is "deeply concerned with this situation" and is asking Valve to provide a "detailed explanation for this timely review process."
Valve and Steam have a complicated situation with regards to China. The Steam platform was noted to have over 30 million Chinese users as of late 2018. However, since then, due to increased oversight by the Chinese government, Steam is now creating a separate service for China made in partnership with Chinese company Perfect World. This platform is described to be entirely independent of the broader world's Steam.
As to Valve's claims that Karma could feature "potentially illegal content," it's unclear what content Valve could be referring to. Karma is a visual novel inspired by the "sadness and sorrow" in Hong Kong. Controversial content is almost certain, but for Valve to block a game's release due to controversy would be a staggering breach of its own expressed rules regarding game releases on its platforms. Especially so considering the breadth of extremely controversial pornographic and violent games that have been released on Steam.
Where blocking protest games doesn't make much sense, blocking games that could potentially impact business opportunities in China makes an unfortunate amount of sense. It's an increasingly common trend in the video game industry and beyond. Valve has not provided an official comment regarding the situation.
Source: Gizmodo