Valve removes AIDS Simulator, ISIS Simulator and more from Steam
After yesterday’s raging social media debates about Valve abdicating responsibility for store curation, the company has removed a bunch of games from Steam.
Valve announced recently that it wouldn’t simply remove games some might deem offensive, so long as the content isn’t illegal, or “straight up trolling.”
This resulted in many criticising Valve for allowing certain games onto its platform. Valve has responded by taking down some games which clearly fall into the “straight up trolling” category.
Since the announcement, AIDS Simulator, Asset Flip Simulator, ISIS Simulator, and Triggering Simulator have all been removed from Steam, via @RobotBrush and confirmed by GIBiz.
Similarly, Active Shooter, a game removed from Steam prior to the announcement, also fits under this "trolling" umbrella.
"We rejected Active Shooter because it was a troll, designed to do nothing but generate outrage and cause conflict through its existence," Valve VP of marketing Doug Lombardi told VentureBeat.
"In addition, the developer had been involved in numerous misrepresentations, copyright violations, and customer abuses. There are no second chances for Active Shooter, or its developers. And to be explicit, while the developer behind it was also a troll, we'd reject Active Shooter if it had been submitted by any other developer."
It looks like much of the reaction to Valve’s (admittedly vague) announcement was a bit premature.