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An unsettling indie game about horses keeps getting banned from stores
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2025
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Submitting to moral panic bullshit doesn't placate them. It only emboldens them.
Valve has hundreds if not thousands of highly and expressly pornographic games on its platform, so I don't think this can be chalked up to the Collective Shout folks' spectre somehow looming over Valve. As another commenter pointed out, according to the devs' own timeline, Valve's rejection happened prior to the recent successful Collective Should payment-processor targeting.
I suspect that EGS and Humble probably halted sale at the last minute due to the added press naming them as distributors prior to launch, often in articles that included Valve's response asserting that it contained questionable content related to minors, and them going, "hey what? Hold on a sec, we don't know anything about that."
If you were about to sell a bunch of cars, and a major dealership announced they wouldn't sell them because their trunks were all full of cocaine, a couple days before launch, you'd probably delay your launch to double-check as well.
Unfortunately, the developers' own initial press statements where they sort of feigned ~~innocence~~ ignorance (after they had already changed the scene presumed to be in question, meaning they at least had some idea that was likely the issue) probably didn't help their credibility in other platforms' eyes, as far as being business partners goes.
Plus horses.wtf has pages of rants. Its not adding up.
Okay, cool. Do you think having a little girl talk to a naked horseman is something that would help sell the game? Or make it onto a marketplace anywhere? Thats why it was removed and they already tried to placate by makkng the girl an adult and that didnt work obviously. So whats your point here? Leave that content in the game? That doesnt solve the developers problem.
I literally don't care if they had a little girl talk to a naked horseman (who is being treated by the game like a regular horse and not a man at all to make a point). My point is that banning things that aren't child porn because of moral outrage leads to the moral crusaders escalating. Next thing you know they're gunning for lgbt themes, then going after violence. It's ridiculous and should be ridiculed and dismissed instead of pretending things are child porn just because you don't like them.
Yeah all I am saying is this isn't surprising. It should have been expected. I doubt you will ever be able to put a child model in a game next to nude adukt models and not get your game pulled from mainstream marketplaces. Thats just the current reality we live in and is not surprising. I mysslf dont think its offensive in this context. But again this outcome is completely expected.
Go to horses.wtf if you really want to know more. I myself dont think this is a hill worth dying on.
You're not even trying to understand what I'm saying if you think that deciding if this particular game is the hill to die on is what I care about. I don't give a shit about this particular game. I care about maintaining the principles of not letting moralists dictate what art and media is appropriate for everyone else.
Yeah and what I am saying is this is stupid shit to do that for. Someone tried to make a "grotesque story experience" and they got too close for comfort for main stream distributors. You can still acquire the game, just not on these platforms. You can still play it in its intended state, just not on those platforms. So what you are arguing for really is for Steam and Epic to distribute this.
You need to work on your reading comprehension.
Yes, I am. There doesn't appear to be a non-moral-panic reason for it to be barred, and being barred from steam will have a deleterious effect on the game and on the studio's ability to keep making games. I wish company didn't have that power, but they do.
Its their platform. In what world can you force people to sell shit they dont want to sell? You can literally go buy it and experience the art right now. But its not on Steam with achievements and friends seeing me play it so fuck it? Lmao what logic is this? Theres not much left to discuss here tbh. This seems pretty straightforward and your argument is incoherent at this point. They are getting loads of marketing from this
This particular game is. It won't always apply to every game, which is why I want digital marketplaces that have so much market dominance they can make or break studios to not choose which games they allow on their platforms based on vibes.
My argument isn't incoherent just because you refuse to engage the scenario from a systemic rather than one-off perspective.
Here: https://www.gog.com/en/game/horses play the game. There, thats a major marketplace right there and literally the best one.
I don't understand why you keep replying without even pretending to engage the points and arguments that I've made.
Do you think saying "the game is available elsewhere" addresses what I said about marketplace dominance at all?
Do you think anything you've said that only applies to this specific game addresses anything I said about systemic problems?
You aren't even trying to have a discussion. You're just saying "I don't like the game anyway so it's good it's not on steam" and pretending it being available on other storefronts and that it happened to go viral has any bearing on any of the points I've made when it obviously doesn't.
In any case, it's pretty clear at this point that you're not going to engage with me faithfully, so I'll be on my way. Have a good day!
What systemic problems? The systemic problem of distributors not distributing games with children interacting with naked adults? Thats not a fucken problem unless you're a libertarian. The porn game crusade is a huge problem. This is not that. I don't believe this is the game that will push through complete freedom of creation. I also dont believe our current public zeitgeist is ready to handle the complex questions that arise from content like this. I didnt even say I didnt like the game. I havent played it. I'm sure its as thought provoking as Solarium or SOMA. But acting like this is a moral panic overreach of sensorship is a little much when its still available on one of the biggest game marketplaces available AND you'll get the offline installer for it. Go play it. I just might after all this and see what the hubub is actually about.
GOG's market share is around 0.5 to 1%. Steam's is above 75%. So by comparison, GOG is tiny.
Sounds like a business discussion was not had if they really are "serious abiut their product" like horses.wtf says they are. Thousands of games go on there each year and dont have this problem.
Isn't that part of the discussion? That Valve can just arbitrarily reject a game. Before the payment processors stepped in for example, which was also the time Valve "banned" Horses, Steam had games that had the four-letter r word in their description and Valve didn't care despite being contacted by Collective Shout. One could argue they're lying, but as someone who's worked with most major publishers, I can believe them, because Valve is almost impossible to reach. In my experience, and based on what I've been hearing, most of the time they simply don't reply to press requests. Instead they do these publicity stunts where Gabe Newell will occasionally reply to random email messages from people online, knowing the reply will be posted to social media, or he'll do an interview with a nobody on YouTube.
There was one in the version they sent to Steam. That's what started all this.
isn't the point of the game to be disturbing?
self censorship won't help.
Who is self censoring here? Horses.wtf states the game is available in an unchanged state elsewhere. Just not on Steam or Epic. They're big ass corpos. Dont know why this is shocking or why people want them to be forced to sell it. Valve was never your vanguard for self expression or art exploration.
but can that content be removed without changing the game? they already changed her from a kid to a grown woman, because it fit the story and the message better, apparently. but would removing that entirely still work?
idk, i haven't played or analysed the game. i'm guessing that it's there for a reason. but i do know that demanding content be changed because it makes us uncomfortable is not a good thing!
I have played the game. There's far more pornographic games on Steam. All of the nudity is censored, there are no kids or even characters that could be mistaken for kids in the game, and it's obvious in its intent - there's nothing that I'd describe as even approaching titillating; the whole experience is clearly just intended to - and successfully so - make you feel uncomfortable and unsettled. The scene in question - the one that previously had the young girl - is particularly unsettling specifically because of how it normalizes everything else that's going on, and I agree with them that the scene works better with a grown woman than it would have with a kid. There's no reason for this to be banned on Steam.
Yeah cause the content that made headlines was changed. So you won't see it by playing you had to read into why. Look, I'll get down on some Futa Femboy House. Lets go. But maybe lets not involve kids and nudity in the global community, thats a recipe for disaster. Either way, that will for sure get you delisted and you cant act surprised in this capitalist, bland-shit-to-widest-audience world. What just happened will happen to you. Maybe if they wanted it to be considered art, which I think might have gone better, present it aa that at a gallery or your own hosted site. Valve or any big corp is not going to fuck with that 100%. I'm just honestly surprised they're surprised and this is making such a big splash.
Whether they're surprised or not, going public with it was a good marketing ploy because I never would have known about the game if they hadn't, and I bought it. I'm sure many more of their sales can be attributed to the same.
I for sure would not have seen this game if it werent for these articles. So maybe its part of the plot. Capitalism strikes again?