Even Valve's laissez-faire "anything goes" release policy (opens in new tab) has its exceptions. As developer MAGES discovered when its 2009 port of Chaos;Head Noah (itself a port of 2008's Chaos;Head) was unceremoniously banned from Steam (open in new tab), neither Valve nor "Chaos;Head" publisher Spike Chunsoft, did not say which rules the game violated, only that the latter would not "change the game content as required by the guidelines" to ensure its release on Steam.
To be fair, there are a few things you can point out: the "Mature Content Description" on Chaos;Head's Steam page indicates that the writers have not described their work as mature in a world that has It reads as if the writers consider their job to be to write out everything that could ever be considered mature content. Knives, strangulation, torture, "severed fingers, dangling entrails", "exposed brains". Even more horrifying are the "partially exposed breasts and buttocks."
None of this seems to be enough to incur Valve's wrath. Some have pointed to the game's (frankly quite creepy) lingerie DLC for high school characters as a potential point of contention, but all we have is speculation. In any case, Valve has decided that whatever it is, it no longer matters.
In fact, Valve has "examined the process" that led to the ban decision and "made some changes to avoid this in the future. A fairly extensive fan campaign (opens in new tab) was launched to protect the game's Steam release, as well as the requisite Change.org petition. Maybe it caught the attention of a Steam employee, or maybe someone deep in the recesses of Valve's offices had a dramatic change of heart. That's pretty animated.
"Chaos;Head Noah" is out today, on Steam (opens in new tab).
Correction: an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the developer of "Chaos;Head Noah" is Spike Chunsoft. The developer is MAGES and the publisher is Spike Chunsoft.
Comments