Valve is adopting an anything goes policy when it comes to its Steam Store — barring anything illegal or “straight up trolling.”
Valve made the announcement on the Steam Blog Wednesday, noting that the question of what to allow on the Steam Store has divided its own staff.
“Taking this approach allows us to focus less on trying to police what should be on Steam, and more on building those tools to give people control over what kinds of content they see,” Valve said in its post.
Games found on the Steam Store will not be a reflection of the company’s views, Valve added.
The move comes after repeated calls to Valve to remove the game Active Shooter, which lets players simulate playing as the killer or a SWAT team attempting to neutralize the situation.
Active Shooter was eventually pulled from the Steam Store, though Valve maintained that was due to the game’s creator who, the company said, had a history of customer abuse, published copyrighted content and manipulated user reviews.
“The challenge is that this problem is not simply about whether or not the Steam Store should contain games with adult or violent content,” Valve said. “Instead, it’s about whether the Store contains games within an entire range of controversial topics – politics, sexuality, racism, gender, violence, identity, and so on.”