Steam Sparks Outrage as Indie Dev Accuses Valve of 'Censorship' Over Banned Nude 'Horses' Game

Valve has drawn the ire of Italian independent game studio Santa Ragione after Steam banned their new game Horses, in what the developers claim is an act of 'moralising censorship'.

The horror title is a first-person adventure where the protagonist spends a summer helping at a secluded farm where nude human beings wearing horse masks are treated as livestock.

While Horses is available for £3.79 ($5) on Humble Store, Epic Games Store, Itch.io and GOG, Valve refused to distribute it on Steam, saying: 'we will not distribute content that appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor.'

Santa Ragione received this feedback during Valve's automated review in June 2023, when an early copy of Horses was submitted for listing.

Valve's Statement on Santa Ragione's Claims

Valve responded to the accusations via PC Gamer, saying they had provided feedback that aligned with existing guidelines. The decision was made after reviewing a playable build of the game, following concerns raised by proposed store-page content.

'A short while later the developer asked us to reconsider the review, and our internal content review team discussed that extensively and communicated to the developer our final decision that we were not going to ship the game on Steam,' Valve said.

Santa Ragione Maintains Their Position

In an extensive FAQ page published on the Horses website, the Italian studio insisted that Steam interfered with their artistic vision through censorship.

'We reject subjective obscenity standards and believe this kind of moralising censorship evokes a darker past in which vague notions of "decency" were used to silence artists,' they wrote.

'Steam publicly downplays human curation in favour of algorithmic sales optimisation, yet intervenes with censorship when a game's artistic vision does not align with what the platform owners consider acceptable art.'

The studio said they had spent two years asking Valve for clarification and a 'path to compliance', but were repeatedly denied.

They added that Steam did not provide detailed feedback explaining which aspects of Horses were deemed problematic. Santa Ragione said they had offered to revise any content Valve identified, but received no specific guidance.

Clarifying Valve's Review

The FAQ further stated that all characters in the game are adults, something communicated through their appearance, dialogue and in-game documents.

Santa Ragione also shared the 'incomplete scene' that may have triggered Valve's decision to block the game.

'The daughter wants to ride one of the horses (in the game the "horses" are humans wearing a horse mask) and gets to pick which one. What followed was an interactive dialogue sequence where the player is leading, by a lead as if they were a horse, a naked adult woman with a young girl on her shoulders.'

They clarified that the scene is not sexual, but acknowledged that the 'juxtaposition' may have influenced Valve's decision.