Gaming company Valve has finally said it will not carry the controversial visual novel Rape Day on its Steam store.
The zombie apocalypse game, which was not yet for sale but slated to arrive in April, is touted as a story of 'violence, sexual assault, necrophilia and incest’ and would allow players to ‘verbally harass, kill people, and rape women.’
While players weren't able to buy it yet, they could add it to their wishlist as of February 19.
After news of its disturbing content sparked massive public outcry over the last few weeks, with gamers and non-gamers alike demanding for it to be taken down, Valve now says Rape Day will not be available on Steam.
The zombie apocalypse game, which was not yet for sale but slated to arrive in April, is touted as a story of 'violence, sexual assault, necrophilia and incest’ and would allow players to ‘verbally harass, kill people, and rape women’
'Over the past week you may have heard about a game called 'Rape Day' coming soon to Steam.
Today we've decided not to distribute this game on Steam. Given our previous communication around Who Gets To Be On The Steam Store?, we think this decision warrants further explanation.
'Much of our policy around what we distribute is, and must be, reactionary—we simply have to wait and see what comes to us via Steam Direct.
'We then have to make a judgement call about any risk it puts to Valve, our developer partners, or our customers.
'After significant fact-finding and discussion, we think 'Rape Day' poses unknown costs and risks and therefore won't be on Steam.
'We respect developers’ desire to express themselves, and the purpose of Steam is to help developers find an audience, but this developer has chosen content matter and a way of representing it that makes it very difficult for us to help them do that.'
The decision comes despite Valve’s notoriously lax policy, which is to essentially ‘allow everything’ so long as it’s not ‘illegal, or straight up trolling.’
But, it seems
