If you were hoping to spend your weekend not with Spider-Man or Lara Croft, but instead with the outerwear-despising anime girls of the long-awaited “100 per cent uncensored” Steam visual novel Negligee: Love Stories, I’m not gonna judge. But I am gonna tell you that even though it’s now out on Steam, Australians aren’t able to buy it.
Slowly but surely, Valve seems to be letting uncensored adult games onto Steam at last, starting with Negligee, which came out yesterday. The catch is that it’s only available in some regions, and it remains banned in a globe-spanning majority of others.
In a thread on Steam, developer Dharker responded to prospective players’ confusion by explaining where and why Negligee remains unavailable.
“Several of the restricted countries banned the game [before release], which prompted us to realise that we can’t release it under the radar,” the studio wrote.
“You might think that it is ludicrous, but Dharker Studios is a company. If we release a game in a country where the content is illegal or could be considered illegal, then potentially we could suffer. If they fined or targeted Steam as per our agreement with Steam, we would be liable for it. Therefore sadly we must err on the side of caution. And that determines the restrictions.”
Here’s the full list of countries where the game currently cannot be sold: Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Botswana, Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Uganda, Bangladesh, China, Lebanon, South Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Belarus, Iceland, Ukraine, Russia, Papua New Guinea, Guyana, Iraq, Dubai, UIE and Germany.
Germany is an interesting case, according to Dharker. Negligee could theoretically be sold there, but Steam isn’t equipped to handle it yet.
“Steam does not have a comprehensive third-party age verification system in Germany, therefore there are ways that it could be considered illegal to sell this game in Germany via Steam,” Dharker wrote. “Germany is particularly strict on this kind of thing. This may be changed in the future, but for now we have no choice.”
The Steam community doesn’t appear to be taking the news well, as evidenced by a series of remarkably irate threads on this subject. All Dharker can do, though, is continue to reiterate that its hands are bound here, and not in the sexy way.
“I wish country restrictions were not necessary,” wrote Dharker, “but I must comply with laws in countries for the sale of such material. There really is no choice in the matter and is one of the downsides of releasing a mature adult game on Steam.”
Comments
10 responses to “‘100 Per Cent Uncensored’ Sex Game Now Out On Steam, But Not In Australia”
I can’t find an entry for it on the Classification Board website, seems like they didn’t bother submitting it for rating here?
Does the R18+ rating for games allow for explicit sexual content? If not, smart move to not waste their time…
If it’s sexually explicit, as in pornographically explicit showing penetration etc, it’d need an X rating.
not for uncensored porn in any format. R18+ when it comes to porn in books and movies can not show any pentration. M15+ also can not show any genitals aside from breasts.
Only X18+ is fully uncensored, however even then X18+ movies are not allowed to show any kind of violence at all (case in point the porn flick Pirates over is split into 2 dvds, one having all the porn scenes and the other has the story scenes)
Well it is interesting. Australia seems to be doing nothing to pursue outfits like Pornhub, which contain videos that would be technically banned under Australia rules. I think they SHOULD have released the game in Australia simply to see what the reaction of the Classification board would be. They tend to pursue some things, and let others lie, pretty inconsistent. Also there rulings on how digital content itself should be classified seem inconsistent.
That said I don’t think it will be long before someone does simply make an AO title available widespread. This “ban” seems to be a proactive thing by Dharker, a lot of smaller outfits are probably not even going to consider it. So we will see what happens then.
Well I am confused. I am in Australia, but I can see both Negligee and the “Mature Content” DLC on my store.
It’s Negligee: Love Stories (the most recent title) that isn’t available in Australia
I believe (tho I could be wrong) that Negligee: Love Stories might be a separate release from the original? (As Negligee has been on Steam for a couple of years now)
They have released the “Mature Content” as a free DLC. I can view both and add both to cart. If it was blocked like this article says it should be, the Steam page would simply redirect to the front page of the store unless Steam have changed something since all the other games blocked in Australia.
If i acess the search for it with my VPN set to aus i am taken to the main page. If I VPN from the US it says restricted content I must login. Then when logging in with an australian account I am taken to the main page again. Maybe if I cange my account address I can then VPN amd get it.
Yeah, reading up on the Dev’s page, Negligee and Negligee: Love Stories are two different games, with Love Stories being a spin off.
So, they’re right. We don’t have access to the second game, only the first which has the mature patch.
Lol, should just take in the average age in Steam (which if my memory serves is my age everytime I’ve checked 30+) and use that as the limit, don’t restrict things just because ‘oh my could be a kid looking at that’ , even though they should be checked on by parents until they’re 18, and they need to have access to a payment account to even buy things online. Sick of this limiting government crap.
Uh hang on. Wait. Waitwaitwaitwaitwait. Wait.
Negligee: Love Stories, a pornographic visual novel with an anime aesthetic, cannot legally be sold… in JAPAN?!
Anyone else think that’s more than a bit weird? I mean I get it’s probably just “cannot be sold on Steam in Japan”, but you’d think they’d still be a bit more understanding considering what you can buy at pretty much any games store in Akihabara.
Trust me, it is not that surprising or weird. Yes visual novels exist and are a well-known thing in Japan, yes there are some VN’s are very graphic. BUT, for them to be released over there, in their home country, they have to be censored. Trust me, it is even weirder when you have the Western releases of a Japanese visual novel where the game has been translated and de-censored, and read on the site that sells it: “This game is illegal for purchase and download in Japan”
Sounds like it wasn’t submitted for classification. The irony of the situation is that we now have something of an adult rating in Australia, but more importantly the kids who are potentially likely to be corrupted by this are the same ones who are addicted to Fortnite or sexting each other, and therefore unlikely to engage with a game that doesn’t (a) have fifty gazillion players; and (b) maybe has something of a story which doesn’t involve shooting or beating people or things.
Gaming in Australia has a massive following, per capita close to, if not, the highest involvement world wide, and yet with all that political push at our disposal, we gamers are so individualist, so disorganised, that we don’t harness it for positive cultural change in relation to our own hobby/interest. Note that on this, whenever there is some discussion around gaming, it’s never gamers speaking on our own behalf, it’s some stodgy businessmen and industry lackeys from various industry interest groups, not actual gamer advocates.
Rant over, if anyone wants me, I’ll be out in the shed dusting off the pitchfork and torch.