Not arguing the effectiveness of drumming up drama to sell your game, but they have also lost the accessibility of three major platforms in doing so.

The response said “no CSAM”.

If they had to scratch their heads trying to figure out what parts of the game needed to change to not include allusions to that, then they have bigger problems than not releasing on Steam.

The game company seems to have thought that they could drum up sales on other platforms by making this a media thing. Based on the additional platforms pulling out, it might have backfired. They could have let their little horse-porn game quietly release on every platform but Steam and made enough to get by. Instead they drew attention to themselves.

This is false.

https://www.eurogamer.net/its-extremely-frustrating-and-also-fcked-up-one-of-the-worlds-best-indie-studios-is-facing-shock-closure-following-confounding-steam-ban

They submitted to steam, who asked for a preliminary build of the game (one would assume due to concerns about the content). The build provided included a small child reading a naked man like a horse.

Steam denied the game based on the inclusion of CSAM, and advised the devs directly of this decision in what the devs call “an automated email”, as if steam is out there personally hand writing rejection letters for every failed game out there.

The devs claim to have changed the scene, but it seems that Steam has a zero-tolerance policy on games that feature CSAM. And, I mean, Fair.

The marketing campaign for this game that no one will care about in 6 months continues…

As a kid I picked up VIII before VII (thanks to demo discs) and it has always been my favourite FF game despite its predecessor’s huge shadow. Learning all of the quirks of the games systems felt really rewarding, though I can understand why it didn’t appeal to many.

It really feels like some important piece of information is missing from this article. The whole thing is just the dramatised opinions of the guy who’s game got banned, and it’s clear that he thinks very highly of himself:

And while Horses won’t be launching on consoles due to porting costs, Pietro says the console makers who’ve seen Horses have said they’d be “happy to have the game on [their] platform”

“We had multiple publishers actively coming to us,” explains Pietro, “and be like, ‘Hey, we want to make this game.’”

Looking at the game trailer and stills, I do not believe that this game was the talk of console-town or a publishing darling. It’s a rough as hell indie game about abusing humans with intentionally sexual imagery (I don’t believe him when he says the game is not sexual either, the trailer features people dressed as horses, followed by a shot of real-life horses fucking). If the game was so beloved by consoles, you would think that the “world’s best indie studio” could scrape together a few investors to pay for porting. Their other games have console releases. Where’s the love for the horse themed snuff game on Switch 2?

This is a misleading article implying that the poor devs have had their game ripped from them:

And nearly 18 months on, the studio still isn’t certain what triggered the ban.

Except Valve explained in their response:

we found that this title features themes, imagery, or descriptions that we won’t distribute. Regardless of a developer’s intentions with their product, we will not distribute content that appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor. While every product submitted is unique, if your product features this representation—even in a subtle way that could be defined as a ‘grey area’—it will be rejected by Steam.

Your game crossed lines that Valve has decided are too far for them. You changed the girl into a woman in later builds, but the application YOU submitted showed that there was consideration made in putting a small child into your horse-bdsm-murder game in a sexually suggestive manner. Valve cannot confirm that the rest of your game isn’t going to steer back in that direction, and has made a choice based on the information they have. They do not owe every dev a personalised response when their game is banned for exploiting minors.

The game is going to be on GoG, Epic, Humble, and Itch.io. This dev is chucking a public tanty because he’s not allowed on Steam. This is 100% just a marketing ploy to drum up sympathy and push sales on other storefronts. No doubt a future trailer will contain the phrase “The game that was too scary for Steam is now available on Epic!” or some such.

Agreed. I have bounced off this game a few times for similar reasons. For a game that is about a cyberpunk future, it felt so much like a gta clone. Having played the ttrpgs, I think I just have a different version of the world in my head, and the games version just feels off.

This mindset from people is what makes online multiplayer games unplayable for me.

I don’t get a lot of time to play games as an adult. When I do, I don’t particularly want people telling me how I should be having fun. There is this weird competition that happens where you need to know everything about a game before you are allowed to partake in the game. It sucks to have missed out on so many experiences, but i guess my not playing sub-optimally made someone else’s experience better, so it’s all good.