The development team of the independent game “XenoFeels” recently issued a public request to Steam, hoping that Valve could remove the “Sexual Content” label on the game page. The reason is not that there is a major update to the game content, but that the development team believes that this label seriously misleads players about the nature of the work. According to the developer, “XenoFeels” does contain romance elements and some relatively intimate interactive scenes, but the overall content does not fall into the category of adult games, let alone the buttery work that many players have in mind.
A label directly changes the entire game positioning!
For independent games on Steam, the tag system often determines players’ first impression. The developer said that since it was labeled as “Sexual Content”, many discussions have begun to deviate from the game itself. Many players even directly regard “XenoFeels” as a work with sexual content as its selling point, while ignoring the plot, world view and core gameplay design. This is the main reason why the team decided to speak out publicly. Because for smaller independent teams, game exposure opportunities are inherently limited. If players are mislabeled from the beginning, the impact on the work will be far greater than outsiders imagine.
Steam tag system sparks controversy again
In fact, this is not the first time that Steam has become a focus of discussion due to label issues. Because Steam labels come partly from the platform review mechanism and partly from community user feedback, the classification standards have often been blurred for a long time. Some works are labeled as adult because of the bold character costumes, and some games are classified as more sensitive content categories because of a small amount of romance plot. As the market for two-dimensional games and visual novels continues to expand, how the platform should draw the boundaries between “love”, “sexual expression” and “pornographic content” has become an increasingly common topic of discussion.
The line between porn and adulthood is getting blurry
Judging from market trends in recent years, many popular works will add character design elements that attract players. “Stellar Blade”, “NIKKE: Goddess of Victory” and even many dating simulation games have triggered discussions due to character modeling or performance scale. But the XenoFeels development team believes that sexual expression should not automatically equate to pornographic content.
If a game is classified as an adult game just because of a love scene or a bold character design, then more and more games may face similar problems in the future. As of now, Valve has not publicly responded to the development team’s request. However, this turmoil has once again made the Steam tag review mechanism the focus of discussion in the player community.