There’s a new erotic/puzzle game out on Steam called HuniePop that’s currently making the rounds on Tumblr after its developer posted a rant about how “SJWs” or social justice warriors decried the game’s content.
I’ve not yet played HuniePop, but judging from the content of its trailer, seen below, the game’s writing verges on 2edgy4u territory with incessant cursing (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and dialog that could have only come from watching too many reality TV shows.
Part of the game’s draw is its sexy anime characters, which have been censored due to Valve’s Terms of Service for the game to be released on Steam. One of the game’s developers and moderators of its Steam community forums posted a thread advising prospective buyers on how to skirt Steam’s censorship of the game—censorship, which allowed the game to appear on the platform in the first place—with a patch that adds nudity back into the game.
While not the only censored game to appear on Steam to have workarounds re-enabling censored content, HuniePot (the game’s developer) is the first studio to publish its own workaround to the censorship. In other cases, such as Everlasting Summer and Neko Para, such workarounds were shared by the fans themselves and not endorsed in any fashion by the developers.
Say what you will about the game, or even Steam’s censorship of nudity, but violating Steam’s Terms of Service is the height of unethicality. I wouldn’t be surprised if Steam pulled the game. Other platforms, including Google Play and the Apple App Store have dealt with similar issues in the past.
I have reached out to Valve for official comment.