The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE)
Steam, a popular videogame distribution platform that could be likened to the ‘Walmart of online videogame distribution,’ is selling games that normalize and promote sexual coercion and exploitation. These games, House Party and Porno Studio Tycoon, are easily available to an estimated 35 million children who buy videogames off of Steam.
Background Information About Steam:
Steam, a popular videogame distribution platform that could be likened to the ‘Walmart of online videogame distribution,’ is selling games that normalize and promote sexual coercion and exploitation. These games, House Party and Porno Studio Tycoon, are easily available to an estimated 35 million children who buy videogames off of Steam.
The House Party ‘hook up’ game is literally training its users in predatory tactics for sexual assault, and even sex trafficking, which plague real, living people offline in high schools, universities, military bases, and more. The sexual encounters are blatant animated pornography, featuring genitalia, ejaculation, and more.
The game Porno Studio Tycoon centers around sexual themes where the user acts as the pornographer. It includes sexual sounds, hypersexualized characters, and generic depictions of sex acts, although there is not full nudity. This game promotes and glamorizes the exploitive industry of pornography, where performers frequently experience physical and emotional trauma, such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Learn more here.
Steam’s parent company (Valve Corporation) has already received thousands of emails complaining about the harms of their sexually graphic video games.
But so far, instead of fixing the problem, they are just blocking our email system – essentially plugging their ears!
But we have a solution.
- You can email Valve executives directly at these email addresses:
- Eric Kirchmer, Operations Executive – eric@valvesoftware.com
- Chris Grinstead, IT Manager – chris@valvesoftware.com
DJ Powers, Marketing Business Development – powers@valvesoftware.com
We think they are blocking our system’s emails based on the subject lines or the text within the emails, so if you write your email in your own words that’s most likely to make it through their filters. If you need more information about the problem you can learn more here.
Our fundamental request is that Steam publicly commits to remove these sexually graphic, exploitive games and that it increases protections to make sure these kinds of games are not sold on its platform ever again.
If these emails don’t work for any reason, let us know by emailing public@ncose.com, and we can get more email addresses!
Thank you for taking these actions – this company can’t tune us out!
Your voice is being heard.
