“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.” Full Article
“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 game includes disturbing features that allow users to increase their odds of ‘having sex’ with a woman in the game if they manipulate and coerce women into sex acts. Different game scenarios include blackmail using nude pictures, increasing women’s alcohol consumption, impersonating a friend through text, and jamming a woman’s cell phone reception to isolate her in a room away from other party goers.
Users ‘win’ the game by having sex with women at the party. 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.”
“Steam sells and promotes these games to users of all ages and requires only a simple click of a button to pass through a tepid warning that the material may not be suitable for all ages. These games are in direct violation of Steam’s own policies against pornographic or patently offensive content.”
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation is calling on the videogame distributor to remove these games and is asking the public to email executives about their concerns.