Steam delay: Valve reviews untextured polygons of ass and boobs

The Slow Burn of Satire: How Nudity and Valve Review Grounded a Game Launch

When Molleindustria, the indie development team behind the experimental title Future? No Thanks!, set out to shake up the industry, their ambition was anything but slow. They promised a launch date that would humiliate competitors and deliver a killing blow to the Western gaming landscape. But as ambitious plans often do, reality introduced a significant pause button.

The release date, once aimed for a spectacular debut, shifted unexpectedly. The game found itself sidelined, caught in the intricate, time-consuming machinery of the Steam review process, primarily due to content that required careful consideration from Valve’s moderation team.

The snag? One of the most intense delays stemmed from the presence of nudity within a key sequence of Future? No Thanks!. The developer found themselves subject to an unexpectedly lengthy assessment, which took over three weeks, simply to properly evaluate the scope and scale of the mature content.

The specific nature of the review focused on dozens of untextured polygons depicting nudity within the game. To put the sheer graphical scope into perspective, the opening scene alone featured approximately 25 million polygons showing these depictions, illustrating the level of detail the team was working with.

In reflecting on the process, the developers expressed gratitude for Valve’s thoroughness in keeping Steam free from content that they deemed obscene or horny. Molleindustria noted that their timeline estimates had been foolish to disregard the ultimate authority: Steam itself. They waited patiently for Valve to complete their assessment before releasing the title.

This experience highlights a perennial tension in digital distribution: the struggle between artistic expression and content moderation. The ambiguity surrounding what constitutes “adult content” and how it is labeled on platforms like Steam often creates delays, forcing developers to navigate a murky legal and aesthetic landscape.

The situation underscores that even highly ambitious projects are subject to the complex, subjective standards of their hosting platforms. While the intent behind creating provocative art remains clear, the journey from concept to launch is often dictated by the cautious deliberations of those in charge of content oversight.