The game I was writing was banned and I'm not entirely sure why --

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CassieAlexander 18 hours ago

The game I was writing was banned and I'm not entirely sure why --

Hello all -- I was working on Guarded by the AI: Nesting Protocol as an adult game for steam -- here's a demo I did for my tiny team -- https://youtu.be/quDfN7Dhfvc -- and I got banned this morning and lost 250 wishlists.

I'm super bummed. I used AI for everything personally, plus paid for one of my audiobook narrators to do the voices, and I coded everything by hand.

I'd be willing to re-'art' this project, if I actually knew why I was banned? I got this in my letter -- "we have determined it to include sexual content containing depictions of real people" -- but they are all AI, I just happen to be very good at AI is all.

Would it fly if I redid everything in a more anime style? Is that worth potentially wasting another 100 hrs of my life?

I got really hyped for this project to work, and then to hopefully branch out into doing other visual novels of the rest of my work.

If someone who knows better can let me know, I'd really appreciate it, thank you <3 -- I'm just sick to my stomach and really, really sad currently.

xo,
Cassie Alexander

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Showing 1-15 of 21 comments

DarkCrystalMethod 18 hours ago

If they're AI generated and aren't real people then their reason doesn't have a leg to stand on.

Slap them back and demand they restore your assets. Its probably time for a lawyer anyway just to the loss of income due to their decision. And then round 2 if they don't restore your work.

Mad Scientist 18 hours ago

-Use of AI must be disclosed.
-No depictions of minors in sexual situations or sex acts.
-No depictions of real people for sexual content. Especially not real looking graphics or basically, pornography.

For certain reasons of sale denial or banning from the store, there is no second chance.

Last edited by Mad Scientist; 18 hours ago

CassieAlexander 18 hours ago

Originally posted by Mad Scientist:
-Use of AI must be disclosed.
-No depictions of minors in sexual situations or sex acts.
-No depictions of real people for sexual content. Especially not real looking graphics or basically, pornography.

For certain reasons of sale denial or banning from the store, there is no second chance.

I super disclosed my AI use -- and my human use. (Hell, I started the paperwork to be a SAG person so my narration time would could toward's my narrators SAG dues ;( )

I just wanted something more realistic than anime-style, 'cause this is an epilogue to an actual book that's releasing next week.

rawWwRrr 18 hours ago

Valve is quite clear in this regard:

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/gettingstarted/contentsurvey

Q. Why are Adult Only Sexual Content games utilizing Live-Generated AI treated differently?
A. Through the content survey and our own pre-release review, Valve attempts to meet three goals regarding Adult Only Sexual Content: enforce legal limits, respect game makers' creative freedom, and fulfill the expectations of customers. Having Live-Generated AI Adult Only Sexual Content during gameplay could affect our ability to meet these goals. The legal and customer risks are substantial enough that we don't want to ship Live-Generated AI Adult Only Sexual Content at this time.

They don't want it.

PocketYoda 18 hours ago

You could try a law suite.. Steam has lost before. Especially with how they are getting so much wrong lately.

Nx Machina 18 hours ago

You work through the issue with Valve as they are the only ones who matter in this instance as they informed of their reasoning for the ban. "we have determined it to include sexual content containing depictions of real people" irrespective of you stating they are all a.i in your post.

DarkCrystalMethod 18 hours ago

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:
Valve is quite clear in this regard:

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/gettingstarted/contentsurvey
Q. Why are Adult Only Sexual Content games utilizing Live-Generated AI treated differently?
A. Through the content survey and our own pre-release review, Valve attempts to meet three goals regarding Adult Only Sexual Content: enforce legal limits, respect game makers' creative freedom, and fulfill the expectations of customers. Having Live-Generated AI Adult Only Sexual Content during gameplay could affect our ability to meet these goals. The legal and customer risks are substantial enough that we don't want to ship Live-Generated AI Adult Only Sexual Content at this time.

They don't want it.

That makes it sound like the game can't use its internal AI(or external AI) to generate images. These sound generated and then copy-pasted as-is into the game which is devoid of AI libraries/coding/connections.
If its building it some other way then this doesn't even apply either.

Anyway, check with your lawyer, and also let your book publisher know. Perhaps they can exert some muscle on the process.

PocketYoda 18 hours ago

Originally posted by Nx Machina:
You work through the issue with Valve as they are the only ones who matter in this instance as they informed of their reasoning for the ban. "we have determined it to include sexual content containing depictions of real people" irrespective of you stating they are all a.i in your post.

Steam should be forced to include who these real people are by law.

CassieAlexander 18 hours ago

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:
Valve is quite clear in this regard:

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/gettingstarted/contentsurvey
Q. Why are Adult Only Sexual Content games utilizing Live-Generated AI treated differently?
A. Through the content survey and our own pre-release review, Valve attempts to meet three goals regarding Adult Only Sexual Content: enforce legal limits, respect game makers' creative freedom, and fulfill the expectations of customers. Having Live-Generated AI Adult Only Sexual Content during gameplay could affect our ability to meet these goals. The legal and customer risks are substantial enough that we don't want to ship Live-Generated AI Adult Only Sexual Content at this time.

They don't want it.

Yeah, but that's live-generated, ie: generated live-time, in reaction to what the player's currently doing, which gets a TON more shady because it's not actually 'in' the build, so who knows what the model will do?

Whereas all my stuff is *in* the build, and thus stagnant, and unable to accidentally go off the rails by generate something frightening or illegal in the moment.

CassieAlexander 17 hours ago

Originally posted by DarkCrystalMethod:
Originally posted by rawWwRrr:
Valve is quite clear in this regard:

https://partner.steamgames.com/doc/gettingstarted/contentsurvey

They don't want it.
That makes it sound like the game can't use its internal AI(or external AI) to generate images. These sound generated and then copy-pasted as-is into the game which is devoid of AI libraries/coding/connections.
If its building it some other way then this doesn't even apply either.

Anyway, check with your lawyer, and also let your book publisher know. Perhaps they can exert some muscle on the process.

awww, I wish, but I'm indie pubbed (same as I was going to be an indie game dev here, lol) -- I've got a ton of books out, but yeah, not much muscle.

Just gumption.

And a strong desire to run some sort of 'this is Illustrated Now' filter over all of my assets and resubmit them :P

#10

cSg|mc-Hotsauce 17 hours ago

Try itch.io .

#11

PocketYoda 17 hours ago

Originally posted by CassieAlexander:
Originally posted by DarkCrystalMethod:
That makes it sound like the game can't use its internal AI(or external AI) to generate images. These sound generated and then copy-pasted as-is into the game which is devoid of AI libraries/coding/connections.
If its building it some other way then this doesn't even apply either.

Anyway, check with your lawyer, and also let your book publisher know. Perhaps they can exert some muscle on the process.

awww, I wish, but I'm indie pubbed (same as I was going to be an indie game dev here, lol) -- I've got a ton of books out, but yeah, not much muscle.

Just gumption.

And a strong desire to run some sort of 'this is Illustrated Now' filter over all of my assets and resubmit them :P

Couldn't you just change the name and do as you stated then its a new game? then resubmit it.

#12

CassieAlexander 17 hours ago

Originally posted by PocketYoda:
Originally posted by CassieAlexander:

awww, I wish, but I'm indie pubbed (same as I was going to be an indie game dev here, lol) -- I've got a ton of books out, but yeah, not much muscle.

Just gumption.

And a strong desire to run some sort of 'this is Illustrated Now' filter over all of my assets and resubmit them :P
Couldn't you just change the name and do as you stated then its a new game? then resubmit it.

LOL -- yes.

Suggestions from my husband in this regard:

Make it Japanese Woodcut Style
Make everyone out of paper tubes
Make it with the cast from The Room (the Tommy Wisel vs)

(can you tell he's the serious gamer of the both of us? lol)

thanks for the vote of confidence, and yes, as long as I don't change the file names, it wouldn't be *that* hard <3

#13

Chika Ogiue 17 hours ago

Originally posted by CassieAlexander:
Would it fly if I redid everything in a more anime style?

No. If anything, you'd be potentially banned faster.

#14

PocketYoda 8 hours ago

Originally posted by CassieAlexander:
Originally posted by PocketYoda:
Couldn't you just change the name and do as you stated then its a new game? then resubmit it.

LOL -- yes.

Suggestions from my husband in this regard:

Make it Japanese Woodcut Style
Make everyone out of paper tubes
Make it with the cast from The Room (the Tommy Wisel vs)

(can you tell he's the serious gamer of the both of us? lol)

thanks for the vote of confidence, and yes, as long as I don't change the file names, it wouldn't be *that* hard <3

Yeah Steam mods hate Anime.. Just a heads up.