Why do anything to appeal to fucking Russian regime bullshit? Tell them to fuck off! Cowards.
this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2025
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Valve block Steam game with queer art in Russia after state censor attacks it for “promoting non-traditional sexualities”
(www.rockpapershotgun.com)
Because then they'll block steam in Russia.
I'm not defending Valve here they need to have more values, but realistically this game was never going to be available for sale in Russia. No matter what they did.
What's wrong with Steam getting blocked in Russia? It's not like Valve allows direct purchases by russian users.
Russian users losing access to their libraries without VPN is their own problem. They are responsible for their government, no one else.
~~Um, what? Most Russians that browse Steam do not endorse the regime (can't check, but probably so given what happens in the West)~~
Edit: Due to https://lemmy.world/comment/20733461, I am retracting my comment.
I strongly disagree, the Workers & Resource DLC link can provide some insights on this; russian language reviews talk about "getting salo for the Ukrainians" and whataboutism about Palestine (like they care about Palestine, if anything most russians tend to support Israel). There is lots of anti-Ukrainian, pro-invasion russian language commentary on Steam.
We've lived in russia as an expat family for many years, we left as soon as our finances allowed us to (this was was before the russians invaded Georgia in 2008).
Then there is broader research on russian support for the full scale invasion; even using demographic splits (e.g. people aged 18 to 24, highly educated russians, high income russians), all demographic segments show at least majority support for the full scale invasion (with almost all segment groups showing at strong majority support and very commonly overwhelming majority support).
With respect to arguments that "people are afraid to show their true views"; there are multiple research pieces that specifically account for preference falsification. Some russians do hide their preferences, but this group is so small that even with preference falsification adjustments you have a strong majority support (65%+) for the full scale invasion. That's specifically the full scale invasion (i.e. 2022), with respect to the annexation of Crimea, preference falsification was found to be not statistically significant with the respect to the baseline ~85% support for the annexation of Crimea.
If you ever get to play csgo or dota2 you're likely to change this opinion
Ever heard of "bread and games" to keep the population docile and stop revolts?
If he's right, I understand you. But generally you should be very careful believing stats without sources/citing.
Baseline research on support for the fullscale invasion:
https://www.levada.ru/en/2024/05/17/conflict-with-ukraine-assesments-for-march-2024/
The level of support for the Russian armed forces has not changed significantly since the beginning of the conflict – the majority of respondents (76%) support the actions of Russian troops in Ukraine, including 48% “definitely support” and another 28% “rather support” the action of Russian army. 16% are against.
Research with preference falsification adjustments with respect to support for the full scale invasion:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20531680221108328
when asked directly, 71% of respondents support [full scale invasion of Ukraine], while this share drops to 61% when using the list experiment
Support for annexation of Crimea:
https://www.levada.ru/en/2021/05/19/crimea-3/
The vast majority of Russians (86%) consistently support the accession of Crimea to Russia – this indicator has fluctuated slightly since 2014. 9% do not support the accession.
Research with preference falsification adjustments with respect to support for annexation of Crimea:
https://www.jiia.or.jp/en/column/2022/09/russia-fy2022-01.html
Using the list-experiment technique, Timothy Frye and others showed that Putin's approval rating after the annexation of Crimea was actually high, at around 80%. In their study, they made a list of famous Russian politicians and had respondents answer how many of these politicians they supported. They then estimated Putin's approval rating by adding the name "Putin" to the list for only one group[*]3 and thus concluded that the high approval ratings after the annexation of Crimea were not very different from the findings of opinion pollsters.
A high level overview of russian support for the invasion of Ukraine (a summary, but with links to relevant research, albeit some sources will be in russian):
Younger people still support the war in high numbers, though their support is lower than that of the older generation: 75–80 percent of people fifty-five and older support the Russian army’s actions in Ukraine, while 61 percent of young respondents in Levada polls share this sentiment.
Steam always chose the path of least resistance when it comes to dealing with law maker demands even when there were more consumer friendly ways available. This is not surprising at all.
Because Gaben is a libertarian fuckwit.
Fuck his greedy ass. And fuck G*mers defending his monopoly.
Email Gabe, here:
I did back in 2015 when I was an edgy idiot, upset about their removal of the game Hatred because it is literally a spree shooting simulator. And I was all like "free speech". And Gabe actually replied! And put the game back up too.
So email him. He might reply.
I mailed him about some completely random bullshit something like 20 years ago
And he actually replied a couple days later (even if with only a short sentence)
So Valve does not accept money from russian users directly (the roundabout methods are well known by russian users and Valve does nothing in this case even though it acts against similar methods when publishers make the call), so why would they even care what Roskomnadzor says? What can Roskomnadzor do to Valve?
I will note that Valve also does nothing about genocidal imperialist russian reviews on this DLC for support of Ukraine in Workers and Resources:
I'm from Donetsk. We have been bombarded since 2014 by the state in which I was born and lived. Declaring us enemies of the people. I am for the Russian SVO. Buy a dls only because of the Zaporizhia NPP, it is well made <3
You can check the number of civilians deaths in Donbas in 2014 vs 2022 to present and look at what happened to cities like Bahmut during the russian invasion. Not to mention the 1.5 million Ukrainians who had to leave just in 2014 (including my family members).
And yet we have to hear faux-libertarian polemics about alleged belief in "freedom of speech" and arrogant gibberish about "I am a free speech absolutist!" from individuals who know nothing about the value of free speech.
I said it before and I will say it again, American companies cannot be relied upon as a source of digital services. Both for systematic reasons (submission to the local oligarch/criminal regime) and philosophical reasons (a culture of ignorance and lack of desire to go beyond theatrical proclamations about freedom of this or freedom of that).
Let's say you think I am being uncharitable in my attitude. Then tell me, why does Valve even read notices from Roskomnadzor (not to mention implementing their orders)? Russia is sanctioned and they are not supposed be able to make purchases at all. And yet Valve feels the need to follow orders from Roskomnadzor. What's the logic here?
I think they think that losing steam access would just rocket piracy not only in Russia but in the entire world. Getting russian market on legal games has been a multi decade process and that would really suck for the industry.
Not saying thats right just that it be their reasoning
I respect your reasoning and I agree that it would massively increase piracy in russia, but remember, russia is sanctioned; Valve isn't supposed to be selling to russians in the first place.
Disagree on impact on global piracy rates. Pirated games were widely available via public russia sources such as rutracker.org.
You don't even need to know russian as all titles have english headings.
Here is a link to Vampire Bloodlines 2, originally release on October 21st, with consistent updates since then, last one being on November 18th:
https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6761118
You don't need to speak russian to figure out what "magnet-ссылке" with a magnet icon refers to.
Russia is sanctioned and they are not supposed be able to make purchases at all.
Might want to try finding sources for this, because you'll discover this is untrue.
From the article:
For context, Steam currently doesn't allow direct purchases by Russian players, in accordance with western sanctions, so Russian buyers have to make use of workarounds such as third-party key resellers.
Btw, I knew this before reading the article. Do a web search around how these workarounds operate (the example cited by RPS isn't the only one).
There are no ‘Western sanctions’ that prohibit from selling stuff to all Russians. Visa and MasterCard stopped doing cross-border transactions by their own decision, and most Russian banks are cut off from SWIFT. That's all, aside from more individual and sector-specific sanctions.
How does that contradict what I said?
You think living in Ukraine, I would be aware of the exact scope of sanctions against russia (and the massive loopholes)?
Are you aware of what you yourself wrote in the original comment?
Russia is sanctioned and they are not supposed be able to make purchases at all.
Explain to me why they're supposed to not be able to make purchases.
When you use steam, do you mail Newell the cash?
Do you know how law works? There's no law against Newell accepting cash from Russia. Whereas, if the US wanted, they would easily make a law saying it's forbidden to accept any kind of payment from Russia. Steam operates entirely within what the law says.
Nontraditional sexualities huh? Pretty sure being gay happened way before Russia or any previous nation on that land
That was my first thought - aren't homosexual relationships documented in Greek and Roman culture, among others?
That sounds very traditional to me!
I don't really know why they feel they need to Cave to Russian pressure here. They have all the cards. Russia will never ever stop Steam from running in Russia. If they try to cut off Counter-Strike the entire country would collapse immediately. I'm 100% serious that is not sarcasm at all.
i’ll note that, as the article mentions, even apple and google haven’t removed the game in russia (at least not yet)
are valve complicit, or just cowards?
Honestly, that's very surprising.
Both, they've always capitulated to states for that juicy 1% profit margin
Why are they doing business in Russia?
They started their business in there a while ago (I believe they were the first online distributor who managed to succeed in the Russian market, despite media fears of mass piracy), and I would imagine that revoking all of the users' Steam Libraries wouldn't be a popular move, or terminating all their accounts.
I'm not sure why they continued purchases after 2022 though. Maybe their Eastern Europe payment processor doesn't ask too many questions?
How and why do they even access Steam? The Internet and Computers aren‘t „traditional ways“ of communicating and video games are not „traditional ways“ of entertainment. Do they reject modern medicine too for being „non-traditional“? Seriously out of all the anti progress bullshit, this is the dumbest aspect.
Guess Russia has the right climate for snowflakes lol.
@SkavarSharraddas @Agent_Karyo sadly, we didn't have even single snowy week yet...
And Slava Ukraine, who wrecks our oil refineries.
So Steam is still doing business in Russia? I actually thought they were better than that.
Corporations are amoral things. Money is money, it has no frontiers.
"In Russia"
Well ig government pressure