Where the Hands-Off Approach Can Falter
If you know much at all bout Valve, you probably know they have a very laissez-faire approach to most of their works, steam included. This, arguably, is one of the reasons for the success of their brand and the domination of the Steam marketplace in PC gaming as a whole. However, a lack of policing comes with a few glaring downsides. Such as, according to the Anti-Defamation League, harbouring extremists and providing a place for them to share their violent ideologies.
The reports go to detail how easy it is to find “Steam users and groups glorifying Nazi imagery, and pushing racist, sexist, homophobic, antisemitic and otherwise hateful content.” Sometimes calling for acts of violence against groups of people, and even certain individuals.
It also points that many of Valve made games, such as DOTA 2 and CSGO, allows users to openly harass people. The worst thing that can happen to you those games for emotional harassment including racial and sexist slurs are just temporary bans from the chat. It is reported that players of these two games report more harassment than most other online titles.
Personally, I can vouch that there definitely are many public profiles with extremists posts. This is even more frustrating because, with Steam’s lack of moderation, reports never seem to do anything. Further, having played hundreds of hours on DOTA 2, I know that Valve only bans cheaters, and will do nothing against harassers.
I personally think it’s about time Valve stepped up and started moderating their platform. I’ve been a loyal customer for a while, and I love the platform but I feel like this problem won’t just go away, and might only grow bigger as it gains more attention. I hope Valve doesn’t simply wait to the point when the issue can’t be ignored anymore.
Source: ADL