VISUAL NOVELS ON STEAM: THE IMPACT OF STEAM'S POLICIES ON THE ENGLISH VISUAL NOVEL LANDSCAPE

Abstract

Within the last 10 years, Valve’s Steam has become a major player in games distribution, yet its impact on the landscape of games has been under studied. This paper aims to examine the impact Steam has had on the growing landscape of English Visual Novels. Utilizing Plantin’s Infrastructure and Platform studies framework, we uncover the impact of changing policies and rules have had on developers making Visual Novels. The English Visual Novel landscape, which established itself concurrent to Valve’s shift towards accepting more games onto the platform, has been heavily impacted by Valve’s shifts on moderation, despite Valve’s assurances towards its non-interventionist stances. Visual Novels, which often include adult content, constantly challenge issues of moderation and expose Valve’s lack of internal consistency towards moderation. This coupled with Valve’s silent approach to moderation, leaves developers guessing on what Steam’s actual policies are. We also find that Steam’s dual nature as both an Infrastructure within games publishing, and as a privately operated distribution Platform results in contradictions for Valve. Despite initial ideas and philosophies against adult content on Steam, Valve eventually relented on adult content in their pursuit towards consolidating Steam as an games distribution infrastructure. Similarly, the lack of barrier to entry for developers on Steam has slowly degraded Steam’s value as a platform, reducing the viability for each individual independent game released on the platform. In all this, Steam, and Valve’s, influence over game developers cannot be understated. This paper can begin to provide insight towards the increasingly blurred boundaries between infrastructure and platforms, particularly within the online space, and offer insight beyond games distribution and towards the impact other Infrastructural Platforms might have.