I Bought and Played the Banned Horror Game: Horses

Permalink

Follow me via:

---

Text-to-speech support required

It’s not very often we see games get banned from the likes of Steam, or even Epic Games Store. Heck, Steam is well-known for hosting some of the most depraved content you’ll ever see from a game vendor, such as: Furry Hitler, Hitler Waifu, Heal Hitler, SEX with HITLER, Furry Hitler 2, and so on and so forth.

But recently, there’s been kind of an upset in the gaming thunderdome, where an indie developer is basically being cut-off from potential revenue, and in-turn, the survival of their studio, over their game Horses, which is currently banned by both Steam, and Epic Games Store.

Ash Parrish on The Verge writes:

Valve and Epic say Horses violates their sexual content policies. Humble hasn’t yet said why it banned the game. However, Santa Ragione claims neither Epic nor Valve has clearly explained what exactly in the game is objectionable, and that these decisions have put the studio in peril of shutting down. The back-and-forth has catapulted Horses from a little-known prestige indie title to the next battleground in the fight between game storefronts, indie developers, content policies, and creative expression.

and

In an interview with IGN, Pietro Righi Riva, one half of the team at Santa Ragione, said that the ban might have been caused by a scene involving a man and his daughter visiting a ranch where the titular “horses” are humans wearing horse masks. The daughter wants to ride one of the horses, which the player facilitates. “What followed was an interactive dialogue sequence where the player is leading, by a lead as if they were a horse, a naked adult woman with a young girl on her shoulders,” Riva said. He said that scene was part of a rough demo sent to Steam to satisfy the platform’s request for a playable build so Horses could get a “Coming Soon” page. Riva said that, ultimately, the character was changed in the final build. “We have since changed the character in the scene to be a twenty-something woman, both to avoid the juxtaposition and more importantly because the dialogue delivered in that scene, which deals with the societal structure in the world of Horses, works much better when delivered by an older character.”

Now, they say they’ve changed the questionable scene that many would probably find too disturbing to see in the game, and for all intents and purposes, maybe this is why the game’s been banned, regardless of the change being made. Or, maybe not? I do think it was probably a bad decision to demo the game in this way, and I have to wonder for a moment, what they were thinking. Artistic expression aside.

But, I mean, they got rid of it.

It’s tough to say when these vendors do not simply provide specific information regarding their decisions.

But I can’t say that general nudity could be the reason, because, at the very least, Steam is filled with games that contain nudity, most often, for no reason other than to be masturbatory, and quite a large amount of it is extremely misogynistic, violent, and a lot of it looks like trash (no offense, but they just do).

I hope you’re ready for a million and one games all about a dude who’s discovering his sexual appetite while surrounded by tons of random women who all want to have sex with him, for some reason.

And that’s not even the case with this game, though, and I can tell you this, because, in my limited time this morning, I purchased the game from GoG, and played it for a little bit.

Right from the start of the game, you’re given a disclaimer that bluntly explains to you what the game is about, and what it’s attempting to depict, to you, the player. And, I just want to say, I feel like it’s a shame that art has to be presented this way, with a big bold disclaimer explaining to you what a piece of art is attempting to depict.

I seem to remember a time when art was something that was meant to be open for interpretation, where you would perhaps view something that depicts violence and sex, and you would use your own critical thinking to go, “Ah, yeah, this is why these things are bad, huh.”

I have some thoughts on the degradation of critical thinking in our society, but that’s probably a discussion for another time.

But I continued on in the game, and you’re introduced to the “horses” pretty quickly. And, I gotta say, I like the twenties silent film presentation of the game, and the random inclusion of real video capture for certain character actions.

Anyway, you can see via this screenshot, that the nudity isn’t even fully frontal. There is a blur there. Maybe this can be turned off in the settings, maybe not. I didn’t go looking for a toggle, it wasn’t something I cared that much about.

And it continues on from there with scenes that I would only really call mildly disturbing. Or, in my case, just kinda weird to look at. I didn’t complete the game, though. As I said, I have pretty limited time this morning, but I spent a little bit with it, and I didn’t really notice anything that would make Gabe Newell shit in his million dollar panties.

Here are our horse buddies watching an indoctrination type of film late at night.

Maybe the game gets more disturbing. But, as experienced as I am with horror, I would at least call the opening and first couple of segments really tame. Like, I’ve seen worse from other games on Steam.

And, you have to wonder, if depictions of sex with Hitler are, via Steam, considered a form of artistic expression, and allowed to remain on the store, then why not this?

With the questionable scene removed from the game, and changed to something more appropriate, I feel like the developers are being pretty candid and open about what they’ve made here, so what’s the real reason Valve and Epic have decided to potentially kill an indie studio?

Fuckin’ … who knows, I guess?

Go buy the game on GoG. It’s five dollars.