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After recent controversies where previously approved Steam games such as Hunipop (great game) and House Party (interesting game) were threatened with removal for smutty content, as well as controversy over allowing a game that allowed people to play as a school shooter, Steam has announced that it will "allow everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal or straight up trolling". Steam also annouced that they will be better tools for users to filter out certain types of games from the store, and for game creators to avoid and deter harassment over their games content.

What say you? Is Steam taking the right approach, or is it abrogating its responsibility as the main PC gaming marketplace in the world, as some have criticized?

Honestly, the question is such a hard moral and ethical choice.

Perhaps one needs to take a step back to understand Steam's decision, allowing everything onto the Steam store. Video games itself are controversial, at least to the generations before which do not entirely understand it, blaming it for violent behaviour and other mental issues. But people keep on producing video games.

There is content on the steam store that some will say is rather distasteful. I myself have opinions of some games being distasteful on the platform. However, placing restrictions on content is a messy hill to climb. Such as, how far should these restrictions go? How would one tell if one game crosses the line or not? Obviously, the easiest routes are ban anything controversial, which is quite frankly impossible, or allow everything, which is what Valve chose.

While I'm not 100% sure about this decision, I think I will get around to supporting it. Video games are a platform on which an artist expresses themselves. It allows for a flow of ideas, interactiveness, etc etc. And I especially support Valve's reasoning. Why should we let big companies decide? Aren't most gamers clamouring that video games are for the gamer? Thus, the videogamer must make their own decision. Video games are created for a broad group, and ultimately gamers need to have to take some responsibility themselves. Of course, big companies must shoulder a responsibility, but this needs to be on the decision of the community. We can make big advances like we did with EA Star Wars Battlefront II. While Valve may not necessarily remove games, we must show we do not support a game and thus therefore not purchase it.

Therefore, I support Valve in this decision.

tl;dr In this rambling of mine which I came up on the spot rather quickly, gamers must shoulder responsibility as well as video game companies yada yada yada thus I support valve

I do not like the idea of stopping content that is controversial because controversy is subjective. Is a game depicting WW2 controversial? If you ask the right people, yes. If you say that Steam must not have any controversial topics on the store than you open a pandora's box I do not think you want to open, personally.

I think it's the right decision. I'm more inclined to allow anything to go than have things removed that shouldn't in cases like this. If something is so horrible, then people will leave bad reviews or just not buy it. And if you can filter out what you don't want to see, then you won't even know it's there. I mean, they're just videogames.

I have to agree with North on this.  Controversy is purely a subjective thing.  Just because I think something is wrong or inappropriate doesn't mean everyone else feels the same.

I do think certain topics like glorifying school shootings should be an exception to that, but that's just me.