Tens of millions of yen hidden in an Elementary school!? Lies, secrets, and underhanded tactics… Students and teachers struggle against one another. This is a mystery visual novel for every gentlemen and gentlewomen who love little g**ls!
The visual novel The Key to Home / いえのかぎ was originally accepted through Steam Direct after the developer, Katsudou Mangaya, submitted it through their publisher. The game received a store page and app portal in mid-November, 2017. However, the studio states that on December 5th, 2017, Valve later e-mailed them and stated that they could not allow The Key to Home / いえのかぎ because it would attract a core audience of p******les.
However, the Steam group Cut Content Police was informed about the game’s discussion page, which is still active, where publisher Henteko Doujin explained the situation in detail on a forum post that was published on December 9th, 2017…
According to Katsuduo Mangaya’s publisher, Henteko Doujin, Valve may have misinterpreted the description of the game, which states “This is a mystery visual novel for every gentlemen and gentlewomen who love little g**ls!”. The reference is somewhat mistranslated from Japanese, with the intent supposedly being that these are men and women who love little g**ls in non-s*x**l ways.
However, Valve didn’t see it this way and have refused to further explain themselves after Henteko Doujin requested more details on why the game was barred from release on Steam, especially considering that it’s not an H-game and contains no H-scenes. Henteko Doujin stated in the thread…
“We have continually taken a strong stance AGAINST promoting crimes against children.
This stance of ours may already be obvious to those of you who read these discussion boards, but any users hinting at s*x**l acts with minors have been swiftly banned and we have also made it very clear to people that this title contains no s*x**lly explicit images whatsoever.
“We have continually asked Valve to inform us of any specific issues that they have with us or this title, but as of this moment we have yet to receive any clear response.”
This is also unsurprising given that Valve regularly keeps communication limited, leaving a lot of developers to fish around for answers, especially when it comes to games being censored or banned from release.
Valve has ratcheted up their restrictions even more after the Christian censor group, the NCSE, managed bring pressure down around their ears by trying to convince the media and lawmakers that Valve was selling porn to little kids when the game House Party was sold through Steam uncensored. Valve had the developers censor the game, and the developers then provided an uncensored patch through their website.
Since then, Valve has been cracking down s**y-time games with extreme prejudice.
In this case, it seems as if Valve may have jumped the gun, or are taken extreme precautions. However, some pointed out that Valve did allow Hikari Field and Lose’s Monobeno on Steam, even though it, too, features loli characters, just like The Key to Home. Monobeno is due out for release in 2018, according to the Steam store page.
Unfortunately, unless Valve makes a public press statement we’ll never know exactly what parts of The Key to Home / いえのかぎ was something Valve thought would attract pe*****les. And given that we can no longer see what games are submitted since Steam Greenlight was shutdown in place of Steam Direct, Valve can basically ban or deny games from being released on Steam and we’ll never really know why.
The Key to Home いえのかぎ
