For some reason, tumbleweed images always put a smile on my face

No, not really, an age gate is nothing more than a cover-my-ass empty gesture. If you don't care, you don't care and I have no problem with that. But acting hypocritically like you care is obnoxious.

I wonder if GOG would sell this game, then?

Valve is a private company. They have a right to decide which content they want to sell or not.
And frankly, even if they personally didn't care, selling adult-only porn games on Steam could potentially be a huge PR nightmare if the media got wind of it, considering that most people still think video games are for kids.

Much better to just not take the risk, from Valve's point of view. It's not like the game would make them tons of money anyway.

I don't think GOG would, but Amazon on the other hand could potentially do so. There are loads of adult section dvd's on sale there, so if that is allowed, surely video games of that nature could find there way there.

Also, they could distribute their game from their own website. I'm sure they have some word of mouth advertising now.

I would hope not, it's quite crappy. Entirely luck based card game that simulates social interactions in order to see the opposite sex's privates.

I can understand what you are saying there and it makes some sense until I consider Valve having no problem carrying Saints Row 3 where you can run around whacking people with huge dildos.

So really it seems to me that at this point, there is sort of a soft core and hard core line being drawn, very soft core I should add.

At least in the USA there is no question that carrying any X-rated content on Steam would be a huge and very costly mistake. I would not expect anything with a focus on sexual content to have an ice cube's chance in hell of getting on Steam anytime soon.

Interesting question. Amazon sells softcore porno movies but not hardcore. Would this apply to games? BTW I only know what kind of porno Amazon sells because, ummmm, a friend of mine told me. Yeah, that's the ticket!

I was browsing through the dvd catalogue on there, and saw a section that said "adult section". In fact sometimes those kinds of dvds will show up even if you haven't searched for them, lol.

I don't think it's a soft core/hard core line being drawn. Again you have to see it from a PR point of view.

Steam can legitimately sell Witcher 2 as an RPG or Saint's Row 3 as an action game, the sexual content is not the focus of either game. If there ever was a scandal about those, Steam could just pretend they didn't notice that content.
When it comes to a porn game, there is no way to sell it as anything other than a porn game. And imagine some conservative parent browsing the site and seeing that there are porn games on Steam?
As I said, huge PR nightmare right there.


I'm not a prude, nor do I have any moral objection to porn, and like many Europeans I do find that the American acceptance of violence and rejection of sex makes little to no sense.
This doesn't change the fact that Valve is an American company, and that no matter what they think about porn, they do have to cater to American values when it comes to their product.

Please no...

When I think of quality erotic games, only Larry Laffer comes to mind. Everything else I ever came (duh) across was fucking (duh!) shit (emm...)

Well yes it does. The content in Witcher 2 is pretty much around that what you see in softcore porno movies.

People pay for their porn these days?

"Parents are present when games are purchased or rented 90 percent of the time."

What? So average gamer is 30 years old and has his parents present when he is purchasing games?