Valve in their infinite wisdom have decided to ban Chaos;Head Noah from being sold on the Steam platform when they literally allow other more explicit / sexual content to be sold on their platform as the hypocrites they are. Next logical place would be for GOG to reach out to Spike Chunsoft and form a new partnership with them to get their whole VN catalogue onto the GOG storefront.

Vote for this game to be added to GOG if you can!
1: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/chaoshead_noah
2: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/chaoshead_noah_1

Publisher Spike Chunsoft's Response:
https://www.spike-chunsoft.com/news/regarding-the-steam-version-of-chaoshead-noah/

TechRaptor:
https://techraptor.net/gaming/news/chaoshead-noah-steam-release-canceled-due-to-steam

UPDATE (Oct 6th): Looks like Valve has revoked the ban and the game will release as planned for Oct 7th on Steam. https://www.spike-chunsoft.com/news/update-steam-version-of-chaoshead-noah/
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1961950/CHAOSHEAD_NOAH/

Huh...

First Mary Skelter 2, now this. What a strange timeline...

I'm not sure that GOG would be less censorious than Steam is. That would be nice, but I doubt it would happen.

Well, that's a shame.

Would love to see Spike Chunsoft smarten up and release their stuff here. They have a lot of really good games and I'd probably end up buying most of their catalog.

Edit: hopefully the "alternative storefronts" comment they made refers to GOG. I can't imagine they'd just want to sit on a finished game on PC... could just mean it goes to EGS, but I'd hope it's broader than that.

I'd be on board with that if we get Fire Pro Wrestling here.

The dumbest thing is that the "Noah" version is already the censored version (i.e. even censored in Japan). But then again Steam never had any consistency between what they allow and what they suddenly decided to censor despite them pretending to accept everything.

I Wonder when everything pokemon will be banned. That's next in line, right?

yes, you are right! i just checked and I cannot find a single Pokemon game on Steam!

Apparently, they won’t have any problems releasing on the Switch though. Things have gone topsy turvy alright when Nintendo is less restrictive than some PC- only digital store. Valve’s being wishy-washy again.

The English site has a contact form. Might not make a difference but wouldn't take long to send a quick request for GOG releases.

https://www.spike-chunsoft.com/contact/

You or somebody else could post wishlist links for their most popular games. https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games

Going by Jast USA's statement, it would seem GOG is far more permissive when it comes to smut and censorship, and would likely not ask to change anything. (they'd probably ban it only if it is another Devotion case)

I'm not familiar with this game, but if Spike Chunsoft starts releasing games on GOG then I'll be happy because I would pick up all of the Danganronpa and AI: The Somnium Files games if they found there way to GOG.

Hopefully GOG will act now, it seems like a unique opportunity to bring aboard a new renowned Japanese publisher.

From the press release it looks like they have already eyeing other stores, and with EGS having even more restrictions than Steam, and itch.io being a land without rules, I would say GOG is the only serious alternative, let's hope for the best.

Yeah, it's weird. Someone at Valve has an obvious bias against VNs, and they need to find that person and give them a stern talking to.

Looks like one of the hipsters seized the means of curation by running off with GabeN's banhammer again. At least they/ she/ him/ xer started a conversation.