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Steam is now offering “Porno Studio Tycoon” video game on a platform used by millions of children

Gamers of all ages logged into Steam®, a popular video game platform, on May 5, 2017 to discover a newly released strategic simulator: Porno Studio Tycoon. On the same day, another game that allows players to date and “hook up” during a study abroad trip, England Exchange, went up for sale. These two titles collectively held the #1 and #2 most popular newly released Steam®-compatible games on May 6.

“Tycoon” genre games, formally referred to as “construction or management simulation,” are often business simulation games, usually centralized around a theme where the player works to build a successful company in a particular market. One of the most well-known tycoon-style game franchises is RollerCoaster Tycoon. It tasks players to build custom roller coasters and, through making strategic business decisions, develop a thriving amusement park. According the developer’s website, RollerCoaster Tycoon was the best selling PC game of 1999.

Steam®, created and maintained by the Valve® Corporation, is a popular video game distribution platform that allows for the purchasing of video games and the ability to connect live with other players while playing games. It is very popular among PC gamers of all ages. In February of 2015, Steam® announced that it has reached over 125 million active accounts. According to Statista, 2017 data suggests that 29% of video game players are under the age of 18. Following this math, more than 36,250,000 underage Steam® users could have been exposed to Porno Studio Tycoon.

Overall, player reviews are mixed, with nearly 4 of every 10 reviews being unfavorable. The negative reviews were not so much about the topic of the game, but centered around its clunky user experience and lack of intuitive gameplay. More than anything, the topic of the game seems like a ploy to garner attention by using edgy subject matter.

Young man experiencing sadness.
Pornography addiction is an escalating problem, especially as the first generations of people who grew up using Internet porn are reaching adulthood and experiencing detrimental side effects, including tangible sexual dysfunctions.

Still, this release heralds a push to further normalize the consumption and creation of Internet pornography in popular culture. Instead of being something that is used privately by adults, now initiatives such as Porno Studio Tycoon are exposing youth to the world of pornography, even before they are legally permitted to view it (in the United States, it is currently illegal to provide pornography to those under 18).

To Steam’s credit, we did have to click through a disclaimer to view the full listing:

“Content in this product may not be appropriate for all ages, or may not be appropriate for viewing at work.”

However, it was just one click. It didn’t ask us to sign in, nor did it ask for a date of birth. With a simple click of a button, anyone can purchase the game with a credit card, Bitcoin, or even a Steam® gift card which may be purchased at many department stores with cash. You don’t need to be 18 to obtain a credit card, and even if you are a parent who lets their child borrow a card, the charges would simply show up as a Steam® Store purchase without revealing that the child was purchasing a sexually explicit video game. Furthermore, the game itself, including its logo (incorporating breasts substituting in-place for the letter “o”) and artwork (featuring provocatively posed women), was openly advertised on the front-page of the Steam® Store for all visitors to see.

While the game developers claim that Porno Studio Tycoon does not contain sexually explicit imagery, the entire central theme of the game is to create a successful porn company. The game features sexual sounds, underwear-clad highly sexualized performers, detailed depictions of sex acts, and sexually explicit themes, although it does not include full nudity. Despite the game developer shipping the game without nudity included, PC games often allow for “modders” to create customizations and additional gameplay. Similar modifications already exist for many popular games, allowing players to undress characters with photo-realistic nudity. Already, a mod developer who goes by “PSTmod” is selling what they describe as “not so SFW mods for ‘Porno Studio Tycoon’.”

The inside of a computer.
Computer (“PC”) games often allow for more customization options (often called “mods,” short for modifications) than their console (Xbox, PlayStation, etc) counterparts.

NoFap® wasn’t able to locate much information about the development company, Zitrix Megalomedia. According to SteamSpy and GameSpot’s databases, Porno Studio Tycoon appears to be the only game publicly published by this development company. According to the company’s Press Kit, it was founded on May 1, 2015 (the same date that the company claims to have started development of this game) and is based out of Moscow, Russia.

As an organization, NoFap® is neither legislative nor partisan and does not endorse government initiatives to restrict people’s ability to create or consume pornography, which would extend to games such as Porno Studio Tycoon. However, we are concerned at Steam’s seemingly lax company policies on allowing underage users to be inadvertently exposed to Porno Studio Tycoon on the Steam® Store listings. The advertisement for the game wasn’t restricted to an adult-only area, but prominently featured on the homepage for people of all ages to see. Searching the “Sexual Content” tag on Steam® Store brought up 148 different games available for download, while there are 251 games tagged under “Nudity.”

What do you think? Leave a comment below.

  • Should this be on the Steam® Store at all?
  • Should Steam® relocate titles such as Porno Studio Tycoon in another section restricted to adults who are interested in viewing such content?
  • Or do you think that it is okay to have this listed on the Steam® Store homepage?

7 thoughts on “Steam is now offering “Porno Studio Tycoon” video game on a platform used by millions of children”

  1. SparkywantsnoPMO

    I’d like to see these titles in a restricted adult section. As the article notes it is not hardcore pornography, I definitely have no reason to advocate that it shouldn’t exist, and it’s not the designer’s fault if fans create more explicit mods for it.

  2. Enticing kids into porn has no place in the game world. Kids are getting into it earlier and earlier, making it harder and harder to get out of it later.

  3. I known very little about steam. But can’t people with steam account flag the game. Can’t NoFap send a formal mail to steam about this? Please do something NoFap community. Let’s fight back for the sake of the younger generation.

  4. [quote]What do you think? Leave a comment below.
    Should this be on the Steam® Store at all?
    Should Steam® relocate titles such as Porno Studio Tycoon in another section restricted to adults who are interested in viewing such content?
    Or do you think that it is okay to have this listed on the Steam® Store homepage?[/quote]

    The game is marketed to adults and not kids, yes there are a lot of kids that use steam but each game has a rating and kids can not get to the adult game unless the parents let them. If its anyones fault it there parents and not Steam.

    Its no bodies business what steam sells to anyone and each game is already rated for what age group can have them.

    It does not mater where it is listed kids can still not get it unless there parents allow it.

    It all comes down to the parents and this nanny state needs to stop and let the people buy what they want.

    PS. to the wed site do not use my email address in any way what so ever.

  5. Video games should have never been “meant” for kids. Take the opposite stance on this topic… Be for the porno tycoon and be against your own kids not the general publics cause your dirty for thinking you can control the sex drive of another parents child… Thats worse than rape in my opinion. You want to control how sex is viewed by someone other than your own children and that makes you obsessed with the sexual nature of other humans which is definitely a psychosis or aberration of the mind of a more darker kind of sort.

  6. This seems rather overblown (so to speak) as an issue. Underage kids don’t play business simulations, even if they do bear the magic word “porno”. They’d last about 30 seconds, once they realized that they might actually have to make decisions rather than blast something. And even if they tried it, they wouldn’t understand a quarter of the language or what’s going on. If for some reason one did want to play it, I’d suggest that he ought to be rewarded as a potential entrepreneur, perhaps given venture capital, rather than chastised as intrinsically evil.

  7. Buy with Bitcoin? I’m all but positive Steam removed bitcoin transactions in very early 2018.

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