Spike Chunsoft Cancels ‘Chaos;Head NoAH’ Steam Release, Believes The Platform’s Guidelines Would Not Allow The Game To Live Up To Its Standards
Spike Chunsoft confirms Chaos;Head NoAH won’t release on Steam claiming the platform’s guidelines would compromise the game’s “standards.”
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Previously, visual novel Chaos;Head NoAH was removed from Steam ahead of its October 7th launch. Fans could only speculate this course of action was taken on account of game’s content; occasionally either describing or showing sexual or violent content with teenagers.
Even in the case of the latter, gore was rarely shown in detail with prior releases. While many of these scenes are delusions — vivid daydreams and waking nightmares — problematic scenes could also include at least two delusions that would be precursors to sexual assault.
Publisher Spike Chunsoft has since issued a statement, confirming Steam had requested some form of censorship. “Spike Chunsoft, Inc. today regrets to announce that it will not be able to release CHAOS;HEAD NOAH on Steam as originally planned due to Steam’s guideline-required changes to the game’s content. Spike Chunsoft, Inc. believes these changes would not allow the game to be released to its standards.”
“The company extends its sincerest apologies to all of the fans looking forward to this release. The company is looking into delivering the title through alternative storefronts, and when details are decided will make another formal announcement. Until then your patience and understanding is appreciated,” the statement further declared. Spike Chunsoft closed stating the Nintendo Switch release on October 7th would be unaffected.
A petition was launched after the statement, calling for Valve to reverse their ban. They cite how “all other translated titles in the series have made it to Steam without issue,” and their belief the ban “originated from Valve’s notoriously inconsistent standards when it comes to the release of anime-styled content on Steam.”
“Furthermore, Chaos;Head NoAH is already expected to release on October 7, 2022 on the Nintendo Switch; it has already passed the ESRB and PEGI rating boards with M for Mature and 18+ ratings respectively,” organizers explained.
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“This means that the game will be sold at official retailers, including GameStop, Target, and Wal-Mart! And yet, Valve has chosen to be the sole outlier refusing to accept the game for commercial release.”
As of this time of writing, the petition has over 3,000 signatures out of its 5,000 goal. HiddenHand petitioned for official localization of Robotics;Notes Elite, which launched in 2020 along with its sequel.
Publisher EIRTeam also spoke out after the news broke. President Alex Román Nuñez (EIREXE) stated via the Project Heartbeat Twitter, “We at EIRTeam are very disappointed to see our colleagues at Spike Chunsoft have become yet another victim to Valve’s wildly inconsistent moderation rules for their Science Adventure game ‘Chaos;Head Noah‘, we consider this to be the main problem facing Steam as a platform and would like to show our support for the #SaveChaosHead and #SaveSciADV hashtags.
“We are concerned about how these censorship stances have been disproportionatelly [sic] affecting Japanese-made games,” EIREXE noted, “specifically of those that use the Manganime art style, as our new game currently in development adopted this tyle [sic].”
“We believe there is no legal reason for this, as this game was rated CERO Z on PSVita/, Cero D on PS3/PSP and has a switch version coming soon that has been rated by the ESRB and PEGI. We hope valve clarifies their guidelines and fixes their stance,” the statement concluded.
In 2018, Valve announced that they would “allow everything onto the Steam Store, except for things that we decide are illegal, or straight up trolling.” This allowed for an adults only category, yet despite this some games have still seen censorship.
An unofficial “Steam Banned and Removed Games List” Google Doc has listed “adult games, visual novels, anime games and relevant Apps” which had been delisted, didn’t release, or removed from Steam since 2020.
As of late June it featured almost 1,600 entries. Ignoring games with stolen assets and the like, 129 products were delisted, 632 were unreleased (28 returned censored, 20 of those with external patches), and 820 removed after launch. Two of those were already censored. Since then, the list has grown to over 1680 entries in total.
There has also been more than a few cases of contradictions. Chaos;Child, sequel to Chaos;Head, continues to be available on Steam since 2019. This is despite having gore, scenes of suicide and torture and sexual scenes involving schoolgirl aged characters. As shown via user uploaded screenshots, a girl in a schoolgirl uniform is shown without any underwear.
Yet, after dark hentai game Taimanin Asagi was banned, the game’s director speculated that it was removed because Valve suspected a character was underage. Despite all characters having a clearly adult physiques, one of them is stated to be a student, and is shown wearing a school uniform (their exact age or education level isn’t stated).
Evenicle 2 was rejected from Steam due to its explicit adult content, yet the original game remains. Even Super Seducer 3 was banned in 2021 due to Valve refusing to sell a game featuring explicit sexual content of real people. This was despite all women remaining fully clothed in the game, and both prequels remaining on Steam.
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