Steam removes controversial games including AIDS simulator

After Steam recently abdicated responsibility for curating it’s online games library it opened the floodgates to any titles that were neither illegal or obviously trolling. Now after four games, including AIDS Simulator, have caught the attention and the ire of the digital public Steam has removed the titles from their digital market place.

Steam has had trouble for some time with managing the massive intake into it’s library. Previously Steam had offered Steam Greenlight, a system that saw developers submit their game with a $100 fee before the public would vote for the game to enter into general release. Steam Greenlight unfortunately did not succeed and Jim Sterling and the late John “TotalBiscuit” Bain were among a group that were brought on to consult on a replacement model. This new model however has chosen to allow anything in, deleting the titles that prove to be problematic, with the hope being for stand out titles to rise to the top and the sediment to fall to the bottom.

Unfortunately this process has resulted in some questionable titles making it into the library, AIDS Simulator, Asset Flip Simulator, ISIS Simulator, and Triggering Simulator. AIDS Simulator being the title that has received the most publicity from the backlash it saw you as an AIDS sufferer taking revenge on African victims. The game’s own description states the game is. “…a very short first-person shooter with boring gameplay, bad graphics and generic assets.” which makes it fairly obvious that the title was created to start controversy.

Thankfully Steam removed the title before its June 12th release meaning no profit was made off the title that surely would have been bought by edge lords trying to trigger the general public. This however has raised concerns about Steams new hands off approach to releasing games and being reactive to negative content, just like last week when the school shooting simulator, Active Shooter, was removed. Hopefully going forward the team can find some mid ground between creative freedom for developers and warranted censorship.