Nighthawks just got a happy ending. Developers of the vampiric RPG have successfully removed the game’s ‘Adult Only’ rating on Steam – a label that would have otherwise hidden the game from most players.
The latest victim of Valve’s vague updated guidelines, Nighthawks was accidentally slapped with an ‘Adult Only’ rating mere days before the text-based role-playing game was due to come out on the platform. The tag would’ve exiled Nighthawks to the shadow realm, stopping it from appearing in Steam searches and removing it from view entirely in certain countries. Thankfully, Nighthawks escaped just in time for its launch on 22 September. (Good spot, RPS.)
“Last weekend, Nighthawks was mistakenly classified as ‘Adults Only’ by Valve. This put Nighthawks into a category usually reserved for porn games and rendered it almost invisible on the Steam storefront,” the developers write in a statement posted to Steam. “At the risk of disappointing some players, Nighthawks is not porn. Sexy? Sure. Deals with mature themes? Definitely. Porn? Most definitely not. Anyone playing Nighthawks expecting lots of sex and nudity will leave very disappointed. Any sexy scenes are text only, and the few scenes with nudity are presented with strategically placed props and hands covering up the naughty bits.”
While the debacle kept the team scrambling for a few days, they acknowledged that Valve were apparently “very helpful in expediting the review on our appeal so we could get the AO rating dropped.” The devs still aren’t sure exactly what made Valve’s flaming red eye turn on them, either, but the scandal supposedly doubled the game’s wishlists.
“Well, it was stressful to go through and we were basically swimming in cortisol the past few days, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a net positive,” the statement continued. “When I posted my frustrations on social media, I did not expect it to go viral. We got some press coverage out of it and wishlists essentially doubled overnight. All good things! I wish I could say I planned this as a guerrilla marketing stunt, but I’m not that dumb and I’m not that smart!
I am also very aware that I am extremely lucky to have the fanbase and the (relative) clout to make a bit of noise and get this handled quickly. Many devs in the same situation wouldn’t be able to do that. At the very least, our situation has made Valve aware that this is a problem many indies making mature games may face during the submission process. Hopefully it means that others will have an easier time of it going forward.”
The Nighthawks devs aren’t the only folks who have been struggling with Steam and Itch.io‘s increased stringency. Multiple queer developers spoke out against both storefront’s restrictive content guidelines last year. Robert Yang also tried to battle censorship with a compilation of his award-winning games. And satirical open-world Future? No Thanks was very recently subject to a very similar situation because of the game’s mild nudity, as well.
