Grotesque and surreal ‘farming simulation’ Horses has been banned from the Epic Games Store on the eve of release, a couple of years after a work-in-progress version of the game was rejected by Valve. In an alleged statement to developers Santa Ragione, the Fortnite makers explain that they’ve found the game to be in contravention of policies against “Inappropriate Content” and “Hateful or Abusive Content”. Given that, according to Santa Ragione, Epic have had access to a build for two months and had already approved the game for publication on their store 18 days before launch, the whole thing feels like a frantic response to Valve’s claims about the unfinished build, which Epic presumably haven’t seen.
In the statement attributed to them, Epic’s content reviewers also say that when they piped their findings about Horses through a questionnaire supplied by an international age rating NGO, it told them the game should be rated Adult Only. Horses has already been rated 18 by the Pan-European Game Information system and M for Mature by the Electronic Software Ratings Board, as displayed on the EGS Coming Soon page, which is still live as of writing.
AO games aren’t allowed on the Epic Games Store unless – as the attributed statement reminds us – they’ve only been rated Adult Only because they have blockchain, NFT or cryptocurrency technology. This is totally fine, because none of those things are reprehensible or controversial, and besides, they probably make more money for Epic than bizarre and disturbing artworks about people dressed as horses.
According to Santa Ragione, Epic informed the developers that they won’t distribute Horses about 24 hours before release, and denied a subsequent appeal 12 hours later. Here’s the full reported statement about the ban from Epic, which was sent to RPS over email.
“We are unable to distribute HORSES on the Epic Games Store because our review found violations of the Epic Games Store Content Guidelines, specifically the ‘Inappropriate Content’ and ‘Hateful or Abusive Content’ policies. The ‘Inappropriate Content’ policy prohibits content which “contains explicit or frequent depictions of sexual behavior or not appropriately labeled, rated, or age-gated.” The ‘Hateful or Abusive Content’ policy prohibits content that promotes abuse and animal abuse. This content is prohibited by our Guidelines and cannot be distributed on the Epic Games Store. Additionally, when we [Epic] filled out the IARC Questionnaire based on the content that we reviewed, it received an Adult Only (AO) rating. Products with AO ratings cannot be distributed on the Epic Games Store (the only exception is for products in cases where an AO rating was applied solely due to the usage of blockchain or NFT technology).”
The developers say they don’t know for sure what pushed Epic to act, but offer a bit of speculation. “Following the announcement of Steam’s ban, HORSES became highly visible online, with strong support and a small but vocal opposition,” they write. “It is difficult not to wonder whether this visibility played a greater role in Epic’s choice than any newly discovered issue with the game itself.” Regarding Epic’s attributed comments about policy infringement, they write that “no specific indication of problematic content in the game was given, only broad and demonstrably incorrect claims that it violated their content guidelines”.
If you’re catching up with all this, Santa Ragione went public about Valve banning Horses from Steam around a week ago. According to the developers – with partial confirmation from Valve – Steam’s reviewers rejected the game after submission of an unfinished build they felt featured “content that appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor”.
While Valve have offered no further details in public, Santa Ragione speculate that this statement refers to a scene of a farm supplier’s daughter riding the shoulders of an enslaved naked woman in a horse mask. They have both rebutted Valve’s initial suggestion that the game might contain child sexual abuse material, and changed the scene following Valve’s review to make the character a twenty-something woman. They note in general that the scene “deals with the societal structure” of the game’s world, and that while Horses “does contain some sexual elements, the intent is never to arouse. It uses challenging, unconventional material to encourage discussion.”
I’ve reviewed the finished game (at possibly indulgent length – maybe have a toilet break before you dive in) and as regards the final version of that scene, I don’t consider this to be any kind of child pornography. I’ve included screens of it below to give you an idea. To give some broad context, Horses is about violent structural repression and the punishing of sexuality. The “horses” are people deemed to be so immoral they deserve to be treated like livestock. The game is not an endorsement of anything it depicts.
As with their response to Valve’s rejection of the game, Santa Ragione argue that all of this is just modern-day puritanism in action. “We reject subjective obscenity standards and believe this kind of moralizing censorship evokes a darker past in which vague notions of ‘decency’ were used to silence artists,” they write. “Games are an artistic medium and lawful works for adults should remain accessible. These bans passively shape which titles developers feel safe creating, pushing preemptive censorship.”
As with the payment processor crackdown on “adult” or “NSFW” games from earlier this year, my takeaway is that another large corporate institution is reluctantly pantomiming the role of public guardian. As their on-going support for scam-ridden technologies with a considerable environmental cost suggests, Epic aren’t really interested in safeguarding morality – it’s just a predicament thrust on them by their control of distribution. I imagine the key equation here is one of reputation management vs likelihood of a CSAM lawsuit vs opportunity for profit.
Anyway, we’ll mail Epic a request for comment. In the meantime, Horses can still be found on Humble, Itch, and GOG.
Update: Humble have also pulled the game from sale. Click that link above, and you’ll see it’s “no longer available for purchase”. Humble are owned by IGN Entertainment, a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, who also own Rock Paper Shotgun. I have asked myself for comment. I have yet to reply at the time of writing.
Update The Second: Scratch that, Humble have relisted Horses. Speaking to Aftermath, Santa Ragione co-founder and director Pietro Righi Riva claims the platform holder took the game offline for a few hours to reevaluate it, based on the reporting around other PC platforms. “In short, their team saw the press coverage and temporarily delisted Horses to reevaluate it,” Riva said. “After a full review they determined that while the content is heavy, nothing in the game warrants removal from their store.”