The developers pulled their games from Steam because they did not seem to comment about the protests regarding Black Lives Matter.

„Over the past few weeks, Steam and Valve have chosen not to address the Black Lives Matter movement, failing to make even a broad and generic statement about racial justice. It’s clearer than ever that the owners of this platform feel beholden to a base of angry white male gamers. This makes me especially sad because I feel that some of these people are the people who most need to hear the message of Black Lives Matter,” Art Sqool’s Julian Glander wrote on Twitter , adding that he finds „embarrassing and a little nauseating,” urging other indie developers to join his cause.

Ghost Time Games founder Gabriel Koenig joined him, saying also on Twitter the following: „We have the power to demand change. Dev friends, consider using your voice. Steam will not be getting any more money from me. Giving up Steam was not a decision I took lightly. I’ve been making ~$1000 a month in sales lately and leaving that behind made me feel uncomfortable. But if I continued to profit from their store I’d be complicit with their silence on hate,” he said. First Winter’s developer, Dan Sanderson, also announced that he’s pulling the game from Steam, adding that it’s the least he could do.

However, there’s an update to this story. Shawn Alexander Allen, an organiser, tweeted „Valve has pledged to be a big sponsor of the Game Devs of Color Expo. (There will be a cool side effect to this we will announce soon.) They also supported the Black Voices in gaming event hosted by [Media Indie Exchange founder] Justin Woodward. Decent 1st steps. Better than the performances other companies have done.” Gamesindustry reached out to Valve for comments, and their spokesperson said „Shawn’s tweet is accurate”  without any further comments.

So… when will the developers creep back on Steam?

Source: Gamesindustry

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