Okay. Here’s… here’s the thing. I’ve learned more about visual novels in the last 24 hours than I’ve known in the last 33 years of my life. Most of what I’ve learned is that VNs are doing a lot of cool things, and some other VNs? Those VNs are doing dangerous> things. And the one universal rule of video game distribution is still in effect: Valve has no gosh danged idea what they’re doing. Yesterday, there was a series of emails from Valve issuing warnings to several developers and publishers, threatening to remove their games from Steam unless they are edited to remove pornographic content . Today, those same devs and pubs are getting emails saying “Just kidding. But also… MAYBE NOT.”

Valve. The hell? Is Gabe spinning some gigantic wheel in the office right now? We just randomizing policy? OH LOOK, it landed on Surprise Steam Sale!

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Nerves are a little frayed across the visual novel development scene, as Valve have apparently issued warnings to several developers and publishers, threatening to remove their games from Steam unless they are edited to remove ‘pornographic content’.

The largest confirmation of this comes from prolific VN publisher MangaGamer, who have received several of these notices, including one for Kindred Spirits on the Roof, a game which they explicitly> ran past Valve representatives to confirm that it was not pornographic in nature. Valve agreed – at the time – and allowed it to go on sale back in February of 2016. The deal, as Darth Vader would say, has been altered.

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Valve’s Steam Link app – a beta version, at least – has rolled out onto Android, with an iOS version soon to follow. Now folks with any kind of modern tablet, phone or other free-roaming screen will be able to play their PC games library anywhere in the house through the power of low-latency video streaming, assuming your home Wi-fi is up to par.

You’ll need a relatively recent phone or tablet to get the most out of this, and ideally a Steam Controller or two (which recently was updated to play nicer with iOS), but at the price of free, it’s hard to complain.

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With every mega-corporation and their mega-dog throwing fat sacks of cash at Virtual Reality right now, and a multitude of headsets available, it’s easy to forget that nobody really> has any idea what they’re doing right now. While consensus on how to advance headset technology seems to be fairly universal, every company seems to have their own idea of how to control things in virtual space. Valve’s stopgap solution until folks can agree on stuff is SteamVR Input, a unified control-binding system for (quelle surprise) SteamVR.

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When Valve practically started giving away Steam Link boxes for little more than price-of-postage, I assumed that the company was stepping away from the concept of in-home streamed gaming. Today’s announcement suggests the idea is very much alive and well at Valve: soon you’ll be able to play games from your Steam library through most iOS and Android devices via an official and free Steam Link app.

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A study of over 10 million Steam user reviews has found that when reviews include negative feedback, they call out poor game design more often than they complain about bugs. Which is entirely unsurprising, really: I know that infuriating design decisions tend to stick in my head far more perniciously than occasional bugs. That’s not the only insight that the researchers from Queen’s University in Canada have to offer though, and I’m finding the fine-grained details of their study much more interesting than that headline conclusion.

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While one of the best things about having a gaming-spec PC is the sheer freedom you have in input devices, it really does help to have a reliable, widely supported gamepad. My current go-to is the XBox One controller, but there might be another competitor on the horizon. You’ll have to opt in to the latest Steam beta to use it, but you can now use a Nintendo Switch Pro controller on Steam, remarkably useful gyro-aiming and all.

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It’s been a strange week here at the Pleasuredome. Once again, a bud of the Hivemind prepares to detach and spread in-jokes and sinister, fungaloid thoughts about user interfaces to a new, unsuspecting host. And I’d only just confirmed he’s real, too. Bye bye, Adam. Subvert from within, yeah?

Still, on the plus side, I high fived Aby Wolf the other night. And now it’s time for Unknown Pleasures! Heavens.

Shamelessly namedropping far more talented people we’ve briefly orbited this week: chasing rabbits, redirecting lasers, and justifying patricide.

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Valve must pay a fine of AU$3 million (about 1.6m/US$2.3m/ 1.8m) for misleading Steam users in Australia by stating they were not entitled to refunds for faulty games on Steam, though Australian law guarantees rights on faulty products. The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) went after Valve for this back in 2014, before Steam offered widespread refunds, and in 2016 the Federal Court agreed. Valve appealed that court’s decision but the High Court of Australia have now ruled that it stands, and that Valve must pay. They ACCC say that this “is the final decision on this issue”, the end of the line. (more…)

Infants. Infants everywhere. Ooh, look at me, I’m like a human but smaller and I’m allowed to scream and climb on stuff if I want to, oooh. End of term holidays are when you’re supposed to be indoors playing games, not studying or going outside like some sort of peon. Bah. Wake me up when they’re all back in school juggling cats or bouncer baiting, or whatever this week’s Fear The Yoof thing is.

Why, I bet they don’t even know what Unknown Pleasures is named after.

Pointing out what used to be grass this week: naive snipers, murine nomads, and a little blobby blob that boings.

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