Fruitbat Factory managed to get Jiangshi x Daoshi released on Steam after it was initially banned without reason or warning. The ability to accepted on Steam, though, came at a cost and the visual novel had to be heavily censored to be accepted onto the platform by Valve’s Taste Police. Thankfully, there is an uncensored patch available off-site.
The first two episodes are available for free over on the Steam store.
However, it’s been heavily modified (read: censored) in order to accommodate the unwritten standards set by Valve’s Taste Police. There is an uncensored patch available for download from over on Fruitback Factory Jiangshi x Daoshi web portal.
So how did a banned visual novel manage to make it back onto Steam after initially getting banned?
Well, the whole ordeal involving Jiangshi x Daoshi and Steam started back in April of 2020, when Valve banned it without warning, nor did they give Fruitbat any means to resubmit the game for approval.
Over on the Fruitbat blog they go into more detail about Valve’s decision to ban the visual novel and how they managed to get it onto Steam following the ban…
“Okay so this is where things got spicy. Of course we’ve followed the developments with Steam’s approval process with concern for some time, and as such I’m always worried whenever I submit a new visual novel for approval. Still, despite joking about it we didn’t seriously expect the game to get flat-out banned on submission (a rejection wouldn’t have been surprising, it happens more often than not, then you address issues and resubmit). Well, it did. Ticket closed. No resubmission option, no room for dialogue.
”This despite the fact that Jiangshi x Daoshi doesn’t feature any adult content.”
Apparently there were some graphic images (not of a sexual nature) that the Taste Police at Valve didn’t like. They didn’t communicate this to Fruitbat Factory, but luckily for them they had an actual representative at Valve who was able to go to bat for them following the initial ban.
Before linking to the uncensored patch, the blog post explains…
“Luckily we received a response from our Steam rep (yeah, we’re fortunate enough to have one, I’m well aware most devs don’t), which gave us some hope for resubmission, and after some back and forth we ultimately were able to resubmit the game. Of course, info regarding what was wrong the first time was rather vague as you might expect (we got one general pointer, but no idea of the scope of what they wanted us to address, and whether that really was all that would be objectionable or if that was just the first thing they ran into), so the resubmission (for which we might only get 1 chance for all we knew) took some thinking. We worked with Dendo-Denkido to alter key graphics under the info we -did- get, while otherwise staying true to the game’s artistic style, and after an initial rejection (fortunately, not a ban this time) with further required adjustments outlined, we ultimately got the game accepted for release!”
It amazes me that there are still people going around saying that Valve isn’t discriminating against visual novel and anime developers, yet even when a localizer openly confirms that it’s happening, expect the usual suspects and Centrists™ to ignore the facts and go right back to saying “anti-SJWs are just as bad as SJWs!” all while the censorship and gatekeeping from actual SJWs continue.
But it’s all a lost cause at this point.
The censorship brigade has already won, and platforms like Steam, GOG, Patreon, and Amazon are completely converged.
(Thanks for the news tip Guardian EvaUnit02)
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