Valve infamously allowed the Black Lives Matter non-gaming app on the Steam store back on July 20th, 2020. The game caused a huge stir and even led to numerous account suspensions and community bans. Some of them were overturned and later the game was removed from Steam after the developer admitted he did it to make a political statement. Well, for the game Everyone Matters, Valve wouldn’t even allow it to go live, stating that the game was “trolling” and so was the developer, permanently banning both the game and him from the platform.
If you check the SteamDB entry for Everyone Matters you’ll see that the game was removed on August 5th, 2020.
The description for the game read…
“Everyone Matters is a fictional visual novel style planning game. Are you going to stay home or go join the protest, its entirely up to you. Plan out your actions for the month, then go through with them. But remember your actions will have different outcomes.”
The removal came after Valve approved the game’s store page back on July 31st, 2020.
The developer of Everyone Matters explained via e-mail…
“So I saw the Black_Lives_Matters game on steam and saw it was a 8:46 min timer for $0.99, and was like I could make a game that’s way better and “everyone having to work together” being an alright message. So I made it with little issues, dedicated time and money, even had the steam achievements made. I had no problem getting the store page totally reviewed and accepted and even had a release date of 8/17/2020. Just the game build had to be reviewed and accepted which with no response other than an automated email […]”
The developer forwarded the e-mail, and you can see the image of it below.
If you’re unable to view the message, it reads…
“After review, we will not be able to ship your game “Everyone Matters” on Steam. While we strive to ship most titles submitted to us, we found that this title is just a troll game. This app has been banned and cannot be reused.
“Your partner account has also been banned. Your submission leads us to believe that we do not want to have an ongoing business relationship with you.”
What’s interesting is that if you check the archive of the Steam store page, you’ll see that there’s much more of a game there than anything presented in the Black Lives Matter non-game.
In the e-mail, the developer went on to say that Valve’s actions certainly speak volumes about their political affiliations, writing…
“If trying to get everyone together to work with each other is just trolling, I really guess they have a strong political affliction to one side or the other. I also already had another app started and in a early prealpha phase and was using steamworks api for logins, so if i was “trolling” as they say I am, why in the hell would I want to waste another $100 to release another game under the same partner account. I responded with a support ticket asking if I could get it rereviewed by another staff member, but we will have to wait and see so instead of publishing only on steam I put it up on itch.io with an “Banned From Steam Sale” starting today.”
You would think that if a company did come down on a side it would be the one that promotes unity, togetherness, and peace. Instead, Valve showed their hand by initially allowing a game on their platform in the form of Black Lives Matter that promotes murder, rape, assault, vandalism, riots, and domestic terrorism.
As for Everyone Matters, you can pick up a digital copy of the game right now over on the itch.io store page.
(Thanks for the news tip EM Dev)