Acclaimed Italy-based indie studio Santa Ragione says its upcoming experimental horror game Horses will likely be its final project due to a Steam ban it calls "extremely frustrating and also fucked up."
Santa Ragione is by no means a household name, but it has a stable of acclaimed releases including the 2023 visual novel Mediterranea Inferno and the survival horror game from the same year, Saturnalia, as well as a brand identified by surrealist themes and avant-garde storytelling. Its next game Horses, revealed back in 2023, looks to be its most boundary-pushing yet, but for reasons still seemingly unclear to Santa Ragione, it's banned from Steam, and thus, it could be a financial bomb that sinks the studio into oblivion.
In separate interviews with Eurogamer and Game Developer, as well as a FAQ page and official press release reviewed by GamesRadar+, Santa Ragione co-founder Pietro Righi Riva paints a picture of a studio desperate to understand Valve's decision to ban its game – and equally eager to change whatever needs to be changed for approval – and a monolithic Steam stubbornly standing by a decision whose origins and merits are frustratingly unclear.
Santa Ragione submitted Horses to Steam for review back in 2023 ahead of the game's reveal and was confused when Valve took longer than usual to issue any sort of response. The studio was even more perplexed when Valve asked to see a full build of the game, which despite the project's early state, Santa Ragione complied and provided. After weeks of anxious waiting, the studio got word from Valve that the game wasn't approved for distribution on Steam.
"While we strive to ship most titles submitted to us, we found that this title features themes, imagery, or descriptions that we won't distribute," Valve told the studio when pressed for an explanation, per the studio's FAQ on the topic. "Regardless of a developer's intentions with their product, we will not distribute content that appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor. While every product submitted is unique, if your product features this representation – even in a subtle way that could be defined as a 'grey area' – it will be rejected by Steam."
Reacting to Valve's characterization of the reviewed in-progress build, Santa Ragione says, "We believe this explanation is deliberately vague and unfounded. There are no scenes or characters in the game that fall within that grey area, and we were refused any detail, review, or guidance on what to change or remove."
The studio said it now suspects the scene that triggered Valve's decision was one in which a "horse" – visually, a naked adult woman – carries a young female child on her back. For creative reasons, Santa Ragione ultimately updated the scene so that the character riding the horse is an adult, but Valve has refused to budge after years of indirect and direct outreach from the studio, despite other major PC platforms like the Epic Games Store, GOG, and the Humble Store being fine with selling the game.
Santa Ragione also makes clear in its FAQ that Horses is not "pornographic" nor "[intended] to arouse," but uses "challenging, unconventional material to encourage discussion" and "invites players to examine why something feels the way it does, what it says about the characters and systems at work, and where their limits lie. It is about tension, not erotic content."
Santa Ragione had already invested about $50,000 into Horses prior to the Steam ban, and it had to turn to friends for the additional $50,000 needed to fund the project to completion after traditional investors and publishers pulled out due to Valve's decision. And now, "without access to more than 75 percent of the PC gaming market," the studio doesn't expect to make its money back and will likely shut down.
"Steam's refusal removed our primary path to reach players on PC, with no way to appeal and no clear path to compliance, as detailed in our FAQ," reads the press release. "Steam has also stopped granting developer keys to indies that do not meet undisclosed sales thresholds, limiting third-party sales and retroactively affecting our catalogue.
"In a de facto monopoly, opaque decisions like these can quickly determine a small studio’s survival."
Santa Ragione says it has enough funds to support Horses after launch with bug fixes and quality-of-life updates, but there won't be any new projects at the studio unless it miraculously recoups its costs.
"The team and I have been extremely frustrated, knowing not only that we did our best to revert this decision, but also that we offered to comply with any request or regulation, and still we were treated without the professional respect the situation required," Riva told Game Developer.
"It is scary, humiliating, and patronizing to be told 'no, just because' by entities that hold absolute power over your financial stability," he added. "I think I personally feel what we described in the press release when we say this kind of approach pushes creators toward self censorship. Not having clear boundaries about what I am allowed to create and publish is depressing, and the opposite of an environment that enables and encourages creativity."
I've reached out to Valve for comment and will update this story if I hear back.
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