Publisher says Valve rejected complaint about hateful Steam review: "'Has Muslims, not recommended' is literal racism, so there should be no conversation needed"

After reporting a negative review which complained automation sim Little Rocket Lab "has Muslims" in it, Mike Rose of publisher No More Robots says Steam has "rejected" his complaint and evidently upheld the review.

Rose pushed back on the problem of hateful and/or off-topic Steam reviews earlier this week, and in a December 10 Bluesky post, shared a new blurb attached to the specific review in question, which has actually been edited by the author to include additional, more detailed gripes.

"This review was previously flagged by a developer, but that has been cleared by a moderator," the message reads. "You cannot flag it again, unless the reviewer changes the review." Note that Rose is only described as a "developer" here due to the status of his Steam account; Little Rocket Lab developer Kyle Schmitz hasn't been involved in Rose's posts or these replies to the game's reviews.

"Valve has now rejected my complaint, confirming that 'I don't like muslims' is a valid reason to leave a negative review on a game on Steam," Rose wrote. For clarity, the review in question now reads: "Also has muslims... Noone is asking for this type of stuff, in a building cozy game."

"I just don't know what to do about this. I'm genuinely at a loss," Rose said in a reply to his post.

"'Has muslims, thumbs down' is now just written on the Steam page for Little Rocket Lab, and I cannot remove it," he adds. "Anyone coming in to look at our game will rightly just think 'What the fuck?', and there's nothing I can do."

I reached out to Rose for details on his exchange with Valve and his experience with Steam. He said "we've seen an uptick of horrid reviews. I'm sure you have too, just skimming Steam pages. In my entire time working in video games, I've never had a single flagged review be removed by a Valve moderator.

"I think how it should be handled is pretty clear. Racism is literally against the Steam guidelines. 'Has Muslims, not recommended' is literal racism, so there should be no conversation needed here."

Over 1,800 people shared or responded to Rose's post, as of writing, with many of them grilling Valve for its hands-off approach to Steam review and forum moderation. Some have also put this review on the scales opposite banned-from-Steam arthouse horror game Horses, wondering where and when Valve draws a line on what's acceptable.

The guidelines Valve has laid out for Steam reviews do seem to take clear issue with this type of language, with the first reading: "Do not direct abuse or insults at other players, developers, or groups."

After Horses ban, Steam loses gooner monolith BrownDust2 to "the platform's policy requirements": "We encountered an issue that cannot be reasonably resolved."