Steam Blocked Chaos;Head Noah, Devs Apologize [UPDATE: Valve Yields]

Update

Fan action has had an effect. Valve has changed its mind and Chaos;Head Noah will be approved for distribution on Steam. The gamewill go on sale today.

The game's publisher Spike Chunsoft thanked the fans for the action on social media, stating that they were the ones who convinced Valve to change its decision.

1. Chaos;Head Noah on Steam

Previous message (October 5, 2022)

Valve has severely upset fans of visual novels by not allowing Chaos;Head Noah from Nitroplus to be distributed on Steam.

1. The issue was reported by the game's publisher Spike Chunsoft.
2. The denial was not categorical. Valve suggested a number of changes that could allow the game to be released for distribution, but the developers felt that such a heavily censored Chaos;Head Noah would not present a sufficiently high quality level.
3. Spike Chunsoft apologized to the fans for the lack of a Steam version, and announced that it is currently looking for other distribution methods for the PC version of the game. It's unclear when we'll learn any details on the matter.
4. On the other hand, nothing changes regarding the Nintendo Switch version, which will be released as planned, i.e. on October 7.

Incomprehensible reasons for Valve's decision

Valve's decision is highly questionable, as Steam is currently filled with games that are plain pornography. Many fans are under the impression that the service's managers are harsher on Japanese titles than on similar titles from outside the Land of the Rising Sun. Chaos;Head Noah is, moreover, very modest in this regard.

In this case, the situation is all the more strange because Chaos;Child, another installment of the series, has been released for distribution on the platform without any problems.

Nintendo more tolerant than Valve?

Some people are also surprised that Valve seems to have higher standards in this regard than Nintendo and the ESRB, which rated the Switch release as M. These accusations, however, are not entirely accurate. Indeed, the console edition is censored, especially in terms of brutality.

We wonder if Valve demanded even tougher cuts than Nintendo, or if it didn't accept what was accepted on consoles. It's surprising that Spike Chunsoft didn't use the popular ploy among visual novel game developers of releasing a heavily censored game on Steam while simultaneously providing a patch on its own website that restores the cut elements.

On social media, fans have launched a campaign tagged #SaveChaosHead, meant to convince Valve to change its decision, but it's hard to judge whether the initiative has a chance of success.