The Super Seducer series has been having a hard time lately. The controversial series comes from professional pick-up artist Richard La Ruina, and acts as an interactive instruction manual for men to be successful with women. While the first two games in the series, both released in 2018, drew heavy criticism for the moral questions surrounding its premise, their releases were relatively uneventful (aside from a planned release on the Playstation 4 that was pulled shortly before release). The third game, initially set for release February 15th, has been plagued with issues.

The first sign of trouble was on February 3rd, during Steam's Game Festival promotion, where indie developers were allowed to release demos that would only be available for a limited time. Super Seducer 3's time was more limited than expected, however, as the demo was unceremoniously pulled only an hour after going up. Then, on February 11, Steam rejected the submitted build, citing the sexual imagery featuring live-action actors. (While plenty of explicit games can be found on Steam, they all feature animated characters rather than real people.) Since then, La Ruina has been censoring those scenes and resubmitting to Steam, before receiving a third and final rejection today, as Steam has totally banned the game from its storefront.

The game's future at this point is uncertain. La Ruina stated shortly before the ban that alternate storefronts (specifically, Epic Games Store and GOG) had rejected it, and that other methods were "not very attractive." Since the ban, however, he has stated he will have something ready for this week, and that the version he is aiming to release will be the original, fully uncensored version. The first two games were also expected to release on the Nintendo Switch in February of this year, with the third given a tentative date of late 2021, though that date came and went with no release, and only a brief mention from La Ruina that the release was still on track. He has also mentioned he may work on a similar branching path, FMV series focused on the horror genre, tentatively titled "Horror Seducer."

GBAtemp was lucky enough to receive a censored version of Super Seducer 3 for review prior to its initially projected release date. If you'd like to see exactly how bad the censored version (which has also been submitted to and rejected by Valve), you can read or watch our review here.

Steam have BANNED and removed Super Seducer 3 from the store. They will not allow it to be released in any form.

Our page is gone and 61,700 wish lists are gone.

Prior to this they told me expect either “approval or feedback”.
We repeatedly said we’d do whatever they needed pic.twitter.com/hVuDcvzL2n

— Richard La Ruina (@RichardGambler) March 20, 2021

 

[Lazyt]

switch port?

 

[Bladexdsl]

so steam loves their weeb trash games like succubus dungeon hunipop and the rest of that anime GARBAGE and yet they shit themselves when something like this comes around?! what happened to you steam? You used to be cool

 

[Deleted member 534570]

Good riddance.

 

[Mikemk]

I guess they'll have to release on Humble Store, assuming Humble's terms are a bit more lax than Steam's (they should be as they are primarily there to facilitate indies being able to sell their games, indies for whom getting listed on Steam might not be viable)

Does Humble host any games themselves apart from the Humble Trove?

 

[Elveman]

Valve doesn't want gamers to be successful with women

 

[Plasmaster09]

Why do they always have to ban and censor everything, the game is meant to be ironical/funny and it was made in agreement with consenting actresses. Next to it there are thousands of questionable hentai games available for purchase. Steam are huge hypocrites.

Thing is, it wasn't.
Poe's Law is in full force here, and from all the context (and the fact this guy made TWO EQUALLY DEHUMANIZING ONES BEFORE THIS), it seems like he legitimately believes what he's saying.
Oh, and there's a big difference between "questionable hentai" and "game that literally teaches you to dehumanize and manipulate women in real life".
This game shouldn't have even existed. The fact the previous two haven't been wiped off the face of the earth by now is bad enough.

 

[Jaxom]

Such a shame that the game is having such a bad treatment from Steam. It's incredibly fun and the "bad" answers are so obviously intended to be what they are that it's more a funny game to play with friends just to see how it's played by the actors than a lesson of seduction.

Maybe it would give some nice advices to people a little too rough, but as long as you have a brain, you should be able to see the strings pulled by the scenario. Super Seducer 2 was even made with women point of view in mind, as Richard was accompanied by a woman counterpart for the "advice sessions".

I'm pretty sure they feared the cancel lobbies... For what? They are Steam/Valve! How a small portion of SJW blinded people could make them afraid? I don't understand how it came to such extents after the two first games got released on the platform...

 

[DoctorBagPhD]

Man, the incels aren't happy about this, are they?

 

[Veho]

Super Seducer 1 and 2 and all the associated DLC are still available on Steam, so maybe this isn't some woke SJW cancel culture conspiracy, maybe there really is some particular problem with the third game that the author chose to gloss over when telling his side of the story. Maybe.

 

[FAST6191]

Thing is, it wasn't.
Poe's Law is in full force here, and from all the context (and the fact this guy made TWO EQUALLY DEHUMANIZING ONES BEFORE THIS), it seems like he legitimately believes what he's saying.
Oh, and there's a big difference between "questionable hentai" and "game that literally teaches you to dehumanize and manipulate women in real life".
This game shouldn't have even existed. The fact the previous two haven't been wiped off the face of the earth by now is bad enough.

People throw around words like dehumanising but seem ill concerned with qualifying it. Care to address that one?

Also "shouldn't have existed" is a strong claim. Does "I may not agree with what you have to say but your right to say it is a rather different matter" not apply or do you follow a different philosophy?

 

[duwen]

Pretty sure La Ruina is only doing it to troll Jim Sterling at this point.

 

[Plasmaster09]

People throw around words like dehumanising but seem ill concerned with qualifying it. Care to address that one?

Also "shouldn't have existed" is a strong claim. Does "I may not agree with what you have to say but your right to say it is a rather different matter" not apply or do you follow a different philosophy?

It's exactly what it sounds like- the 'game' is centered around treating women like things to be exploited and manipulated as a hookup strategy. It's just fucked up.
And no, it really doesn't apply. His right to SAY it is one thing, but you should not be allowed to actively sell guides to being an exploitative and abusive shitstain for money.
Why is it so hard for you to grasp that some things do in fact need to be censored because of just how awful they are?

 

[FAST6191]

It's exactly what it sounds like- the 'game' is centered around treating women like things to be exploited and manipulated as a hookup strategy. It's just fucked up.
And no, it really doesn't apply. His right to SAY it is one thing, but you should not be allowed to actively sell guides to being an exploitative and abusive shitstain for money.
Why is it so hard for you to grasp that some things do in fact need to be censored because of just how awful they are?

Right to speak it and right to sell it would usually be considered among the same things. Making a delineation between the two is seldom done in law, assuming it rises to the level of copyrightable in the first place.

I might ask you why is it so hard for you to grasp that freedom of speech is not something to be trampled on lightly? I am also not sure that this is oh so objectionable other than it being useless and sold as something that works.

 

[Tatsuna]

First of all, I'd like to clarify that I wouldn't have played the game in any case since it is really not my cup of tea. That being said, I hope I have dissipated the overly mature and teenager-ish incel joke that every childish person has up their sleeve (most of all because I wouldn't want to embarrass myself with my fiancée and our 7+ years-long relationship).

Now, let's primally debunk the most stated lie: "Valve is a private company, they decide their own rules and what's sold on their stores". Very well. First of all, I noticed that this is the same boring and dumb double standard of the Internet: would any of you who celebrate the removal of this game let it pass if a LGBTQ+ game wouldn't be released because of "potential controversy" and "Valve does what it wants with their stores"? No, you probably would be bitch and moaning on Twitter, searching for the IDs of the review staff of Steam, blasting their profile pages and demanding accountability, freedom for artists, "rights". The difference here is that it's something that you don't like it, that you wouldn't play – excatly like me, with the important dissimilarity that I would not stop something I don't appreciate from being released.
Second argument: no, Steam is not entirely free to remove contents they don't like. When the West decided to embrace neo-liberalism in the 90s, we also decided that privates have a social function to provide services for all people in the free market, with the countries to exercise control on it and punish privates if they limit people because of their gender, sex, ethnicity, race, preferences. That's the reason why in several countries courts have determined that social networks like Facebook and Twitter CANNOT ban fascists pages or profiles, because they are still free to express their ideas and since the political discourse is heavily influenced by social medias, it would be hindered if socials were to start a purge, hence courts ruled against this policy of them. No matter what their TOS are. Otherwise, let's nationalize privates and let the States handle everything, but at that point it'd be communism and we know how it ends. There's no authority on Earth who should be free to decide what can be done in a fictional work or not, because otherwise what's the point of having a democratic system and treaties on human rights?

Last but not least. You. You, who celebrates on the removal of this game. You are the reason gaming is in its current state right now. You are not different than my church-devoted uncle in the 90s who swore to my face to "take Pokémon down" because it relates to Satanism. You are the reason gaming has become what promised to destroy: bigotry, censorship, fear of artists to express themselves because of consequences, status quo. You are happy now, because what's removed is something you don't like. But we all know how this goes, don't we? We are supposed to all be gamers, not Class A or class B of renounceable games. When your games will be removed too, what will you do? You gave privates the power to do so. How will you fight? With a trial? Where are you going to take the money to do so? Let's think about everybody's rights, people. Today it's theirs we accept to limit, at what point will we accept to limit ours?

 

[Plasmaster09]

First of all, I'd like to clarify that I wouldn't have played the game in any case since it is really not my cup of tea. That being said, I hope I have dissipated the overly mature and teenager-ish incel joke that every childish person has up their sleeve (most of all because I wouldn't want to embarrass myself with my fiancée and our 7+ years-long relationship).

Now, let's primally debunk the most stated lie: "Valve is a private company, they decide their own rules and what's sold on their stores". Very well. First of all, I noticed that this is the same boring and dumb double standard of the Internet: would any of you who celebrate the removal of this game let it pass if a LGBTQ+ game wouldn't be released because of "potential controversy" and "Valve does what it wants with their stores"? No, you probably would be bitch and moaning on Twitter, searching for the IDs of the review staff of Steam, blasting their profile pages and demanding accountability, freedom for artists, "rights". The difference here is that it's something that you don't like it, that you wouldn't play – excatly like me, with the important dissimilarity that I would not stop something I don't appreciate from being released.
Second argument: no, Steam is not entirely free to remove contents they don't like. When the West decided to embrace neo-liberalism in the 90s, we also decided that privates have a social function to provide services for all people in the free market, with the countries to exercise control on it and punish privates if they limit people because of their gender, sex, ethnicity, race, preferences. That's the reason why in several countries courts have determined that social networks like Facebook and Twitter CANNOT ban fascists pages or profiles, because they are still free to express their ideas and since the political discourse is heavily influenced by social medias, it would be hindered if socials were to start a purge, hence courts ruled against this policy of them. No matter what their TOS are. Otherwise, let's nationalize privates and let the States handle everything, but at that point it'd be communism and we know how it ends. There's no authority on Earth who should be free to decide what can be done in a fictional work or not, because otherwise what's the point of having a democratic system and treaties on human rights?

Last but not least. You. You, who celebrates on the removal of this game. You are the reason gaming is in its current state right now. You are not different than my church-devoted uncle in the 90s who swore to my face to "take Pokémon down" because it relates to Satanism. You are the reason gaming has become what promised to destroy: bigotry, censorship, fear of artists to express themselves because of consequences, status quo. You are happy now, because what's removed is something you don't like. But we all know how this goes, don't we? We are supposed to all be gamers, not Class A or class B of renounceable games. When your games will be removed too, what will you do? You gave privates the power to do so. How will you fight? With a trial? Where are you going to take the money to do so? Let's think about everybody's rights, people. Today it's theirs we accept to limit, at what point will we accept to limit ours?

This is a mess of strawmen.
This argument would be solid, if not for one major flaw: it relies on several comparisons between apples and oranges.
There is an important difference between a game with LGBTQ+ characters, plotlines, etc. that basically amounts to "people in X category existing and being who they are" and a game with the sole purpose of encouraging deeply unsavory active behavior. "Be yourself" vs "be a scumbag", as it were.
The comparisons to Pokemon-induced Satanic Panic would be apt, if not for the fact that this particular game is pretty fucking blatant in its vices. We're not just crawling out of the woodwork to randomly cancel a game we don't like. This game, if you can even call it that, SOLELY FOCUSES ON exploitation and manipulation as a pickup strategy. The entire point of the game is to treat women in a way that people in general fundamentally deserve to not be treated. Had it actually been a roughly equivalent example, or even anything remotely close (heck, even a game about literally playing as a Nazi or something could have been arguable to some extent), the argument might have held water. But this is so utterly indefensible that it just... doesn't.

I might ask you why is it so hard for you to grasp that freedom of speech is not something to be trampled on lightly? I am also not sure that this is oh so objectionable other than it being useless and sold as something that works.

Freedom of speech isn't something to be trampled on lightly. (Contrary to what you seem to assume, I don't like "trampling on it", nor do I do so lightly. I'm all for freedom of speech, but our definitions thereof seem to be different. You might want to read up on that.)
However, it also isn't (or at least shouldn't be) something that can be easily and casually abused to harm others. Heck, there used to actually be legal measures in place to prevent that exact result- the fighting words doctrine, which has sadly been nerfed into oblivion from people who can't fathom not abusing a nigh-inalienable right (which is in general, governmentally speaking, A TERRIBLE IDEA) with malicious intent. There is an important difference between passively expressing one's opinions or beliefs and doing so in a way that harms other people. A product that helps (well, "helps") teach other people HOW to behave in a harmful, abusive and in the clearest terms emotionally parasitic manner has no excuse to not fall under that.
Freedom of speech is not invincible, nor should it be.
And it certainly shouldn't be used as a shield- no, a cheap excuse- to defend the utterly unacceptable.

 

[FAST6191]

Freedom of speech isn't something to be trampled on lightly. (Contrary to what you seem to assume, I don't like "trampling on it", nor do I do so lightly. I'm all for freedom of speech, but our definitions thereof seem to be different. You might want to read up on that.)
However, it also isn't (or at least shouldn't be) something that can be easily and casually abused to harm others. Heck, there used to actually be legal measures in place to prevent that exact result- the fighting words doctrine, which has sadly been nerfed into oblivion from people who can't fathom not abusing a nigh-inalienable right (which is in general, governmentally speaking, A TERRIBLE IDEA) with malicious intent. There is an important difference between passively expressing one's opinions or beliefs and doing so in a way that harms other people. A product that helps (well, "helps") teach other people HOW to behave in a harmful, abusive and in the clearest terms emotionally parasitic manner has no excuse to not fall under that.
Freedom of speech is not invincible, nor should it be.
And it certainly shouldn't be used as a shield- no, a cheap excuse- to defend the utterly unacceptable.

Many of your claims and defences over the months we have been pondering such things seem to indicate you have a very low threshold for justification here compared to generally accepted legal standards (I do quite like the more abstractly understood US approach -- IP law, libel/slander and incitement to violence/criminality being the main limits, none of which are likely to be in this game), generally held academic standards of debate, generally held philosophical standards or possibly even generally held standards of the day. All of that is fine but you simultaneously seem to do a very poor job of convincing me or others to follow along with you.
You claim harms but they are nebulous at best at lot of the time. Indeed I would ask for a broad outline of everything you dislike here but as that would take a long time some general scenarios would be OK.

I am at a disadvantage here having not played or watched much about this game. I am generally familiar with PUA/pick up artist material but enough of it differs enough* that I would not want to make any claims without knowing the specifics here.


*there is a difference between creating a projection of confidence (girls need not be scary yo, you will get rejected so carry on with a new one, girls like confidence in man and other such trite things, that may well be true), dressing like a male tart, hitting the gym, having a few lines/general conversation starters, flashing some cash in a club (in addition to whatever fancy clothes, jewellery, stinkwater and the like you have going on), maybe wandering around with another female friend as a subconcious signal to other women that this one is OK (maybe even them playing icebreaker), having a social meeja presence (though I believe the current iteration is called "instagram game"), learning to read a few microexpressions (disgust, that being a very fast flash like something smells bad, probably being one I would suggest all those pursuing any kind of encounter learn in general lest you waste your time), and asking 200 women (that also demonstrably like sex as a general rule) in the hope that one or two will care to sleep with you of an evening, none of which is any flavour of harmful or abusive from where I sit, and some of the more slimy psychological manipulations on the more vulnerable (be they clueless, young and unversed**, desperate, addled on some substances, in a moment of psychological weakness...) and power plays (your are their boss, club owner...) but even then harmful or abusive still needs to be qualified for some of those (is looking for the one that just broke up and focusing some efforts knowing that "am I still lovable" is going through their mind abusive or just bettering your odds?).
All that sounds like way too much effort for me to get with some random bar skanks for an evening. Sex drive is a powerful thing in many humans though so eh.

**though if indeed women are fully realised people one might ponder whether that is their own problem.

 

[Louse]

having not played or watched much about this game.

dude
why do you care

 

[FAST6191]

dude
why do you care

Because I dislike censorship and the sentiments behind

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist

Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist

Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew

Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

are very apt.

 

[Louse]

Because I dislike censorship and the sentiments behind
are very apt.

they wouldnt get censored if they made the product the market wanted. this is how capitalism works, dipass.

also that second quote. first, where is that from. second, what. you're conflating the banning of a vidya to the systemic subjugation of an entire culture throughout all of human recorded history

 

[FAST6191]

they wouldnt get censored if they made the product the market wanted. this is how capitalism works, dipass.

also that second quote. first, where is that from. second, what. you're conflating the banning of a vidya to the systemic subjugation of an entire culture throughout all of human recorded history

Does the market not want it or do a few vocal types not want Steam and a few other prominent sites to carry it and they in turn bent the knee? Rather large difference there.

Also yes I have no problem using that poem here. There is also more than one group mentioned in that (each paragraph tending to be a different one as part of the whole point). Censorship is ever the creeping phenomenon that worms its way into more and more, especially when those doing thing think themselves the righteous of history and worthy of dictating how others should approach the world.