Valve to Moderate Steam Game Hub Comments

Remember y'all tin post vitriolic, abusive comments inside Steam game hubs without repercussions? Remember again.

Valve on Midweek announced plans to start moderating reported discussion posts in all Steam game hubs, starting Tuesday, Sept. 25, unless developers opt out. Until now, Valve has left this job up to developers.

Hither's how this new moderation volition piece of work: When a user reports a word thread or mail, Valve's moderation squad will examine that content to decide if it violates the platform's Community Guidelines. If so, the team will remove the content and consequence a alert or ban the offender.

Valve said information technology will not be "actively perusing" customs discussions or posting in threads. "We'll only be communicating with players if information technology's necessary when issuing a warning or ban for reported content," the visitor promised.

Valve's content moderation team already reviews and acts on other types of reported customs content on Steam, including screenshots, art, guides, profiles, and reviews.

"In the past, we've been hesitant to become involved in the moderation of individual game discussions, as we didn't desire to step on the toes of game developers that want to have their ain style of advice with players and their own set of guidelines for behavior," Valve wrote. "But over time, nosotros've been hearing from more than and more game developers that would actually prefer for us to have a more than agile role in discussion boards, at to the lowest degree to the extent of handling posts that are reported by other players."

Developers: if yous'd rather handle your own game hub moderation, yous can opt out of this service by visiting the Steamworks settings for your game (Edit Steamworks Settings > Customs Tab > General).

About Angela Moscaritolo

Angela Moscaritolo

Angela Moscaritolo is PCMag's expert on fitness and smart home products. Teaching yoga for nearly 10 years has helped her in evaluating a range of connected wellness products including fettle trackers, heart rate monitors, rowers, smart scales, stationary bikes, forcefulness preparation machines, treadmills, and more. Angela also tests smart home devices from her ranch in Florida, including air purifiers, kitchen appliances, and robot vacuums, just to proper name a few.