Less than a week after rolling out a new code of conduct for the Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 forums on Steam, Deep Silver says it has "listened to your feedback" and eliminated nearly all of it.
The original code of conduct, published on January 17, laid out a "zero tolerance" policy for discrimination in any form, which it broke down in detail as including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and other forms of toxicity; it also forbid "hate speech or harmful ideologies," including white supremacy, neo-Nazism, and harassment.
"Any posts, comments, or behaviour perpetuating these harmful ideologies will be removed, and offenders will face swift action," PLAION_MY4NH wrote. Consequences for violating the code of conduct will range from warnings and post deletion to temporary or permanent bans from the forum.
Now, however, all of that is gone. Instead of a "code of conduct," the Steam forums are now governed by a much briefer set of "guidelines."
"Over the past few days, we've listened to your feedback and updated our community guidelines to better reflect the kind of space we all want this to be," Deep Silver's new message states. "We've made them clearer, simpler and shorter to keep things fair, respectful and focused—thank you all for being part of this journey with us."
The new guidelines are as follows:
- Respect others: Treat everyone fairly. We're not trying to stifle free speech, but ad-hom attacks, criticising others for their choices—whether in-game or in conversation—has no place here.
- Stay on topic: Keep discussions focused on Kingdom Come: Deliverance.
- No spoilers without warning: Use spoiler tags or clearly label posts with details.
- No spam or self-promotion: Irrelevant posts or promotional content will be removed.
- Follow Steam's Guidelines: These guidelines are in addition to Steam's Community Guidelines.
And that's it. It's arguable that "respect others" encompasses everything covered by the previous code, and Steam's guidelines also prohibit things like "insults," "harassment," and "discrimination," but as we noted when it rolled out, the broad, simple "don't be a jerk" approach to moderation doesn't work these days. Evidence of that can be seen in numerous posts now clogging up the Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 forums, including racist jibes, complaints about bisexual characters, posts on "the truth" about Mali—at least one of the NPCs in the game is reportedly from Mali, which is presented as a safe and advanced nation—and complaints that developer Warhorse Studios has succumbed to the culture war boogeyman of DEI.
It's all very ugly and stupid, and it leads to a very obvious question: Why did Deep Silver (or parent company Plaion) walk back forum rules that were well defined and perfectly reasonable, and that provided clear and specific grounds for taking action against toxic content? Because it's clearly not out of line to state that racism or homophobia will get you the heave-ho—that's how effective moderation works. And when Deep Silver says it made the change "to better reflect the kind of space we all want this to be," I have to wonder: What kind of space does it imagine people want?
Neither Plaion nor Warhorse have commented on the change at this point, but the comment about "free speech" is telling. Numerous purported fans of Kingdom Come: Deliverance have complained on Steam and social media that Warhorse, and specifically creative director Daniel Vavra, have refused to answer questions about the game in order to cover up the fact that Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 has gone—you guessed it—"woke."
The irony is that the walkback doesn't seem to be having the presumably intended effect: The forums are rife with accusations that Warhorse and Plaion are simply doing damage control and not actually addressing the real and legitimate concerns about the game—which in their minds seems to be the mere presence of gay and Black characters.
I've reached out to Plaion for comment on the forum code of conduct change and will update if I receive a reply.
