Itch.io creator says Steam's new hands-off curation policy is 'ridiculous'

In a statement released earlier today, Valve announced that, beginning soon, it will allow "everything" to be published on Steam as long as it it isn't illegal or "straight-up trolling." Valve's Erik Johnson said this is simply because "Valve shouldn't be the ones deciding this." This decision has proven contentious, and Itch.io creator Leaf Corcoran is clearly among those against it. 

In a recent tweet, Corcoran called Valve's decision "ridiculous" and affirmed that Itch.io remains against content that is "malicious, derogatory, discriminatory, bullying, harassing, [or] demeaning." This lines up with Itch's terms of service which, in addition to everything Corcoran listed, also disallow content and actions that are unlawful, misleading, incendiary, obscene or inflammatory. 

Itch.io's policies were fairly vague when it was created in 2013, but in 2014, shortly after the storefront gained a report button, its terms of service were updated to include the above qualities. In the post announcing the updated terms, Corcoran also forbids "posting content that promotes or participates in racial intolerance, sexism, hate crimes, hate speech, or intolerance to any group of individuals." 

"It would pain me to see the platform I’ve created being used to distribute any sort of content that promotes intolerance or hate against others," Corcoran said at the time. "The indie game community needs a safe place, and hopefully you agree that this is a step in the right direction." 

We do know that at least one person is happy about Valve's decision: