Perhaps players will soon have to don an anti-porn helmet before they can sign into Steam. The Chinese government, meanwhile, isn't likely to let up in their campaign to quash internet pornography, and it feels like a matter of time before someone in the Cyberspace Administration Agency asks why Wallpaper Engine is such a wildfire hit with Chinese users. MIT Technology Review notes that Niko Partners-which specialises in 'games market intelligence' in Asia and the Middle East-has upgraded the risk of a Steam ban in China to 'high'. It's hard to see this remaining the case, though.
That makes it a kind of porous border between the Chinese internet and the rest of the world where users can chat, hang out, play games and, yes, trade smut. Although Valve created a China-specific version of the service early last year, the Chinese government hasn't yet blocked the global Steam website we're all familiar with. While most of them don't feature any pornography, the best Steam games still offer plenty to enjoy.Where big chunks of the western internet-Facebook, Google, Instagram and so on-are blocked in China, Steam remains mostly accessible. No matter what you upload to it - even those crazy videos - I don’t think there’s any problem."
MIT Technology Review translates a 2019 quote which appeared in Chinese media from developer Kristjan Skutta: "What’s wrong with that? Wallpaper Engine is only a framework.
Wallpaper Engine's developers don't have much issue with the app being used this way. No explicit content is directly visible outside of the app, but you don't have to spend long browsing the Workshop before stumbling across some strategically cropped images of sexual content, much of which bears labels written in Chinese. NSFW 18+ Over 400 Wallpapers (Wallpaper Engine) The title is kinda misleading, as theres a bit less than two hundred wallpapers. While the Steam Workshop typically restricts adult content - you won't find nude mods for Skyrim there, for example - there are apparently no such restrictions for Wallpaper Engine. Users in China can access Steam with minimal workarounds, which means that Wallpaper Engine serves as a convenient way to access porn.
Yet Steam "has become one of the only platforms in China where it’s sort of operating in the gray area," Asian games market Daniel Ahmad says in the report.
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