this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2025
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Another prime example of why Steam has an absolute Monopoly on the market.
A single distributor should not have that kind of influence over game development
This kind of game becoming successful would have been impossible before Steam. In the old days the brick-and-mortar stores would refuse to stock any game that was even remotely controversial in content or age rating. Steam has been hands-off regarding what they allow outside of things that are illegal (or, recently, that their payment processors disapprove of - if you want to talk about influential monopolies that shouldn't exist...).
San Andreas and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion were even pulled off of store shelves temporarily due to their age ratings being adjusted. Places like Walmart are a hundred times worse gatekeepers than Valve has proven to be.
Either you're too young to have experienced "the old days" or you live in a very conservative area.
There was absolutely a mature section for nearly every store I went to, they either had sleeves to cover the games with printed/handwritten titles, or were collected and kept in their own area that was in view of an employee to tell kids to stay away.
Oh, you meant department stores, not actual local game stores.