An American video game company has been slammed for exposing millions of young people to pornographic content.
The Valve Corporation, worth an estimated $3 billion, operates a mainstream website called Steam that allows users to download PC games. Some of the available games have “predatory” sexual content – with no requirement for users to prove their age.
Steam has released controversial games such as ‘Porno Studio Tycoon’ and ‘House Party’ that allow users to simulate sex on screen.
‘More robust policy’
Another game, called ‘England Exchange’ involves players ‘having sex’ during a study trip abroad.
The National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) has called for the games to be removed and for Steam to “install and enforce a more robust policy against selling games that normalize or glamorize sexual exploitation”.
Dawn Hawkins, Executive Director of the NCOSE, said: “Sexual exploitation is not a game.”
35 million
Hawkins said that the games “are easily available to an estimated 35 million children” who use the website.
She went on to highlight that under 18s can access the games solely by using a credit card and do not need to reveal their date of birth.
“These games are in direct violation of Steam’s own policies against pornographic or patently offensive content”, Hawkins added.
Damaging
Earlier this year, research revealed that viewing pornography damages the ability of men to relate to women.
In March, a meta-analysis published in the Human Communication Research journal found that pornography consumption was linked to significantly lower “relational satisfaction” among male viewers. The research included more than 50,000 participants from ten countries.
At the time, Hawkins said pornography “rewires an individual’s sexuality to pixels on a screen rather than to a real person, which is inherently inconsistent with healthy, organic relationships”.
“A wide body of research is bringing attention to the various ways pornography negatively impacts both women and men, and this latest meta-analysis contributes important findings to that ongoing dialogue”, she added.