The Super Seducer series has been having a hard time lately. The controversial series comes from professional pick-up artist Richard La Ruina, and acts as an interactive instruction manual for men to be successful with women. While the first two games in the series, both released in 2018, drew heavy criticism for the moral questions surrounding its premise, their releases were relatively uneventful (aside from a planned release on the Playstation 4 that was pulled shortly before release). The third game, initially set for release February 15th, has been plagued with issues.

The first sign of trouble was on February 3rd, during Steam's Game Festival promotion, where indie developers were allowed to release demos that would only be available for a limited time. Super Seducer 3's time was more limited than expected, however, as the demo was unceremoniously pulled only an hour after going up. Then, on February 11, Steam rejected the submitted build, citing the sexual imagery featuring live-action actors. (While plenty of explicit games can be found on Steam, they all feature animated characters rather than real people.) Since then, La Ruina has been censoring those scenes and resubmitting to Steam, before receiving a third and final rejection today, as Steam has totally banned the game from its storefront.

The game's future at this point is uncertain. La Ruina stated shortly before the ban that alternate storefronts (specifically, Epic Games Store and GOG) had rejected it, and that other methods were "not very attractive." Since the ban, however, he has stated he will have something ready for this week, and that the version he is aiming to release will be the original, fully uncensored version. The first two games were also expected to release on the Nintendo Switch in February of this year, with the third given a tentative date of late 2021, though that date came and went with no release, and only a brief mention from La Ruina that the release was still on track. He has also mentioned he may work on a similar branching path, FMV series focused on the horror genre, tentatively titled "Horror Seducer."

GBAtemp was lucky enough to receive a censored version of Super Seducer 3 for review prior to its initially projected release date. If you'd like to see exactly how bad the censored version (which has also been submitted to and rejected by Valve), you can read or watch our review here.

Steam have BANNED and removed Super Seducer 3 from the store. They will not allow it to be released in any form.

Our page is gone and 61,700 wish lists are gone.

Prior to this they told me expect either “approval or feedback”.
We repeatedly said we’d do whatever they needed pic.twitter.com/hVuDcvzL2n

— Richard La Ruina (@RichardGambler) March 20, 2021

 

[Julie_Pilgrim]

no real women! Only anime pussy

Based

 

[Jackson Ferrell]

Oh boy I can't wait to see what this world'll end up like in 50 years

 

[Noctosphere]

So you're against Steam banning a game (which is censorship in your mind, correct?), But all for a person being criminally punished for an opinion?

That's... Wow.

that's not an opinion... that's diffamation
it's totally different
And... did you really posted your very first comment in over 10 years and that's... that...?

 

[RedBlueGreen]

When is Steam going to start banning all the shovelware and outright scams they allow on their platform?

Never because Steam is a joke. They still allow broken games to be sold. This is why I want platforms like Origin and EGS to succeed. Say what you want about EA and Epic/Tencent, but at least their platforms aren't full of shovelware, scams, and broken games that don't launch, and I don't see them cherry picking what's acceptable because they're afraid of muh social justice. AFAIK there's not even any nudity in these games (I think there's a strip club scene, but without any real nudity), and if "real people" is why they don't want it, why the hell can people buy the Postal movie through Steam which has real nudity? I'm glad key resellers are a thing because for every good thing Valve does they have at least one stupid policy or action if not multiple. Not that I expect much from a company that still allows TF2 ans CSGO to crash if you click while the game is starting up or applying settings.

I don't even care about this game in particular, but the publisher should be allowed to sell the game there just like all the shovelware devs/publishers can.

 

[Xzi]

Say what you want about EA and Epic/Tencent, but at least their platforms aren't full of shovelware, scams, and broken games that don't launch, and I don't see them cherry picking what's acceptable because they're afraid of muh social justice.

The hell are you talking about? There's plenty of garbage on EGS, and they rejected the game even before Steam did. Plus EA is back on Steam now, so that's a moot point.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

The hell are you talking about? There's plenty of garbage on EGS, and they rejected the game even before Steam did. Plus EA is back on Steam now, so that's a moot point.

Maybe there is and I just don't come across it, but Steam is filled with crap like that which is also really easy to find.

My issue with Steam rejecting it is that they allow hentai and sell movies with nudity, but a dating sim with real actors is a no-no for some reason even when there's no actual nudity.

 

[HarveyHouston]

Sexual imagery? With live actors?!? Dear God, no wonder this game is being refused all over the place. Expect it to be offered for free on the dark web somewhere, as that's the only place it's really good for!

 

[Xzi]

Maybe there is and I just don't come across it, but Steam is filled with crap like that which is also really easy to find.

Also really easy to filter out. I own a LOT of games on Steam, and the only ones I'd truly deem garbage are some of those I got for free or in a bundle, and dead multiplayer-only titles.

My issue with Steam rejecting it is that they allow hentai and sell movies with nudity, but a dating sim with real actors is a no-no for some reason even when there's no actual nudity.

Do they still sell movies? I honestly can't find anything on the store about them now. The standard that Steam, GOG, EGS, and others seem to want to set here is that 2D/3D animated nudity = fine, live-action nudity = not fine. Part of me hates censorship of any kind, but another part of me is okay with keeping that particular floodgate closed. God knows the rest of the internet has no shortage of live-action nudity.

 

[anhminh]

I would rather have sim date game fueled by virgin fantasy than this. What kind of loser would play this?

 

[Xzi]

I would rather have sim date game fueled by virgin fantasy than this. What kind of loser would play this?

I think a small minority were taking it seriously, while everybody else was just finding some humor in it. Personally I'd say there's too much cheesiness/cringe to dig through to make it worth the effort.

 

[RedBlueGreen]

Do they still sell movies?

Yeah they still sell a few, mostly stuff based on games (like the Postal movie, which J got as part of a bundle a few months ago) or anime, but they have some stuff like Saw as well.

My understanding is this game has no nudity but there's a strip club scene that's fully clothed. If they said "no live action porn" and didn't sell stuff with live action nudity I wouldn't have a problem with it, but they do have content for sale with live action nudity. This is just them wanting to avoid criticism when the social justice crowd catches wind of it, but there was also backlash over stuff like Hunniepop and now games with anime nudity are allowed. There are plenty of more "damaging" games on Steam that had no issues getting published, but they're acting like this game is breaking rules that it isn't. I don't care about this game, but I want platforms to have consistent rules and be transparent (and ideally not reject stuff just that should be fine because virtue signaling jackasses will be upset because it's their target of the week).

 

[relauby]

Yeah they still sell a few, mostly stuff based on games (like the Postal movie, which J got as part of a bundle a few months ago) or anime, but they have some stuff like Saw as well.

My understanding is this game has no nudity but there's a strip club scene that's fully clothed. If they said "no live action porn" and didn't sell stuff with live action nudity I wouldn't have a problem with it, but they do have content for sale with live action nudity. This is just them wanting to avoid criticism when the social justice crowd catches wind of it, but there was also backlash over stuff like Hunniepop and now games with anime nudity are allowed. There are plenty of more "damaging" games on Steam that had no issues getting published, but they're acting like this game is breaking rules that it isn't. I don't care about this game, but I want platforms to have consistent rules and be transparent (and ideally not reject stuff just that should be fine because virtue signaling jackasses will be upset because it's their target of the week).

It’s a point that I should have emphasized stronger in the OP but yes, there’s absolutely no full nudity in the game. Many women are scantily clad, but nobody goes full on. La Ruina keeps comparing it to music videos or Instagram rules. Personally, I think it goes a little bit beyond what I’ve seen on that platform, but not by a lot.

I wanna say, too, that I don’t think Valve did this for some political reason. They’ve let other games that would enrage “SJW” types through before, like Hatred or that one where you play as Bolsonaro and beat up gay people. I legitimately think they wanted to enforce their no porn rule and haven’t had a game walk the line this fine before. They communicated in a stupid way, it shouldn’t have taken over a month and three submissions to reject the guy, but that’s pretty standard for Valve.

 

[eriol33]

I remember reading there were a lot of misogynistic games published in Japan during the early days of video game consoles. You can even raeped npcs. wtf people?

 

[hippy dave]

A platform is not the same as a publisher though. A publisher has more leeway as to what it does and does not allow to have. Platforms are supposed to be, for the most part, more open. Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and Tumblr, especially the former two ARE being very partial and in their censorship and banning of users that they personally consider to be "un-desirable" or "problematic" for their points of view. No, they did not ban just extreme right wing and what some would call "fashy" users, but also other people as well, mostly Republican and Libertarian-leaning users. Remember when Trump was being ""fact-Checked"" by Jack Dorsey and his yes-men of Twitter moderation? Yeah, because you should always trust Silicon Valley Admins and their right-hand men to be factual and impartial. NOT! Dorsey and that damn piece of trash Zuckerberg don't really care much, if at all about morals and facts in the long run. They have proven themselves to be control freaks under the guise of "security" and "safety". One's Free speech should not be regulated by private entities so stringently. At the same time, they do little, if anything, to people who share Child Porn aka "MAPS", as they like to address themselves.

Poor Donnie Trump. Was hoping to make it a bit longer without hearing his name again tbh.

 

[x65943]

I remember reading there were a lot of misogynistic games published in Japan during the early days of video game consoles. You can even raeped npcs. wtf people?

The ones I know about were not officially licensed so go figure

 

[DonCaballero]

Incels of the world UNITE!!!

 

[Julie_Pilgrim]

Sexual imagery? With live actors?!? Dear God, no wonder this game is being refused all over the place. Expect it to be offered for free on the dark web somewhere, as that's the only place it's really good for!

Oh, you sweet innocent child

 

[dAVID_]

How will I fulfill my fantasy of sexually harassing women now ??????

 

[Taleweaver]

Hmm... Guess it's back to learning how to date women in the proper way...

... By playing huniepop match 3 games.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

I can't say this surprises me at all. No matter how they censor it the plot of the game is morally questionable, and I can see why they don't want to be associated with that.

I guess they'll have to release on Humble Store, assuming Humble's terms are a bit more lax than Steam's (they should be as they are primarily there to facilitate indies being able to sell their games, indies for whom getting listed on Steam might not be viable)

Never because Steam is a joke. They still allow broken games to be sold. This is why I want platforms like Origin and EGS to succeed. Say what you want about EA and Epic/Tencent, but at least their platforms aren't full of shovelware, scams, and broken games that don't launch, and I don't see them cherry picking what's acceptable because they're afraid of muh social justice. AFAIK there's not even any nudity in these games (I think there's a strip club scene, but without any real nudity), and if "real people" is why they don't want it, why the hell can people buy the Postal movie through Steam which has real nudity? I'm glad key resellers are a thing because for every good thing Valve does they have at least one stupid policy or action if not multiple. Not that I expect much from a company that still allows TF2 ans CSGO to crash if you click while the game is starting up or applying settings.

I don't even care about this game in particular, but the publisher should be allowed to sell the game there just like all the shovelware devs/publishers can.

The reason for that is simpler than you may think. Games don't sell on EGS. Shovelware and asset flips/reskins wouldn't make any money. Every game that gets released on EGS is a result of Epic's bribes and obviously they won't pay money to have shovelware.