France Seizes Arcom, Valve Remains Silent

The Plantation Simulator game remains on Steam despite the platform’s rules. France seizes Arcom while Valve has still not reacted.

A video game published on May 12, 2026 on Steam by an independent developer presenting itself as the “creator of humanity’s worst games” sparked a lively controversy. Baptized Plantation Simulatorit places the player in the shoes of a slave plantation owner and offers game mechanics centered on racist violence. Ten days after it was put online, Valve has still not reacted. France has decided to act.

Valve in silence, despite clear rules

However, Steam’s official policy explicitly states that it prohibits content “patently offensive or designed to shock” as well as hate speech. The game in question seems to correspond point by point to these criteria, as noted My citywhich notes that Valve did not respond to any media requests. The developer himself, FzzyBzzy, expressed surprise at X for getting approval from Steam, writing: “I’m surprisingly surprised it was approved. Where is the limit? ».

This is not the first time that Steam moderation has been called into question. Developers have regularly denounced Valve’s inability to act against racist, homophobic or anti-Semitic opinions published on their pages, even when they explicitly request it. People Make Games’ investigation in 2023 revealed that Valve founder Gabe Newell is notoriously libertarian on free speech issues. A position which translates concretely into moderation to the legal minimum.

France seizes Arcom

The Minister Delegate in charge of Digital, Anne Le Hénanff, announced on X that she had contacted Arcom and made a report on the Pharos platform: “No platform is above the law. When such vile content advocates slavery and racist violence, there is no ambiguity: we denounce, we report and we immediately refer the matter to the competent authorities.”. The referral to Arcom comes on the same day that France celebrates the 25th anniversary of the law recognizing trafficking and slavery as crimes against humanity.

The main difficulty is that Steam is an American platform, which complicates the application of French law. Arcom nevertheless has regulatory levers to require the removal of illegal content on national territory.

The troll update and its cynical consequences

The developer has since released an update replacing the game’s characters, now women in bikinis, and replacing the whip mechanic with an animation of hearts. The accompanying text, published in a deliberately offbeat tone, presents these changes as “corrections” requested by the community. The game’s description has been completely rewritten to remove any references to the original racist content.

We’re just gonna let the trailer speak for itself UwU pic.twitter.com/NZmjq16lyf

— FzzyBzzy (@FzzyBzzy) May 22, 2026

The effect was immediate and revealing: the positive opinions of racist users, who had praised the original content, gave way to negative opinions ironically complaining of a “lack of diversity » and a “removal of representation of black people”comments that betray their own cynicism. The update did not lead Valve to take further action.

As of this writing, the game’s availability on Steam remains uncertain and may have changed since then.