I guess it depends on the game, extremely so. Two main factors I can think of: Whether or not the game has been picked up as an object of hate by the “anti-woke” content mill, as well as the average age of people who play the game.

Just for kicks I skimmed the BG3 forum and indeed there’s this recent post. Apparently unwanted exposure to Gale’s gayness can be solved by not interacting with Gale, who would have thought and that’s a perfectly valid solution for OP, but some users in the thread are clearly out for blood. Not getting terribly much resonance, though.

EDIT: Apparently OP has changed the “accepted answer” to one of the worst comments in the thread. SMH. Comments proceed to tell OP they’re confusing friendship scenes for romance ones.

And that’s like one thread in pages upon pages of threads. People predictably talk about general gameplay stuff (The Gale thread can actually be considered a gameplay question), mechanics, bugs, the usual.

Bonus: A thread on Musk wanting to buy Hasbro for D&D. Now there’s plenty of stuff D&D players have to say and criticise about Hasbro, them having clear language about the misogyny etc. in the first edition is not among it. Licensing terms are a thing which can get the community riled up, but the “backlash” against inclusivity is, as usual, manufactured, and from what I see the thread is mostly Musk bashing. Thinking of, Shaun recently published a video on the manufactured outrage around Stellar Blade.

Oh, the average age thing. Yeah don’t go to the LoL forums or whatever though without checking I expect them to be full of talk about the current meta. And people unironically using “gay” as an insult in <currentyear>, presumably because they’re too young to even know their sexual orientation.

Overall trying to portray steam like some kind of second kiwifarms falls flat on its face for a very simple reason: Even if (and I don’t think that’s the case) there would be no moderation at all, the majority of users on steam will be talking game mechanics, about bugs, because they’re there to play a game and the reason you find yourself interacting on those forums is because you have something to say, or ask, about the game. That kind of talk will always drown out the angry goblins.

I guess you wouldn’t see it as extremist, either, if you were one of the peeps getting fussy about a black woman in a video game…

“It’s okay that it’s a racist, sexist shithole full of threats of violence because I, personally have never seen that so it must not exist. Additionally, as I personally have never seen it, you must have a ridiculous view of what extremism might be… in spite of a US senate report that goes directly against my point.”

• you

For the people downvoting me: https://www.isdglobal.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/02-revised-gaming-report-steam.pdf

If you have Nazis in the place they just wait until they see someone expressing opinions that’s bordering on their side of the political fence and they initiate contact to try and comfort them in their thoughts.

How to radicalize a normie: https://youtu.be/P55t6eryY3g

The ADL still does for whatever reason

The ADL considers Pepe a hate symbol, which I agree with is daft but that’s kind of key to their data and they are considered experts in the field by most. They scanned Steam with some automated tool looking for hate symbol images, came up with like a million hate symbols detected. If something contained more than one detected hate symbol, it got counted as however many hate symbols the tool detected (so for example Pepe saluting a swastika would count as a Pepe and a swastika).

Almost 55% of those were Pepe. The next highest was the swastika at 9%. A literal majority of hate symbols they detected with that tool were Pepes, at more than 5 times the rate of the next most common symbol. It’s literally included to make the problem bigger in the hopes that most readers either won’t look that deep or won’t know what Pepe is.

EDIT: Another fun one is if you go look at their hate symbol index, about an eighth of two digit numbers are either hate symbols or part of a hate symbol.

Just because the creator doesn’t want it used as a hate symbol doesn’t automatically mean it isn’t used as one, and next to chan-level garbage is the grand total of where I’ve seen Pepe.

Or don’t. Rust is famously toxic, so why do that to yourself?

Valve also does business outside the US. American law doesn’t clear them of their legal obligations in other countries. And besides, legality and morality are not always the same. Providing a platform for hate speech is supporting hate speech, and as far as I’m concerned that’s unethical regardless of whether or not it’s legal.

You’re saying that calling for something to be done on one side (censorship) is manufacturing consent, well so is letting extremists spread their message that something needs to be done about white men oppression.