A controversial video game where players must commit sexual assault on female characters in order to progress has been removed from a popular gaming platform.
The Rape Day game was listed on the Steam Store, advertising gameplay that involved "violence, sexual assault, non-consensual sex, obscene language, necrophilia, and incest".
It prompted a major outcry, with an online petition calling for the game to be banned receiving more than 3,000 signatures.
Valve has a notoriously lax approach to policing content on the Steam Store, however buckled to public pressure by removing the game from its listings.
"After significant fact-finding and discussion, we think Rape Day poses unknown costs and risks and therefore won't be on Steam," the company wrote in a blog post.
"We respect developers' desire to express themselves, and the purpose of Steam is to help developers find an audience, but this developer has chosen content matter and a way of representing it that makes it very difficult for us to help them do that."
It is not the first time Valve has responded to public pressure by removing a game. Last year a video game billed as a "school shooting simulation" was pulled from the Steam Store after an online petition attracted more than 200,000 signatures.
Following the game's removal, Valve released a statement outlining its position on moderating its platform, saying that it would only ban content that is illegal or "straight up trolling".
The developer of Rape Day, Desk Plant, claims the video game is a "dark comedy" that seeks to normalise rape in the same way that "murder has been normalised in fiction".
In anticipation of the game being removed from the Steam Store, Desk Plant wrote a post on its website pledging to find new ways of distributing the game.
"First step is setting up sale for the game somewhere else," the developer wrote.
"The next step is reaching out to other quality developers whose game(s) were banned, which include pornographic content and nothing illegal, to organise a niche site where you can purchase porn games that are too morally reprehensible for Steam.
"This will take a little time, for example finding the right payment processor for such a project. But don’t worry… it will happen."
