The developer studio behind Saturnalia and Wheels of Aurelia may soon close as Steam is refusing to publish its new game
For over two years now, reaching an agreement with Steam has been unsuccessful.
Horses
The co-founder of the Italian indie studio Santa Ragione, Pietro Righi Riva, detailed the issues in an interview with GamesIndustry.
Riva mentioned that back in June 2023, his team attempted to create a Steam page for Horses — an upcoming arthouse horror game set on a farm where naked people wear horse masks instead of real horses. According to the developer, Valve usually approves requests quickly, but in their case, the company remained silent for a long time and then demanded to see a full build of the game.
At that time, Riva recalls, Horses was only halfway done. So, the staff at Santa Ragione decided to pull several all-nighters in hopes that even a rough version with "a ton of placeholders" would persuade Valve to approve it. However, that didn’t happen. After another long pause, the studio received a rejection. Steam Support explained this by citing the presence of a "sexually explicit scene involving minors" in Horses, but didn’t specify where they saw such content in the game. Subsequently, Santa Ragione repeatedly attempted to contest the decision, but to no avail.
Riva suspects that Valve might have disapproved of a scene where a father and his young daughter visit the farm, and the girl decides to ride one of the "horses." According to the developers, the scene lacks any sexual undertones; nonetheless, over time, they replaced the girl with an older woman.
Ultimately, the absence of a Steam page for Horses negatively affected Santa Ragione's financial situation. As Riva admits, although several publishers showed interest in the game, they all backed out after learning about the issues with Steam. As a result, they failed to secure funds for further development.
Santa Ragione still intends to release Horses, but on different platforms — the game is set to launch on December 2 in the Epic Games Store, GOG, itch.io, and Humble. However, Riva fears that without Steam, the game may not perform well financially. According to his statement, Santa Ragione currently has enough resources to survive for another six months, after which the studio faces the threat of closure.