UPDATE: We've begun PHASE 2 of our initiative—OPERATION: Email Newell! Check out this post for details on the plan!

What’s our goal?

Although the title features some graphic and suggestive content, it is no more prevalent than in any other title in the Science Adventure series. In fact, all other translated titles in the series have made it to Steam without issue.

We believe this ban to have originated from Valve’s notoriously inconsistent standards when it comes to the release of anime-styled content on Steam—check out this excellent article on the topic for a great breakdown.

Furthermore, Chaos;Head NoAH is already expected to release on October 7, 2022 on the Nintendo Switch; it has already passed the ESRB and PEGI rating boards with M for Mature and 18+ ratings respectively. This means that the game will be sold at official retailers, including GameStop, Target, and Wal-Mart! And yet, Valve has chosen to be the sole outlier refusing to accept the game for commercial release.

This is to say nothing of the fact that many other games on Steam contain the same sort of content, yet make it onto Steam scot-free, whereas visual novels that are more tame are rejected by Valve with no hope of resubmission. NoAH is only the latest victim in a long line of unfair visual novel bans, though certainly the highest-profile case to date.

So, what exactly happened?

On September 30, 2022, publisher Spike Chunsoft announced their cancellation of the Steam release of Chaos;Head NoAH. In their post, SC cited Steam guideline-required changes as an obstacle to the release, and explained that they would not be making the requested changes, reasoning that their implementation would “not allow the game to be released to its standards.”

This announcement confirmed credible rumors suggesting that Valve had blocked the release during its review process. As previously mentioned, Valve is notorious for having unfairly and unduly blocked numerous anime-themed games from its platform, due to their inconsistent enforcement and ill-defined standards.

Will this campaign work?

We're no strangers to this process. In 2018, we campaigned publisher Spike Chunsoft for an official localization of Robotics;Notes Elite, another title in the SciADV series.

Thanks to overwhelming community support, this campaign was a wild success, and led to official localizations of both Robotics;Notes Elite and its sequel, Robotics;Notes DaSH.

The barriers this time are higher, we’ll concede. It’s not going to be easy to change things, but know that we’re not taking this lying down. This is Valve’s highest-profile game ban to date, and we plan to capitalize on that by not letting up the pressure. This will be a multi-phased campaign; with your help, we plan on utilizing multiple different methods of getting Valve's attention.

And notably, we’re not alone: already, large outlets like Ars Technica, Crunchyroll, and ComicBook.com have picked up on this story. So long as we keep pushing, we feel confident that Valve will see the need to reevaluate and respond to our cries.

United, we are far more powerful than we are divided. Let’s show the relevant parties that we won’t give in until justice is had.

What’s next?

Because this is a multi-step campaign, this petition is far from our only path forward. Stay tuned and follow our Twitter page for updates as we reveal new ways to get involved and help make a change.

Prominent fan translation group Committee of Zero has also kicked off related hashtags that are gaining quite a bit of traction. Be sure to Tweet out to your followers with #SaveChaosHead and #SaveSciADV to help get the word out!

And if you’d like to chat with your fellow campaigners, check out our public Discord server. Therein, you can discuss the campaign, Chaos;Head NoAH, and much, much more. We’re excited to have you join us!