‘It is scary, humiliating, and patronizing:’ Santa Ragione facing closure after Horses banned from Steam
Italian indie studio Santa Ragione is facing closure after its upcoming horror title, Horses, was refused entry onto Steam.
The studio will launch Horses on December 2, 2025, on the Epic Games Store, GOG, Itch.io, and Humble Store for $4.99—but will be unable to distribute the title on Steam after platform operator Valve claimed it features “themes, imagery, or descriptions” that it will not publish.
Santa Ragione has set aside funds to support Horses for six months post-launch, but will likely wind down operations afterwards unless the title recoups its development costs. It feels that scenario is unlikely “without access to more than 75 percent of the PC gaming market.”
“Steam’s refusal removed our primary path to reach players on PC, with no way to appeal and no clear path to compliance, as detailed in our FAQ,” reads a press release issued by the studio.
“Steam has also stopped granting developer keys to indies that do not meet undisclosed sales thresholds, limiting third-party sales and retroactively affecting our catalogue. In a de facto monopoly, opaque decisions like these can quickly determine a small studio’s survival.”
Horses is billed as an “enigmatic first person horror adventure that blurs the line between reality and the darkest corners of your imagination.” The surreal title allows players to mount and ride naked humans on a farm where they must complete strange and unsettling tasks.
“Lawful works should not be made unreachable”
Santa Ragione has been upfront about the adult themes depicted within Horses (as evidenced by the extensive content warning on the Horses website), but said it wants to produce experiences that challenge players.
“Horses uses grotesque, subversive imagery to confront power, faith, and violence. We reject subjective obscenity standards and believe this kind of moralizing censorship evokes a darker past in which vague notions of ‘decency’ were used to silence artists. Games are an artistic medium and lawful works for adults should remain accessible,” explained the studio.
“We respect players enough to present the game as intended and to let adults choose what to play; lawful works should not be made unreachable by a monopolistic storefront’s opaque decisions. Steam publicly downplays human curation in favor of algorithmic sales optimization, yet intervenes with censorship when a game’s artistic vision does not align with what the platform owners considers acceptable art. Steam’s behavior passively shapes which titles developers feel safe creating, pushing preemptive censorship.”
Notably, Santa Ragione said Horses was denied entry onto Steam before payment processors reportedly began imposing adult content restrictions onto video game storefronts. The studio said Valve rejected the title back in 2023—when it was still in a rough, incomplete state—but failed to provide a detailed explanation as to why it had been blacklisted.
“After review, we will not be able to ship your game Horses on Steam. While we strive to ship most titles submitted to us, we found that this title features themes, imagery, or descriptions that we won’t distribute,” reads the automated review text sent to Santa Ragione by Valve in 2023.
“Regardless of a developer’s intentions with their product, we will not distribute content that appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor. While every product submitted is unique, if your product features this representation—even in a subtle way that could be defined as a ‘grey area’—it will be rejected by Steam.”
Santa Ragione said the full explanation didn’t cite any specific scenes or elements of the game that could perhaps be tweaked, despite the studio offering to change any content deemed unfit. It also stated that Horses has not been altered at the request of other platform holders. “The version releasing soon is the game as we intended,” confirmed the studio.
Santa Ragione says the ban feels like a “policy decision” as opposed to a legal one and emphasized that Horses doesn’t depict any characters that could be mistaken for children or minors. The studio feels Valve—which it said “informally expressed concern” about some of the game’s live action intermissions before the automated Steam review had concluded—may have flagged the title because of an unfinished scene in an early build.
“We think the ban may have been triggered during the initial Steam submission by an incomplete scene on day six, in which a man and his young daughter visit the farm. The daughter wants to ride one of the horses (in the game the ‘horses’ are humans wearing a horse mask) and gets to pick which one,” said the studio.
“What followed was an interactive dialogue sequence where the player is leading, by a lead as if they were a horse, a naked adult woman with a young girl on her shoulders. The scene is not sexual in any way, but it is possible that the juxtaposition is what triggered the flag. We have since changed the character in the scene to be a twenty-something woman, both to avoid the juxtaposition and more importantly because the dialogue delivered in that scene, which deals with the societal structure in the world of Horses, works much better when delivered by an older character.”
Of course, that remains speculation on the studio’s part, because Valve has purportedly failed to explain precisely which elements of Horses it deemed inappropriate. That, for Santa Ragione, is the core of the issue.
“We believe Steam intentionally keeps its policy opaque so it does not have to stand by clear rules and can adjust decisions to whatever best serves the platform at a given moment,” added the studio. “That might be acceptable in a truly competitive market, but Steam is a de facto monopoly, and arbitrary, unpredictable decisions can jeopardize the survival of developers and studios. We also believe they chose this particularly loaded and generic accusation because it is difficult to contest publicly.”
“We were treated without the professional respect the situation required”
Santa Ragione invested around $100,000 into the development of Horses, roughly half of which was donated by friends of the studio. It now feels that, without access to Steam, recouping that investment will be impossible—leaving it facing the very real risk of closure.
Discussing how the situation has impacted the team, Santa Ragione co-founder Pietro Righi Riva told Game Developer the past two years have been “profoundly disheartening.”
“The team and I have been extremely frustrated, knowing not only that we did our best to revert this decision, but also that we offered to comply with any request or regulation, and still we were treated without the professional respect the situation required,” he said.
“It is scary, humiliating, and patronizing to be told ‘no, just because’ by entities that hold absolute power over your financial stability. I think I personally feel what we described in the press release when we say this kind of approach pushes creators toward self censorship. Not having clear boundaries about what I am allowed to create and publish is depressing, and the opposite of an environment that enables and encourages creativity.”
Riva added that he feels “tricked and betrayed” by Valve, which he said has received a substantial portion of Santa Ragione’s earnings over the 14 years it has been conducting business on Steam.
“I mistakenly thought that had bought us a certain level of professional courtesy that would allow us to solve any kind of issue. That belief gave me a false sense of security, a sense that the publishing process was at least somewhat predictable. It is hard not to see malice when rules are kept purposely obscure while at the same time there is insistence that their curation is automatic and ‘democratic’ because humans are not allowed in the process,” he continued.
“I [also] feel very bad for the author, Andrea Lucco Borlera, because he is obviously the one with the deepest emotional connection to the work. I was very worried about him when I first had to break the news that the game would not release on Steam. Imagine being told that the work you have spent years of your life on is not going to be published, without a reason, and there is nothing you can do.”
Riva said the entire team has been under “immense stress” after repeatedly trying and failing to appeal the ban. He is also worried that openly criticising Valve could place the development team in the firing line.
“I think it is very important that we have this conversation, but I know this opens up the team to additional scrutiny and criticism, both in general for openly criticising Valve, and specifically because Steam’s allegations are so broad and severe. It is something that has literally kept me up at night on many occasions,” he continued.
“In the end I think [the team is] relieved that we managed to complete and release the game. Had we canceled it when we got banned, it would have been much worse. Of course everyone is sad that this is very likely going to be our last game together as Santa Ragione, but it is at least a consolation that it’s going to be such a strange and hopefully memorable title.”
Game Developer has reached out to Valve for comment.
