The games become abandonware when they are no longer commercially distributed so they will be free.

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I love technical article on Linux. I understand maybe half the words used, but I still get the feeling of the unstoppable march of progress.

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Now I see your point. Your disputing that the scene is problematic. I dont want to reactivate anyone trauma so discussion of the scene is under spoiler.

Spoiler, click me

I think that sexualisation of minor is so abhorrent that even a hint is not acceptable. And a child riding a naked adult is a not very subtle hint. Riding someone naked have sexual undertone all over the world.

The scene had no artistic value according to the faq, so the devs removed it as it was detrimental to their narration and it cause their game to be rejected by steam (it is only implicit in the faq so you may dispute the causality there). And now they are capitalizing on their wrongdoing for marketing.

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Then let's agree to disagree.
I am talking of the scene that have caused Horses to be rejected by steam and was then removed. Your sentence

and never contained any scenes where a child was shown in connection with anything sexual.

is incorrect according to Horses faq.

I may be biased due to the cultural context. France went from very tolerant to mixing sexuality with minor to extremely hostile in the last few years due to a storm of chocking revelations and high-profile cases. There was way worse than Antichrist dating from 2009. The opinion have shifted sharply and a film with a similar scene would struggle to be projected at Cannes in 2026. I have read a ton of testimony of survivors of abuse that were published in the press, so the subject become touchy for me.

The points that I tried to pass, maybe badly as I'am not a native English speaker was that the rejection of the game that was sent to steam is unsurprising considering steam rule which are, in my mind, very relaxed.
The debate did go on should steam rules be even more relaxed. But the debate I expected is whether Steam should provide a second chance with its selection process. And I think that it should not in such a case. If they really wanted to ship the scene, they should have followed steam rules and provided a patch like most Japanese eroge.

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A horror movie with the same scene that got the game rejected by steam would have caused its authors to be sent to jail, though.

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Maybe I'm over-reacting, but I struggle to see the devs as the good party there. I don't think Steam and Epic are at fault for rejecting their game. But I am very against anything related closer or further with the sexualization of children. So that makes me strongly biased against the devs there. And I do not like the complacency of the specialized press with them, siding with the small against the big makes for a better narrative, sure. But the small just made the mistake there.
I know, they have removed the scene, I am just not inclined for forgiveness in such case.
And I am not for censorship either, even if I do feel that Steam could have stronger curation, but I don't want Steam to become DLSite through.

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If I understand the situation correctly, their game got rejected not because it was disturbing (that is non issue for Steam) but because of illegal content.
Either it is in good faith, and they should apologize, either it is a marketing stunt and the press, GoL included, should not play along uncritically, [edit: no offence intended. I don't want to be rude, of course Liam is king on how is media is run].

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So my source was the faq then. Steam reject the game not because they were unwiling to distribute it. Steam bas a jokingly low bar of entry. But because they were not allowed to do it in most country ( all of them except Japan I guess). So the initial rejection is unsurprising.
The only point is the rejection of the appeal once the illegal scene was removed but I sympathise with Steam not allowing appeal in such case.

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My understanding is that the game was banned, at least by Steam, for depiction of children in a sexualized way that was then removed. The game designer dont have my sympaty for using such underhanded marketing technique and I stand by Steam if this is the situation.

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That's like 4 millions monthly active users. That's too low to make Linux a primary target, but hopefully too high to be dismissed.

And as the Steam Deck sold around 4 millions units and is at 1 million monthly active users, we can extrapolate to 16 millions total Steam Linux user base, which is bigger than Wii U.

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