Steam Delay Spawns Free Apology Game Where You Spank the Developer

A Creative Response to a Frustrating Wait

Steam’s content moderation process has held up plenty of games over the years, but few developers have responded to the delay quite like the studio behind “Spanking Exorcist.” As reported by PC Gamer, the developer released a free “apology game” while waiting for their main title to clear the platform’s content review. The premise is exactly what it sounds like: you, the player, get to spank the developer as punishment for the inconvenience.

The studio accompanied the release with a statement that leaned fully into the bit. “We would be delighted if you enjoy it,” they said, according to PC Gamer. It is a sentence that somehow makes complete sense in context.

What We Know About the Delay

According to PC Gamer, the holdup stems from Steam content moderation, which has become a well-documented friction point for developers working in niche or provocative genres. “Spanking Exorcist” is, as the title implies, not exactly aiming for a general audience, and navigating Valve’s review process for that kind of content can stretch from days into weeks or longer.

Rather than sit quietly and post a text update on the game’s store page, the developer chose to ship something. The apology game is free, lightweight, and self-deprecating in the most literal possible way. It exists specifically because the team felt bad about the wait and wanted to give their audience something to do in the meantime, even if that something involves virtual corporal punishment directed at themselves.

The Broader Tradition of Developer Self-Awareness

There is a small but proud lineage of developers who have turned their own misfortune into content. Free jam games, “sorry for the delay” bundles, and tongue-in-cheek patch notes have all become part of how smaller studios maintain goodwill with their communities when things go sideways. This particular approach, packaging the apology as an interactive experience that directly features the developers as targets, is a sharper version of that instinct.

It also reflects something specific about the audience that follows games like “Spanking Exorcist” in the first place. These are not players who stumbled onto the store page by accident. They are there on purpose, they have a sense of humor about the subject matter, and they appreciate when a developer meets them at that level rather than retreating into corporate-speak about “unforeseen circumstances.”

Steam’s content moderation has drawn ongoing criticism from developers who argue that the rules around adult and provocative content are applied inconsistently. Some games sail through without issue while others with comparable content get flagged, delayed, or rejected outright. The “Spanking Exorcist” situation, at least as PC Gamer describes it, appears to fall into the prolonged review category rather than an outright ban, which means the main game is presumably still on its way to release.

In the meantime, the apology game is out there, free, and doing exactly what it was designed to do: keep the community engaged while the actual product finishes its journey through Valve’s pipeline. Whether the main game ultimately lands on Steam or not, the studio has at least guaranteed that people will remember how they handled the wait.