“The Internet is for Porn” as the Avenue Q song goes, which appears to be holding true in the unique case of Wallpaper Engine, a program on Steam that lets users create, distribute, and use unique and oftentimes animated PC wallpapers with images of varying kinds, like landscapes, memes, and yes, pornography. With that in mind, it probably comes as no surprise that the program is among the top 10 most played games on Steam, but the specifics for that rise in popularity might be: Chinese players are using it to get around the country’s pornography ban.
According to Daniel Ahmad, a UK-based senior gaming analyst at Niko Partners, Steam operates under a “gray area,” avoiding the vast majority of distribution platform crackdowns in the country and allowing users access to it without a VPN, while access to pornographic websites has been severely limited by the country’s government. As a result, Chinese players are using Wallpaper Engine as a means to circumvent laws and get their pornographic fix, with an estimated 40% of users of the program being Chinese, while about 7.5% of the wallpapers available through the program are flagged as mature.
Incidentally, some of the most popular wallpapers of this kind feature characters from Final Fantasy, Overwatch, and Genshin Impact. So technically speaking, this is now an MMO news story. You’re welcome.
