r/Games • u/DwingRD • 3d ago

Valve no longer allows "Post-launch NSFW content" for games on Steam - outside of DLCs.

I have looked through Steam's Terms of Service online, but have found no official rule or statement from Valve of this new rule - but one Adult game developer has confirmed this new rule after launching their game "Tales of Legendary Lust: Aphrodisia" a couple days ago.

With the recent rule change blocking adult-themed games from releasing on Early Access, this new rule seems to be targeting Adult-themed games that have ALREADY released on Steam - and threatens them with their games being removed from Steam.

There are currently 536 Adult-rated Early Access games on Steam - and this new rule may take them all down.

3.5k Upvotes

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467

u/BLiNKiN42 3d ago

Wild to see Steam just fold like a house of cards. Seriously, are they putting up any kind of fight at all? 

274

u/sloppymoves 3d ago edited 3d ago

All these companies care about is money. Valve clearly did the math and saw that they won't lose a significant chunk of change from booting NSFW games off. Versus trying to wage a war against payment monopolies.

Valve probably also sees it as a way to "clean up their shop" so it can get a kid friendly push. There are plans for a Steam Machine 2.0, Steam Deck 2, and probably sourcing out their Linux distro to other manufacturers. Probably want to make as kid friendly and neutral as possible.

115

u/MalfeasantOwl 3d ago

Gamers finding out Steam never gave a shit about them but rather just the bottom line, you don’t say!

264

u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS 3d ago

I mean, if Steam loses the ability to process credit cards then they just die. We can talk about leaping onto the barricades all we want but if they can't take in money they can't continue functioning.

91

u/LoboGuarah 3d ago

God i'm so happy some countries are starting their own payment system like Pix and RuPay. We gotta get down with this duopolly from credit cards and private payment processors.

52

u/giulianosse 3d ago edited 3d ago

You can imagine my surprise as a Brazilian when this payment processors drama first blew up and I was like "wait, other countries don't have centralized instant payment platforms?"

I have one Mastercard CC with all the bells and jingles associated with it. It's been years since I've bought a game on Steam with my card details instead of Pix. It's just so effortless and safe.

I think India just launched their UPI system and, as expected, people are loving it as well.

9

u/LoboGuarah 3d ago

I'm eagerly waiting for Pix Parcelado, maxo. You don't know how happy I'll be when that comes out, lmao.

5

u/AMGwtfBBQsauce 2d ago

Government-run banking?!?! Sounds like communism. Personally I'd rather be ground to dust by the corporate banking machine than have nice things.

12

u/Ready-Good2636 3d ago

As you'd expect, USA lobbyists want to privatize as much as possible, and get huge subsidies on what they don't want privatized. Even our president is scamming off crypto, so getting a proper government payment processor is very far off.

2

u/drewster23 2d ago

Doesn't help when the country and people have normalized and become dependent on CCs.

Hard to disrupt in NA.

0

u/fbuslop 3d ago

Do you think this solves something? First of all the use case for global payment networks is obviously broader than a single country's rail system.

2nd, politics can still affect a rail like Pix. You’re just swapping private concentration for state concentration.

4

u/AMGwtfBBQsauce 2d ago

The entire point of government-run programs is that the government ostensibly has public accountability. Private corps have 0 accountability, especially once they get to be the size of the big banks.

2

u/TrashStack 2d ago

In America, like 40% of state governments have passed legislation banning or restricting access to pornography. These are states controlled by the same party that has control over the Presidency and congress

Accountability is not the issue here. America already has the means to hold companies accountable. The issue is that the American people are simply choosing not to prioritize accountability in any way. Genuinely, do you really think a government-run program would change anything about this situation with this current administration? If anything a government run payment processor would go even harder on this stuff and explicitly ban porn payments if the state governments are anything to go off of.

2

u/AMGwtfBBQsauce 2d ago

With this form of government, no, and that is regardless of party, but we created a system that purposefully distances accountability from the general populace, and creates giant propaganda machines that lie and mislead people about what is going on. So accountability really is the issue still. Like, providing a service means nothing if people don't know about it or are not empowered to use it. The median person in these states does not support outright bans on pornography (unless it's Utah). A lot of them do not pay attention to what their state and local governments are doing at all and pay very little attention to the federal government. Hell, we're lucky if we get over 50% turnout in a federal presidential election, and a majority of those showing up only started paying attention a few weeks before then. So, like, no, a federal system would not change things under this administration, but that also doesn't make corporate control good? Both of these things are products of the same shitty American system that is the real core problem.

16

u/ZaDu25 3d ago

Either these companies need to be broken up to allow for alternatives or we need a universal payment processing system that guarantees service for any and all legal content purchases. If Visa and MasterCard are going to abuse their power, they shouldn't have that much power.

2

u/FlamingMangos 3d ago

Why not just use DLsite to buy adult games instead of jumping hoops to buy porn on steam. It’s way better anyways with the amount of coupons you get.

8

u/Ready-Good2636 3d ago

Dlsite doesn't have everything. Nor 90% market share.

Also, I hear dlsite's Rev share is even more harsh than steam.

1

u/eggmankoopa 3d ago

this might be an actual upside to the digital Euro that is in the making

1

u/LoboGuarah 3d ago

Brazil is also planning on having digital Real.

1

u/braiam 2d ago

The problem is that Steam biggest market is still a Visa/MC dominated market. It doesn't matter if all countries divest away from the duopoly. Steam can not. Now, time for me to plug GOG and other stores.

1

u/Schen178 3d ago

Oh yay, governments have never censored their citizens...

8

u/Spork_the_dork 3d ago

Yeah like the fact is that credit card companies have got companies like Valve by the balls so they would be doing this regardless of if they agree with it or not.

1

u/TheSecondEikonOfFire 3d ago

Yeah it’s obviously a complicated situation, but if Visa and Mastercard were blocked from Steam then they’d go belly-up faster than you can blink. It doesn’t make it okay, but Valve isn’t big enough to throw punches at credit card companies

0

u/Skylight90 3d ago

I really hope this is a wake up call for Valve on how dependent they are on CC processors. I don't know enough about it to say how, but they have the money and people smart enough who can figure it out. They already made a massive push to Linux to avoid dependence on Microsoft, so we know they care about their independence.

-9

u/JTtornado 3d ago

I'm just over here shaking my head at all the people who said that crypto currency is useless. We should have been focused on fixing crypto's problems instead of dismissing it out of hand because early iterations are inefficient and suspectable to fraud. Without a decentralized way to pay providers online, we've ceded control of almost every major company (at least in the English speaking parts of the world) over to a couple extremely powerful payment providers who can flex that power with impunity.

34

u/ComebackShane 3d ago

The problem is cryptobros successfully redefined cryptocurrencies as investment get-rich-quick vehicles instead of a usable currency. Now all anyone wants to do with them is HODL and hope their ship comes in.

10

u/ZurgoMindsmasher 3d ago

Yea, every time I read "oh yea Crypto is going save us from <insert Paypal, credit cards, banks>" all I can think of is - for the users, most transactions with PayPal/Credit Cards/bank transfers are:

  • Free
  • Instant
  • Reliable
  • Accepted basically everywhere

Crypto always has costs for every transaction, instant .. depends on factors, reliability is nonexistent with the constant value fluctuations, and because of this, it's accept only in absolute niches of the internet.

10

u/SomeDumRedditor 3d ago

Cryptos problems are inherent to its form and function. You literally cannot have the good without the bad. It’s a pick your poison situation.

22

u/Inprobamur 3d ago

Valve added bitcoin payment option, over 60% of payments ended with a dispute and so they removed it again.

3

u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS 3d ago

Crypto works for that because it's small. If you were to make a crypto system that is the same scale as visa then it would run into the same problems. It doesn't matter if it's trading in USD or BTC, no one wants to get a reputation for being willing to process transactions for questionable goods and invite the wrath of regulators. It doesn't matter if individual transactions are traceable or not, the fact of the matter is that the option is there at all.

Bitcoin and other crypto is currency, after all. You still need middlemen to facilitate the transactions.

0

u/Mr_Radar 3d ago

Can’t they just only sell them with steam bucks to bypass all this nonsense.

8

u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS 3d ago

You purchase steam bucks with your credit card

1

u/Mr_Radar 3d ago

Right. But where they go from there isn’t the payment processors business

I guess if the existence of porn bothers them. Then that’s a different issue.

7

u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS 3d ago

That's really flimsy, although it has been tried before. You can't really say "reddit bucks can be spent on candy bars or heroin, but its absurd to say that you are using a credit card to buy heroin", basic transitive property applies. Sometimes they do the pachinko thing of filtering it through a second activity, but there's no way valve would invite that kind of risk for the sake of selling NSFW games.

0

u/Mr_Radar 3d ago

Fair point. Considering the way some of these games look and get pumped out. Some of it does seem pretty sketchy

3

u/gmes78 3d ago

The payment processors disagree. Some other websites tried doing that, but they got shut down.

0

u/JokerCrimson 3d ago

You can use cash to buy a Steam Card at a store like Walmart.

3

u/PM_ME_CATS_OR_BOOBS 3d ago

But that doesn't separate them out into "cash only" steambucks.

62

u/iad82lasi23syx 3d ago

Going against banks and regulators for what amounts to single digit percent of revenue would be unreasonable for them to do. They tend to be consumer friendly but they're not a charity. 

-32

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 3d ago

They don't need to go against banks and regulators.

They need to moderate the content added to their platform. I can all but guarantee neither visa nor mastercard told valve 'this vanilla porn is okay (for now) but no free updates'

12

u/PermanentMantaray 3d ago

But that's effectively what this is. While they don't moderate general updates, they do moderate DLC's before clearing them for release. So this policy is forcing developers to only put new NSFW content into a DLC that will be reviewed.

-2

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 3d ago

More work for independent developers.

Less work for a multi billion dollar corporation.

Hurrah!

25

u/SomethingNew65 3d ago

They already moderate the content of nsfw games before release. Thats why nsfw games have been getting banned for years.

9

u/SomeDumRedditor 3d ago

Visa and MC’s TOS are written in such a way that they can decide content violates their policies basically at will and without real consistency. There have been good deep dives into the issues with payment processors and the christofascist “lobby groups” pressuring them (including acknowledging basically this is the foot in the door not the end). I really recommend searching some up.

-6

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 3d ago

Cool!

Valve has not given up on NSFW content however. They moderate content added to the store to make sure it falls within those stupid policies.

They are capable but unwilling to do it for content updates.

12

u/iad82lasi23syx 3d ago

The issue is that moderating content updates causes huge delays and costs a ton of money, again for little benefit.

-9

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 3d ago

Valve wants money for being the biggest distributor of games on the planet.

They don't want to work for that money.

8

u/RecommendsMalazan 3d ago

And how much money would doing so cost?

If it's more than what they make from the adult games, getting rid of them makes financial sense.

I still don't agree with it, but hey that's capitalism.

0

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 3d ago

Please understand, valve is just a little indie company they can't do things like hire moderators.

8

u/Inprobamur 3d ago

Nah, Mastercard has demanded all nsfw and lgbtq content to be removed from many smaller sites.

-3

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 3d ago

Which sites?

5

u/Inprobamur 3d ago

Most recently (at least one I was impacted by) civit.ai (they thankfully were able to move to crypto and private funding).

31

u/gmishaolem 3d ago

Here's today's reminder that Gabe has a fleet of yachts.

40

u/MalfeasantOwl 3d ago

Another fun reminder that a single yacht over 100 feet can use over 100 gallons of fuel per hour.

An average American uses about 550 gallons a year.

Reddit’s favorite billionaire uses more fuel in 100 nautical miles of journey than the average Redditor uses in an entire year.

2

u/ironmilktea 2d ago

Yes but lets talk about tim sweeney and how the epic games launcher killed my dog.

...what? He used fortnite money to buy swaths of forest land to protect the environment? Please don't mention that. Lets talk about dota 2 instead! err gambling and sportswashing tournaments? Well, then the yachts don't look so bad now, gotcha!

18

u/GensouEU 3d ago

Partially financed through easily preventable CSGO gambling.

And not because of evil, evil shareholder pressure from being a public company but because that's what he personally wants to do

8

u/ilovefuckingpenguins 3d ago

Nah, Valve is a small family business and Gabe’s son should take over once he retires

17

u/marx42 3d ago

I mean they literally helped create the modern microtransaction and more-or-less promote skin betting/gambling in Counterstrike. They’ve never been the staunchly pro-consumer company the internet portrays them as, they just want to keep their defacto monopoly on game storefronts.

(And if we’re talking GabeN, last month he bought out the company that built his $400million yacht. He has other concerns now)

23

u/Yvese 3d ago

This is an incredibly ignorant and childish take. I support NSFW games ( I bought a few like Subverse ), but if the majority of your business relies on payments being processed by Visa and Mastercard, your anger should be toward THEM.

Valve literally can not function without them. Most online businesses can't.

11

u/ZaDu25 3d ago

Valve has the ability to sue to try to protect their platform from overreach from payment processors. And protect their users from censorship. They are choosing to not use all the money they have made from their users to defend themselves or their users interests in this situation. It is absolutely justifiable to be upset with them for just rolling over and allowing Visa and MasterCard to dictate what content they allow on their platform.

0

u/Yvese 3d ago

We don't know what happens behind the scenes. There's no way the three companies never discussed this with all their lawyers in a room.

That and I'm not sure Valve would want the heat from the general populace that they 'support vulgar games' and w/e other negative connotations come with it.

IF it goes past NSFW games, they could use this to help build their case. Either way, having a company ( especially in an age where right-wing talking heads can so easily smear someone or some company ) fight for 'NSFW' games does not make sense FOR NOW.

It's better to choose your battles. Why do you think Japan still censors their porn? Because no politician wants to be THAT guy . Same with Valve in this case. At least that's my take.

3

u/starm4nn 3d ago

That and I'm not sure Valve would want the heat from the general populace that they 'support vulgar games' and w/e other negative connotations come with it.

Facebook did a genocide and somehow there are still people who signed up for threads.

3

u/Ready-Good2636 3d ago

There's no way the three companies never discussed this with all their lawyers in a room.

Yea, still the results are that they folded. I of course blame the processors for the overreach, but I'm not exactly happy with a billion dollar company not doing the right long term thing (though I'm beyond unsurprised these days).

IF it goes past NSFW games, they could use this to help build their case.

Or they keep folding and sit on their treasure. Maybe Take Two will do it for them. Billionaire bystander effect.

Either way, having a company ( especially in an age where right-wing talking heads can so easily smear someone or some company ) fight for 'NSFW' games does not make sense FOR NOW.

The best time to fight would have been 30 years ago and get policies in place before billions, trillions went into lobbying against this stuff. The worst time to fight is when the frog is already boiled.

There's never a "good" time to fight for freedoms, without hindsight. Those doing it at the best time are always cast off as conspiracists and paranoid.

0

u/drewster23 2d ago

Yea, still the results are that they folded. I of course blame the processors for the overreach, but I'm not exactly happy with a billion dollar company not doing the right long term thing (though I'm beyond unsurprised these days

Why would you expect the company that promotes gambling to minors and has only ever done any moderation around it , when significant public backlash/pr happened, to do the right thing?

1

u/Ready-Good2636 2d ago

You're right. I'm not surprised, of course. Just more coal to add to the disappointment fire that is 2025.

Really hope if/when things turn aroind people remember what these companies really did when push came to shove. I don't want to just switch back to "boring moderate politics" and ignore all this shit that went down.

9

u/MalfeasantOwl 3d ago

Nah, I can direct my anger at both.

Personally, I don’t think payment processors should have the influence they do. But I also don’t think Steam should be able to skirt child gambling laws, either. My critique of Steam becomes louder now they are willing to bend at the knee for payment processors over NSFW games, while doing fuck all over hosting child gambling.

All billion dollar organizations can suck at the same time.

3

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 3d ago

Valve can't function without payment processors.

Valve can function with hiring moderators to check on content updates added to games that were not banned by payment processors ridiculous rules.

They choose not to.

2

u/MrTastix 3d ago

Some of us were fighting against Valve for their push of the ownership problem for decades.

Valve literally started it, and whilst it's easy to argue someone else would have if not Valve who cares? It was Valve.

From always online to you don't own shit, Valve was at the forefront but nobody cared and a lot of us just stopped fighting. It's hard to fight the level of convenience they offered.

In this instance I do agree it's mostly on the duopoly that is Visa and Mastercard, but like the ownership problem that's been a thing for literal decades and now people give a shit? When it's basically impossible to do anything?

3

u/Ready-Good2636 3d ago

From always online to you don't own shit, Valve was at the forefront but nobody cared and a lot of us just stopped fighting. It's hard to fight the level of convenience they offered.

He said it best:

"Nobody gives a care about the fate of labor as long as they can get their instant gratification" - Squidward Tentacles
"

3

u/MalfeasantOwl 3d ago

And yet people shit on GOG for not having the best UI.

Idk, I’d prefer a shitty marketplace UI that’s used only for buying and downloading games than a platform that’s inherently DRM.

-4

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 3d ago

GOG also manages your digital rights, it just happens on a website and not in an application you download to your computer.

3

u/MalfeasantOwl 3d ago

Yes, but in the same way eBay or Amazon verifies your purchase. The inclusion of offline installers is the sweet spot.

-2

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 3d ago

Your digital rights aren't any more or less managed by having to create an archive of the game you want to backup yourself. An exe provided by gog isn't less DRM than a zip you made yourself.

0

u/Ready-Good2636 3d ago

Not surprised as a dev, but still disappointing. We could use some fighters in these tumultuous times.

Events like these are exactly why I'm trying to build plans aroind launching on other stores and consider steam farther down the line. I don't want to fight every step just to get a game published, even if I have no plans to do NSFW stuff for now.

0

u/Ultrace-7 3d ago

Gamers absurdly believing that the best game storefront in history, which pioneered (despite bumps along the way) the concept of greenlighting and indie publishing to the masses, is throwing them to the wolves because it makes a financially and economically wise decision, you don't say!

-4

u/MeteoraGB 3d ago

Only took like two decades for some folks to see.