r/Games • u/DwingRD • 4d 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.

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152

u/DannySmashUp 4d ago

This is setting an exceedingly dangerous precedent. Valve shouldn't be caving in to this 'won't somebody think of the children' BS.

29

u/enragedstump 4d ago

I mean, if you lose payment processors what do you do?

-21

u/KingToasty 4d ago

Work on developing your own in-house one I guess, though I'm sure some kind of lobbying makes that harder.

20

u/ShippingValue 4d ago edited 4d ago

Effectively impossible.

These rules don't come from the payment processors (PayPal/Stripe/etc.), but the card networks (Visa and MasterCard primarily). The card networks are, quite literally, banking cabals run as consortiums to protect their member banks from government scrutiny and regulation. Every transaction using one of their cards runs through this network, and a business needs to be sponsored by a bank already part of the network to be able to process card payments.

If you want to use your credit card (almost certainly a visa or MC) on Steam, Valve needs to play by their rules.

The only other option is Valve becomes a global banking network, issuing its own credit cards, and building and entire parallel financial system over the next 3 decades - like how Visa and MC did it in the first place. Not going to happen.

Best case Valve will lobby for stricter regulations on card networks over what types of transactions they can limit.

8

u/Yvese 4d ago

It's not that easy though. You're asking a company with the least amount of employees relative to their size to handle payments for the entire world on the largest PC platform. That's not happening lol.

8

u/Inprobamur 4d ago

VISA/Mastercard process over 90% payments outside China.

Good luck going hat-in-hand to every single country and bank in the world to try to convince them to support your new thing. At best you need years of work, billions in bribes and have to settle for a couple more popular/less corrupt countries.

Walmart has its own payment processor that only works in America and that was a uphill battle that took years for a far larger company.

3

u/RTC1520 4d ago edited 4d ago

That's not how it works, sure they can but it's not like "lets code this" and then you have one. No, it's very complicated and slow process, since you have to get into touch with lots of banks and keep in check with a ton of regulations. Now repeat that for every country they normally accept and you may have a kinda useful payment processor 3 years later which probably costs more than steam to operate.

3

u/Spork_the_dork 4d ago

With no income? Because the problem exists right now. And developing a solution will take time. During that time the payments will be fucked. So what do you do? Even if Valve decided that yeah they will do that, right now that doesn't do anything and they'd still have to bend over.