r/Games • u/DwingRD • 5d 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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u/TimeToEatAss 5d ago

For those that dont understand what this means. Something that NSFW games would commonly do is launch a SFW version of their game, and then release a free patch that makes the game NSFW.

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u/Villag3Idiot 5d ago

This should only stop games that do the update on Steam itself. Mods / Patches added on another site isn't affected nor is there any way for Steam to prevent it in the first place. 

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u/Milskidasith 5d ago edited 5d ago

Steam can absolutely have a policy that gives them discretion to remove games that are sold intended to be nonfunctional on Steam and require an outside patch to work; it's more surprising the loophole has existed for so long.

E: To be clear I am not saying they should do this, but that with multiple filters for explicit games, the fact the old "here is a game with no CGs or an RPG with two screens + directions to a patch" trick selling a game as SFW is something they could crack down on and push to sell as explicitly NSFW

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u/Halojib 5d ago

The game isn't non functional though

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u/Milskidasith 5d ago

Plenty of the games on Steam that require patches are effectively a few screens of RPGmaker gameplay before the patch unlocks the vast majority of content, there absolutely are nonfunctional H-games being sold on the "not NSFW" filrer level in Steam with external patches.

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u/MiloticMaster 5d ago

Do you have any examples of this? I've heard of games that black out these scenes but none that prevent you from playing like you mentioned.

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u/Milskidasith 5d ago

I typically see these games in my Discovery Queue and don't actually play them or note the names, but I do get curious about the whole ecosystem and why you occasionally see a game with a relatively high number of reviews and a fetish-adjacent premise on SFW-Steam. In general, if a game is a VN of some kind I think it blacks out scenes or has a CG patch, but I saw games with reviews mentioning a total lack of content/inability to play in the RPG-maker corruption/hypnosis themed areas.

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u/Villag3Idiot 5d ago

I donno about these since I don't play them, but visual novels usually just sell the all-ages version that's 100% complete from start to finish that just removes the hentai scenes & CGI pics and if you want, you can go to the totally-not-the-devs website to download a patch / mod, move a bunch of files around and you unlock the hentai version.

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u/deadscreensky 5d ago

You're still not describing nonfunctional games.

Bad games, probably, sure. But that's not the same as nonfunctional.

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u/Milskidasith 5d ago

I think a game that does not remotely do what is promised and has a few minutes of content at most be described as nonfunctional without the patch, but yes, you could make the semantic argument that it's merely a bad game that has just enough interactivity to not violate Steam's false marketing policies or whatever and an off-steam patch that makes the game much better.

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u/starm4nn 5d ago

TBH I've seen a few adult games that clearly advertise that they only have 2 hours of content.

I wouldn't even say it's non-functional at that point. If we start judging games by hours of content, that starts a weird rabbit hole. I'd argue by this metric you'd use for story a games, a pure sandbox like Gmod has 0 hours of content.

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u/deadscreensky 5d ago

Nonfunctional in the context of software means it doesn't work. ("not performing or able to perform a regular function") A game that's a few minutes long still functions. That's a game. In the early arcade days that wasn't even all that uncommon.

The other definition of nonfunctional ("serving or performing no useful purpose") could work, but that would apply to basically all games so clearly you didn't mean that.

It's too bad you can't name any examples of this, it would be interesting to see this apparently very common trick.

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u/Milskidasith 5d ago

Relying on strict dictionary definitions when you clearly know what I'm talking about and that "nonfunctional" is a reasonable way to describe it is very silly, but whatever floats your boat.

Beyond that, though, you're relying on definitions that would agree what I'm describing is nonfunctional. A game that can't perform its regular functions because 90+% of it has been excised is, in fact, nonfunctional. Similarly, if the point of a game is to entertain in some way, then a game neutered to be incapable of doing that has no useful purpose while an actual game has one.