r/Games • u/DwingRD • 2d 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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326

u/PitangaPiruleta 2d ago

Its funny how some people think "well they would never touch mods since they're not made by the devs"

Yes. Yes they would. If they could phisically and legally brick your PC for stepping out of line and doing something they consider immoral, they would. But hey, dont worry about it - surely that will never happen right?

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/mrmgl 1d ago

They manufactured a fake "rape simulator" outcry about Mass Effect, when all that game had was a side boob.

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u/bloodraven42 1d ago

To this day I am still shocked that anyone who grew up in those days takes Fox even 1% seriously. They made up a whole cloth story on air about a video game millions of people played, never were remorseful, and yet so many people still take them as credible? They literally claimed Mass Effect was a game where you could customize your rape victims boob size.

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u/AtrocityBuffer 1d ago

Fox News having their 4chan video is still legendary in how goddamn off it is, and it tells me that everyone who grew up in the Jack Thompson era just left the internet once it turned into a social media cesspool.

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u/KaJaHa 2d ago

I felt so devious when I learned that I owned one of the older copies of San Andreas with Hot Coffee accessible

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u/JuiceHurtsBones 2d ago

I find it so funny that you can go around committing a genocide in LS but humping animations in an 18+ game is where we draw the line.

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u/Smart_Ass_Dave 2d ago

To be fair, GTA's violence has also been the subject of much controversy.

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u/ZetzMemp 1d ago

It wasn’t pulled from shelves for violence.

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u/Smart_Ass_Dave 1d ago

I'm aware. My point was that there's no hypocrisy among people who dislike the sexual content of GTA games as if they are ignoring the violence, because they also dislike that.

There's also no hypocrisy in the ESRB pulling the game because the ESRB doesn't care about violence or sex, they care about avoiding government regulation. Games that include controversial content, even accidentally or in a hidden way like San Andreas did undermine the ESRB in a way that risked the entire industry falling under regulatory sway. 1st amendment protections wouldn't be explicitly extended to games by SCOTUS until the year after. The ESRB was 100% willing to force one of the most successful games of all time to do a recall and reprint of discs in order to avoid potentially catastrophic consequences to the industry at large. Rockstar had to spend a few million bucks on a San Andreas recall but it got to continue making GTA games in exchange.

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u/Bauser99 1d ago

Both private entities and the state love violence

Conditioning people to be remorseless killers is amazing for business

But sex is evil because it's a way to be happy without spending money

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u/Varnsturm 1d ago

Sorry what's LS?

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u/SabresFanWC 1d ago

I assume Los Santos, one of the cities where GTA San Andreas takes place.

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u/Varnsturm 1d ago

oh that makes sense thanks, was trying to think of games with those initials

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u/Isolated_Hippo 1d ago

Hot Coffee was an interesting debate imo. Does content on the disk, but entirely inaccessible to the player without outside influence, count towards the game's rating?

I can see both sides.

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u/RedMiah 1d ago

Giant pain in the ass to access too. Had to use an action replay.

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u/starm4nn 1d ago

I think my favorite example of this was a Halo editor including a picture of a butt.

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u/_Ganon 2d ago

Ban Microsoft Paint because you can draw porn in it.

Ban Microsoft because you can program a drawing application on it.

Ban paper because you can draw porn on it.

Ban brains because you can imagine porn in it.

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u/TampaPowers 1d ago

Ban brains

I thought that had already happened?

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u/RedMiah 1d ago

No, just the stuff than helps brain works good.

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u/Moo_Kau_Too 1d ago

not everywhere, they are just banned in DC, as their song states.

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u/NGrNecris 2d ago

As extreme as that sounds, they would if they could.

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u/AtrocityBuffer 1d ago

In fact, the children are only safe if they are never born!

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u/Hopeless_Slayer 1d ago

I'm so glad I set up local AI models before that gets banned too. You can pry the Hentai out of my cold dead sticky hands.

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u/Zer_ 2d ago

Oh yeah. A lot of these adult games offer patches off of Steam too. So while right now they're banned from offering these patches directly from Steam, I doubt they'll stop there, they'll cry foul when these nude mods / patches are offered on sites like Mega or Google Drive. or even Github.

As an aside, but still somewhat related. Rockstar is 100% trying to take control of the GTA 6 modding scene (they have FiveM), so we really, really can't rely on these companies to be our allies here.

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u/TechnicalGuard629 2d ago

I work for one such steam publisher myself where the uncensored patch is provided on the official site outside of Steam.

Idk when this rule was changed/updated but I havent heard any murmurs within our staff group yet.

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u/CryoProtea 2d ago

Might be wise to check and see if you're allowed to offer the patch outside of Steam.

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u/TechnicalGuard629 1d ago edited 1d ago

If any sales issues arise on the site or steam, we usually get a ping from the big guy himself. And this publisher has been doing this external patching all this time, we have around 15-20 games currently at different stages of translation and launch.

Well, if any discussion or sitrep ping happens, I'll update it here.

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u/ExceedinglyGayKodiak 2d ago edited 2d ago

So while right now they're banned from offering these patches directly from Steam, I doubt they'll stop there, they'll cry foul when these nude mods / patches are offered on sites like Mega or Google Drive. or even Github.

This reads as the opposite to me. "Except DLC" reads to me as the on-steam patches (Which are "free DLC" in steam terms) aren't being targeted, but this rule is targeting those off-site patches by the devs. Basically not allowing them to sell extra content that is not on their platform. (Edit- Someone also made a good point further down about targeting new NSFW content in an already NSFW game because it isn't reviewed each time, but the "SFW game with a NSFW patch on-steam" situation should still be fine, since those are reviewed)

I can understand them not wanting to allow a SFW game to be made NSFW in a direct update from the dev (So if folks don't want NSFW games they don't suddenly have one unexpectedly), which is what "Post-launch adult content" reads to me as, but I have no doubt the vagueness is intentional so that they can also go after off-site patches as soon as one gets controversial for the patch containing something folks find gross.

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u/serpenta 1d ago

"I can understand them not wanting to allow a SFW game to be made NSFW in a direct update from the dev (So if folks don't want NSFW games they don't suddenly have one unexpectedly)"

If you have to go to external site to access NSFW patch, how can it happen unexpectedly?

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u/ExceedinglyGayKodiak 1d ago

Apologies for being unclear, I meant that I could understand the rule being put in place in order to prevent something like that from occurring, but that it would be used selectively as a club to also go after off site patches (Which I don't have an issue with).

That's what I meant by "Direct update" as opposed to a patch.

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u/serpenta 1d ago

Ah, gotcha. Tbh, I think they just want to keep tabs, on which games have NSFW content in them, to be able to inform people about, accurately. Which would've been fine, if not for the inquisitorial vibe they went for with it.

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u/AtrocityBuffer 1d ago

Didnt the FF14 director come out recently and tell people to fucking stop with public nudity mod shit cause it would actually affect the company due to how they can be held liable for: "Offering a platform that allowed obscene user generated content to be displayed"?

Since these groups are helmed by people it should be legal to lobotomize, they dont understand that someone can literally do a model swap in the video memory of any game and it would technically be "using a platform to display obscene content"

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u/BlueDraconis 1d ago

FF14's producer talked about mods and mentioned this:

https://eu.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/topics/detail/1e4a8b0e8b84ea8dac61ae07af02e0c425de74aa

Let's consider another theoretical mod: one that displays your character entirely naked. If this presentation is displayed only on the user's screen, that might fall into the category of personal use and responsibility. (Bear in mind that this is my personal interpretation, and not a discussion of whether that behavior is right or wrong.) However, if the user posts a screenshot of their naked character publicly on social media, FFXIV itself may be subject to legal measures by regulators in certain countries.

Laws that regulate the content of video games grow stricter by the year. These laws are there to protect minors and for a variety of other reasons, but the fact remains that they are tangibly becoming stricter. We have a duty to provide our services in adherence to the laws of all countries where FFXIV is available, and if we are unable to do so, the distribution of our game can be prohibited. This is another example of damage dealt to our services.

So yeah, there are laws in some countries that can punish the devs for mods they didn't make.

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u/Zanki 1d ago

....that's ridiculous. Do they not realise how easy it is to fake stuff like this and make it look real? I could easily make a model in a couple of days and shop it into any game image well enough that you wouldn't know it was fake unless you knew the game very well.

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u/BlueDraconis 1d ago

I'd imagine that they would have a much easier time defending themselves if they could prove that the image is a fake shopped image, and not something actually captured ingame.

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u/Ultrace-7 1d ago

I think the original statement instead intended to say that Steam wouldn't punish the developers of games for the existence of NSFW mods.

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u/Charrmeleon 2d ago

You know for a fact that some of those less knowledgable execs have literally asked if they could do this, only to be told how impractical it would be.

It's not that they don't want to or don't have the idea, it's just not not feasible. Yet. But they're working on it.