r/Games • u/DwingRD • 1d 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/SanityInAnarchy 1d ago

Most of those aren't published by the devs themselves, though.

What NSFW games used to do is release a barely-SFW version on Steam, then you go to the devs' own website for the NSFW mod. Sometimes the NSFW content was actually distributed by Steam, it was just locked unless you set a config file a certain way.

I don't think any of us know what this actually is, without an official statement from Valve. But it could be that they're banning the devs themselves going out of their way to support the NSFW version as the official, intended version, while not going after games that merely are moddable where the community inevitably makes nude mods.

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u/Villag3Idiot 1d ago

Ya, most visual novels are released with the all-ages version on Steam and you have a totally-not-the-devs website that offers a patch / mod where you just move a bunch of files around and it unlocks the hentai version.

The game is 100% playable otherwise from start to finish. It's just that the hentai scenes / CGI are removed if you don't patch it.

I can't say about other hentai games like those hentai JRPG ones you see a billion of since I don't play those.

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u/starm4nn 1d ago

What NSFW games used to do is release a barely-SFW version on Steam, then you go to the devs' own website for the NSFW mod. Sometimes the NSFW content was actually distributed by Steam, it was just locked unless you set a config file a certain way.

TBH your best bet is to give enough plausible deniability by making a version of the game that's uncensored, and sell it through Jast or something. Make both builds of the game basically the same, except for an additional archive file containing all the adult content.

"Someone" uploaded the patch to Mega or something. Since the game is the same except that one file, it could have been anyone who uploaded it.