A wave of removals hit the Steam Store, recently, as Valve revealed certain types of video games would no longer be sold on their storefront. A glance at SteamDB shows that the affected games are of a very particular variety featuring adult content. Valve issued a statement on the delistings, explaining that they were due to potential violations with "payment processors", and in order to continue taking payments for non-adult content, they would be removing those title that do not meet "rules and standards" put forth by companies such as Mastercard, PayPal, etc.

We were recently notified that certain games on Steam may violate the rules and standards set forth by our payment processors and their related card networks and banks. As a result, we are retiring those games from being sold on the Steam Store, because loss of payment methods would prevent customers from being able to purchase other titles and game content on Steam.

We are directly notifying developers of these games, and issuing app credits should they have another game they’d like to distribute on Steam in the future.

While all of the affected games are of a controversial variety, it has unnerved some, as the newly implemented "rules and standards" that led to the delisting of these titles is vague.

Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult only content.

Source

 

[RustInPeace]

This is new. This is not normal. The Trump administration is pressuring Mastercard and Visa to censor pornographic content worldwide. Already, Japanese porn sites, fully in compliance with Japanese law, have had to close due to this. Yoko Taro (the creator of Nier) warns that “It’s a security hole that endangers democracy itself.”

It really isn't new. Visa and MasterCard have impacted porn for years. They have compromised websites that offer major fetish content and those websites had to turn around and tone things down. Any site that previously hosted exhibitionist content, furries, taboo roleplay and whatnot were threatened by payment processors. The OF-like site Fansly had this same scenario weeks ago. It's probably new to many people because this is affecting a large gaming platform like Steam. Payment processors have ruined a lot of niche things on the internet. Payment processors also ruined Pornhub because they decided to gut content that wasn't uploaded by verified accounts, which amounted to 70% or so of the databse.

 

[Rioluwott]

As always I'm against any kind of delisting of games, and of course it had to do with a big corporations wanting to tell what people should look and what they should don't this time telling them what to do with their own money regardless on what content they removed we should go against them, why should they be able to tell us what to waste our money on? this time is an specific niche full of degenerates yes but what about tomorrow? it could be a normal game with adult content(being an adult game) that has a lot of effort put in but it got removed because it shows a nipple or two? or they remove it thinking its porn but its actually a really deep game but they don't bother checking and they will only escalate after us letting them do whatever they feel like and remove games like blasphemous or cyberpunk, we should never let them mandate what to do with our money, they already steal a percent of it each time you get money on stuff like paypal now we give them power over what we buy? and anyone marking this as a win because they punished someone you don't like because he has different opinions than yours is exactly what they want us to, what if tomorrow Germany wants to remove all the games that show nazis even as bad guys and a big German corporation starts telling a company from the united states to remove games like metal slug, persona 3 or most ww2 centered games? in Germany its illegal yes, but how about the rest of the world? that's what they are doing here an american company is telling other countries what they can spend their money on even if its legal in their country because they see them as inappropriate in their puritans eyes

 

[NitroRevolutionNX]

i dont buy those type of games but they shouldn't dictate on what people should use their own money they spent on.

BTW i tried buying a rpg game on paypal through steam. not nsfw or anything like that and it looks like not only me but there's a tons of people are saying paypal isn't working for them. not sure if this is related to this issueView attachment 517650

PayPal has some problems for a while. For example: I always used to topup using iDEAL (a Dutch secure payment method) That isn't working for months.

 

[The Catboy]

Decades? Have you no sense of history? Look up that term "puritans" you used. They've been trying to force their degenerate morality on everyone else for a very long time, often with the accompanying threat of torture and/or death. Want to talk censorship? I'll get banned here if I so much as mention the specific cult that has been doing this and more for over a millennia and question their right to continue to exist, but as a giant hint: they are the largest organized pedophile ring in human history and operate with impunity in all Western countries.

I have no issue with Valve or the payment processors. They are private companies and can "censor" "free speech" all they want because it is perfectly legal for them to do so, as it should be. But the collective cult scum for the last several thousand years that have been systematically going after the rest of us (and each other) and who now say things like "politically correct" or "woke" every time we stop them? Fck all of them. Has nothing whatsoever to do with the payment processors or companies like Valve. If you don't like their decisions, your remedy -- your only remedy -- is to boycott them.
As if that ever works.

I ain’t all reading that, just gonna address parts of it that I did read.
My comment was directed at the people who moved their purity spiral away from games like GTA to now porn games. The end goal is still the same, remove games they object to. As for the term I used, I am aware that they have history that is consistently stopped but they never had the influence they do now. Banks control the world and Puritans have started controlling the banks. I am aware their endgame is to reach the bottom purity spiral and that’s why I am against them. The idea of fighting against this is harder said than done. I am willing to bet anyone with a debt/credit card in this thread has one from Visa, Mastercard, etc. there’s no fighting against that unless one wants to go full cash. Which also means no online purchases, no digital purchases, and so on. Piracy is one option when it comes to entertainment, but they control more than just that.
People should have been against these kinds of things when it used against legal weed sales and OnlyFans. The fact of the matter is, you being fine with censorship will eventually come back to you. You should never be fine with any form of censorship when a company decides what’s appropriate for you.

 

[Captain-Z]

This is why I am against Puritans. They will stop at nothing once they start their purity spiral. It starts with porn games, and it will go to games like GTA next. This has been their goal for decades now, and people are bending the knee

Wow, talk about bigoted. This has nothing to do with being Puritan.

 

[The Catboy]

Wow, talk about bigoted. This has nothing to do with being Puritan.

Did I use the wrong word?

 

[UsernamesAreWeird]

i dont buy those type of games but they shouldn't dictate on what people should use their own money they spent on.

BTW i tried buying a rpg game on paypal through steam. not nsfw or anything like that and it looks like not only me but there's a tons of people are saying paypal isn't working for them. not sure if this is related to this issueView attachment 517650

Which game was it

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

On one hand, this can set a very bad precedence for other games that aren't even porn related, because all it takes is one complaint over something stupid, and boom, the game(s) is gone. On the other hand, researching into this, many of the games being delisted had a lot to do with incest, rape, etc.. I personally don't support that horrible shit, so I don't even see this as a loss, but I am disappointed with humanity, or at least portions of it, for not only being comfortable and fine with this content to the point of making games, reading material, etc. about it, but going as far as to defend it too. Some people are fucking sick, it's disturbing, and concerning.

In terms of traditional porn games, obviously people will do what they want, but I will say I think porn in general is consumed way too much to the point it's extremely unhealthy. We need to dial it back quite a bit.

 

[Smoker1]

Expect more um....Questionable Means of acquiring those Games. Probably Groups that are Religious, or want to go against Free Speech. Not the first time. Look at GTA Games, where there are Incidents where they claimed that the Person in question played GTA, or even other Games, so they want to Ban those Games. Well how about Teaching Kids Right from Wrong again?????

 

[Captain-Z]

Did I use the wrong word?

If you aren't actually talking about Puritans or other Christians, than yeah.

 

[kingaz]

If you aren't actually talking about Puritans or other Christians, than yeah.

But we are. We are talking about them.

Did I use the wrong word?

No you didn't.

 

[JaNDeRPeiCH]

If you aren't actually talking about Puritans or other Christians, than yeah.

Puritans its the perfect word to describe them because lets be honest they cant play those games i listed here:

*Blasphemous (special this game cant play it and stand more than 10 minutes)

*Fear&Hunger games

*Duke Nukem

*Doom latest games

*Postal games

*Hatred

* Any Grand Theft auto

*Diablo games

* Any vn with some nsfw spicy scenes

 

[Dark_Ansem]

We found him. That's the guy spamming facebook anime pages always asking for sauce

I dont have Facebook so keep looking.

 

[xdarkx]

Regardless of what type of game it is, payment processors should not be allow to dictate what can be allowed on Steam or any platforms. Should be up to the consumer to decide which games they want to buy and not buy. Wouldn't be surprised if payment processors try to get other games banned or censored in the near future.

 

[The Catboy]

If you aren't actually talking about Puritans or other Christians, than yeah.

Okay, then I am using the right word. They are indeed acting like Puritan Christians, so I will call them that

 

[Dark_Ansem]

Wouldn't be surprised if payment processors try to get other games banned or censored in the near future.

They could try again the OF ban, if they will.

 

[NinStar]

I think most people here seem to miss the point when it comes to discussions like this, it's like the "violent games do/don't make people more violent" thing, it is not as black and white as you guys like to make it.

A game with sex scenes and a game where the core gameplay aspect is to torture sex slaves are absolutely not the same. it also more likely that unhinged people (or actual criminals) would be much more inclined in consuming the latter, so why the fuck would any normal person (or corp for the matter) want to be associated with something like this?

If you can't realize something like this then you are just being intellectually dishonest. Context matter, regardless if it is fictional.

 

[Oakmontowls]

1. The things I mentioned are pretty much illegal in a lot of places in the context in which they are presented, even if fictional.
2. Unless the decision behind this had the involvement of some government, I wouldn't call it censorship.

So for the first one, steam already has features in place for games to block purchase in certain countries due to regulations or copyright issues. If these games were not blocking themselves for purchase in countries where these topics are illegal then it would be on the individual country to raise the issue with the game publisher/steam and it would fall on the publisher because they did not follow the existing steam game rules which require the game to not be sold in regions where the content is illegal. However in no situation is this the job of the payment processor(if indeed this was even the reason these particular games were removed). When looking for the rules and standards from the payment processors I could not find anything about adult content purchases other than merchants who sell them have to be marked as high integrity risk due to the higher likelihood of illegal activity such as charge backs or fraud. I would be very surprised if the payment processor had any sort of legal obligation to verify that the transaction was for goods or services that were legal in the region. The only things they could potentially be liable for are scams and stuff but they would already care about those since those cost the company money when they are compensating their customers via charge backs or just refunds.

 

[Retrojunkies]

And how would you like to pay for your babetv subscription sit, MasterCard???

Post automatically merged: Jul 20, 2025

I think most people here seem to miss the point when it comes to discussions like this, it's like the "violent games do/don't make people more violent" thing, it is not as black and white as you guys like to make it.

A game with sex scenes and a game where the core gameplay aspect is to torture sex slaves are absolutely not the same. it also more likely that unhinged people (or actual criminals) would be much more inclined in consuming the latter, so why the fuck would any normal person (or corp for the matter) want to be associated with something like this?

If you can't realize something like this then you are just being intellectually dishonest. Context matter, regardless if it is fictional.

But then again, someone who has the same mentality playing GTA freely shooting people will give them the same satisfaction as someone your discussing that play these type of games.

Tho in sites I used that list these sort of games, most seem to be fantasy and role play, not really seen anything that is sick torture material.

I'd assume content like that should be monitored and checked before it's published, like you wouldn't see games where you get to hack/slash enemies that are babies and children.

Valve need to do better and approving content before allowing it to go live, this would also help reduce the so called Wana be game developers and release bug riddles junk.

 

[KanaKonpaku]

While I remember similar things to this happening in the past, I certainly don't support it. I find content like these "games" disgusting but if it isn't illegal, then really the way I see it is if I don't like I don't have to view it. Much like how I view games I don't like the premise of as well. iirc this happened at some point (I think it was 1 or 2 years ago?) the exact same thing happened where some sites that hosted stuff like that were pulling US payment methods. Why the payment sites would care all that much is beyond me (money is money to them, right?) but oh well. It's funny as I disagree with both the censorship and the content being censored.