Steam takes down tons of porn games, cracks down on "certain kinds of adult-only content" — here's why, and its new policy

Over the last few days, Steam — the leading PC gaming storefront managed by game developer and publisher Valve — has been delisting numerous pornographic titles from its online store. At the same time, the company made a significant policy change to its game publishing guidelines. Valve hasn't given an official reason for the removal of these games, though it's highly likely it's because of the new rule.

This news comes from the Steam database tracking website SteamDB, which detected and subsequently posted about dozens of sexually explicit games being taken down from the Steam Store in the last 48-72 hours. Scroll down enough on SteamDB's app events history page, and you'll find yourself in a sea of red, slashed-out listings.

"Steam has added a new rule disallowing games that violate the rules and standards set forth by payment processors and card networks, or internet network providers," SteamDB's operators wrote in their social media post.

The rule SteamDB is referring to is a new clause in the "What you shouldn't publish on Steam" section of Steamworks' onboarding document. The rule is the 15th one in the list, and reads: "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."

This all but confirms that the delisting of these games was a result of the fact that they were found to violate the standards set by payment processors and internet service providers once this new policy went into effect. These were likely put in place so that these companies could avoid being potentially associated with specific kinds of explicit material.

Notably, this isn't the first time that banks, card networks, and similar agencies have stepped up to more strictly enforce their rules. Recently, both Civitai and Tensor.Art has restricted the use of AI tools to generate adult content with the likeness of real people in response to similar pressure from these companies (thanks, 404 Media). Also, back in 2022, Tumblr CEO Matt Mullenweg commented that porn was still banned on the platform because "credit card companies are anti-porn."

As for which specific payment processor guidelines the Steam games that were taken down violate, it's unclear at present. However, scrolling through the list of delisted titles reveals that many of them contained particularly extreme types of subject matter, such as incest, sexual assault, torture, and slavery, among other things. Games like these and other explicit titles — most of them extremely cheap and low-quality — have been available on Steam for years, occasionally flaring up controversy.

Steam's new rule has sparked controversy of its own, though, with many pointing out that it's frustratingly vague and doesn't highlight the specific types of adult content that aren't permissible on the platform. Lots of users also argue that the recently heightened pressure from payment processors is a clear case of invasive censorship, and that these companies shouldn't be able to control what the companies they work with can and cannot sell.

"I don't even buy these games, but this censorship is bull. These payment processors should be required to be neutral by law. Their job is to process money full stop, not to be policing what the companies they work with sell," wrote one r/pcmasterrace commenter on Reddit.

"It’s the quiet normalization of financial censorship, and it’s going to hurt LGBTQ+ games and devs," said another user on BlueSky, asserting that this could become a slippery slope that will disproportionately affect LGBTQ+ creators in particular. "Queer content gets flagged as 'explicit' even when it’s PG. A trans dev making a personal story? 'Too controversial.' A surreal queer VN [Visual Novel]? 'Sexualized.' Financial deplatforming in action."

Personally, while I'm certainly not going to shed any tears over the loss of "Sister X Slaves" or "Cuckhold Princess," I do agree with users and devs that hazy game removals like these can be seen as a worrying sign of the domino effect. At the very least, these rules need to be defined far more clearly. I hope Valve updates them with clarification sooner rather than later.