Valve gets pressured by payment processors with a new rule for game devs and various adult games removed

Like a few other posters, I too remember when all the major payment platforms at once decided that giving your money to Wikileaks was verboten.

Ultimately, Paypal probably shouldn't exist. There should be a secure international payment system run by an international body like the UN or some consortium of governments, that lets you use your money on the internet straight from your bank account. People have become dependent on the internet as a way to buy things they need--my dad gets his groceries that way because he's old and mostly blind so it's very hard to go to the grocery store. It's not a frill, it's important, and I see no reason why some private gatekeeper should be skimming fees off every transaction.

One thing a lot of people pushing to ban content like what's just been nuked on Steam tend to forget is that it is all FICTIONAL CONTENT NOT INVOLVING REAL HUMANS.
Sure some people may be squicked out by the themes in them, but it's better for society for people 'in to' such content to engage with interactive fantasy for catharsis and moderating such wants instead of acting out on real humans - "violent video games" like DOOM and QUAKE had certain people in the 90's acting out in Moral Panics, but there's evidence to show having such games as an outlet reduces the chance of someone acting out violence on people around them by giving them a grounding outlet to work through their emotions and thoughts in a world of bits and bytes.

Corporations such as Banks and Payment Processors should have NO SAY in how people use their money online, it should be up to the person making the payment to decide on if to buy something that may or may not have involved harming real humans during its creation or transport.
Just like how it should be up to the parent of a child if certain types of video games are allowed in the house, and not a retail company or government-of-the-day provided the game has passed the independent national rating board (see: Karen's trying to pressure retail chains in to removing GTA 5 from store shelves in Australia despite the R18+ rating from the OFLC/ACB meaning it passed national government regulation) or otherwise has a rating provided by a third party that is standardised (see: ESRB and IARC).

Additionally;
I hate Plagarised Information Synthesis System content (LLM's are Artificial, but not "Intelligent") as a way for companies to line their pockets and shaft human creators, but this is the wrong way to go about dealing with it for anybody considering using such a censorship tactic to quash the Slop.

while those being hit aren't the style of eroge i'm into by any means payment processors really shouldn't have any say on what ppl are buying or storefronts are selling . this type of censorship is ridiculous

Seems like the whole world is cracking down on porn. Do they really think this is the source of all evil? Interesting.. quite misled if true!

So if my German goverment says I can‘t play this game, the rest of the world can still play it.

If an US payment service says you can‘t play this game, nobody can.

Great…


Last edited by Liemaeu on 17 Jul 2025 at 5:29 am UTC

Wow... i did not know all this existed on steam, living in my TF2-Pyroesque vision of Germanylands Great Filter.
While i think this is quite comfortable from a parents standpoint, i am not naive enough to think that this is a productive thing. As a parent you have to try to somehow filter some of the worst internet content for your kids. And if you have put a lot of thought in it, you realize how... futile it is in the end. Smart kids always find a way around your fences, and you have to take this hit with a knowing smile.
So, no, i do not like the influence of payment processors in my little steam world. Go play somewhere else. (Insert Monty Pythony Lion Tamer Joke reference here)

Wow... i did not know all this existed on steam, living in my TF2-Pyroesque vision of Germanylands Great Filter.

Like most people worldwide, you wouldn't have been able to view these games anyways, until you manually allow them in the 'show Adult games' filter on Steam. I didn't know they were that bad either and I'm not in Europe.


Last edited by Pyrate on 17 Jul 2025 at 6:48 am UTC

But no one has addressed the elephant in the room here. Look over the list of the games being banned. The topic of these games is incest. Now, I can't speak to European regulations -- nor can I speak to Japanese ones either -- but here in North America, incest is illegal.

So is murder. But you'll find a ton of media where it is the main topic. Go into any bookstore – one of the biggest sections will be crime novels and almost all of them are centered around murder. The same goes for a lot of movies, songs, games and even poems.
So yes, incest is illegal – but it being the topic of media is not. If it were, Steam wouldn't list those games in the first place.

I'm pretty sure Paypal, Mastercard and Visa allow you to pay for HBO whereas

Spoiler, click me

Game of throne featuring incest

.

 
But ya know, if there's one thing I've learnt over the years it is this... People who want to make smut, and people who want to consume it, will always find a way to meet each other halfway somehow.

on the other hand, if they can censor this, they can censor anything.

climate change is a fact that some people still insist in denying, but an boner ?
if people dont fight against it now, when they start censoring other stuff like climate change we cant expect people to prostest either.

Back on topic, this is the usual US puritanism. Decapitating people is fun, boobies are wrong

NAILED IT!
its amazing how sex, something every human being probably going to do on the life, is censored by puritans, your game show some female skin? you are a monster, you hate woman blablabla...
oh, an game where you can murder people? that is totally fine, even my kids play that!

Not all 18+ games are low quality, but those which are were dominating the lists by their sheer volume.

nailed, i hate how hard it is to find an good +18 game, the public dont help either because they accept anything, if they really dig it they wouldnt .

The solution isn't moving the goalposts and choosing to be ruled by a different region in place of another (see user Iod's comment above about similar game censorship in Germany). This only delays the problem.

maybe, but they lose money in the process and US as an whole grow less than europe.
the fact that a single country have so much influence in the global economy has to stop, censorship like that was made possible due to this.
and if someone is willing to take this opportunity to grow thanks to the incopetence of others, im help in supporting then, not to mention, if they know that was the reason why they grew so much, they will think twice before repeating this kind of abuse of power.

Thinking about this a little more, I think a better solution would be to mark certain games as not being purchasable through specific payment providers.

that dont work because you can put money into your steam wallet using any payment provider, so they wont accept it eitherway.


Last edited by elmapul on 17 Jul 2025 at 10:57 am UTC

I hate Plagarised Information Synthesis System content (LLM's are Artificial, but not "Intelligent") as a way for companies to line their pockets and shaft human creators, but this is the wrong way to go about dealing with it for anybody considering using such a censorship tactic to quash the Slop.

i loved the term, i will use it with the PISS acronym.
i hate how big companies can get away with stealing GPL code, oh no, we didnt wrote this code, the machine did it! so its ok to use GPL code on non gpl software!
sigh.

tons of volunteers wrote code so we can control our own machines and now this code is being stolen to be used on to build non free software.

I think it's worth noting that Patreon's claim that's mentioned here is pretty heavily scrutinized as similar content that was no longer allowed was able to be purchased through PayPal on other sites. Many believe that it was an excuse on Patreon's end to be more extreme with it and use PayPal as a scapegoat. A similar thing is happening with Fansly right now, too, as they're claiming their banks are forcing them to not allow things like content that features animal people (i don't want to say furries because it also includes things as simple as a catgirl who is just a girl with cat ears and a tail, not even fur, they're being that strict with it). Steam so far seems to be handling it well by only getting rid of slop but this kind of stuff really should be more detailed.