Business Steam rules updated to prohibit content that violates rules set forth by payment processors and banks - Valve's rules regarding what developers "shouldn't publish on Steam" have a new clause regarding standards set forth by payment processors.

https://automaton-media.com/en/news/steam-rules-updated-to-prohibit-content-that-violates-rules-set-forth-by-payment-processors-and-banks/

https://archive.ph/NXq04

Valve's rules regarding what developers "shouldn't publish on Steam" have a new clause regarding standards set forth by payment processors.

2025-07-16 17:17
Amber V



Valve has updated its rules regarding content that developers aren’t allowed to publish on Steam (as reported by Game*Spark [archive]). The “Rules and Guidelines” section of Steamworks Documentation now has an extra clause, and it suggests that publishers are required to comply with rules and standards set forth by various third parties involved in processing electronic payments. The rule seems to be predominantly related to adult content.

What you shouldn’t publish on Steam:
15. 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.

Prior to the update, the list included 14 clauses, prohibiting things like hate speech, malware, sexual content depicting real people and any form of exploitation of children. The new 15th clause suggests that Steam may additionally have to crack down on specific types of adult content in response to the requirements of payment processors and banks. There are currently no specific examples of what this may entail.

Update (2025/07/15 at 18:30 JST): According to SteamDB [wayback], a large number of games has been removed from the platform in the past 16 hours. Judging rom the list, it appears “sex simulator” type games with keywords such as “incest” and “slavery” make up the majority. There are some confusing cases like the removal of the Ace Attorney-inspired investigation game Trails of Innocence, although this could be a coincidental deletion.

On a related note, various video game and manga hosting platforms in Japan have in recent years run into trouble with payment processors and credit card networks. Due to certain content on the platforms going against the (often undisclosed) rules and standards of third parties handling payments, the platforms ended up without support for credit card payment. This has led to loss of revenue and even the closure of platforms like Manga Library Z. It is possible that Steam’s new rule is a means to prevent such complications from arising, however, as the specific “rules and standards” of the payment processors are also unclear, publishers might need to be extra cautious with releasing their games on the platform.

Related articles: “It’s a security hole that endangers democracy itself.” NieR creator speaks out against payment processors pressuring Japanese adult content platforms

Visa Japan’s CEO says disabling card payment for legal adult content is “necessary to protect the brand”

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Niche Gamer: Steam updates rules to comply with payment processor censorship (archive)
Wccftech: Steam Publishing Guidelines Updated With Clause Prohibiting Content That Violates Payment Processor and Bank Rules (archive)

Rock Paper Shotgun: Valve change Steam's rules to let banks and credit card firms prohibit "certain kinds of adult only content" (archive)

In particular, this could lead to a stifling of games that are in any way non-conforming, particularly given the current climate of repression in Valve's home country, the USA. I know about the rule change thanks to Youtuber and self-described former game developer NoahFuel Gaming, who has posted on Bluesky about the potential fallout for projects the banks and financial corporations consider "adult" because they deviate from reactionary framings of sex and gender. As the Youtuber writes: "Queer content gets flagged as 'explicit' even when it's PG. A trans dev making a personal story? 'Too controversial.' A surreal queer VN? 'Sexualized.' Financial deplatforming in action."

GamesRadar: Steam now prohibits games that violate the "rules and standards" of payment processors, banks, and more, and users are worried it might affect more than just "certain kinds of adult-only content" (archive)

"Yeah... this is something that looks innocuous at first glance but it's a trojan horse," another believes. "LGBTQ+ has a habit of being mysteriously flagged as 'adult only.'" On ResetEra, similar points are being shared, as one writes: "Today it's porn games, tomorrow any game with LGBTQ+ content because it ends up labelled as 'adult.'"

Notebookcheck: Steam tightens adult content rules after pressure from payment giants (archive)

As spotted [archive] by TheGamer, this triggered a mini-purge according to the Steam Database, with many problematic games such as "Incest Tales", "Wolf on Rail", "Sex Village", "Slave of the Police Officer", and many more, being delisted from the storefront.

GamingOnLinux: Valve gets pressured by payment processors with a new rule for game devs and various adult games removed (archive)

 

[TheRuckersvilleRapist]

As much as I like seeing the low quality ai porn games removed I'm worried they will start going after ultra violent games next like agony. I really don't want steam to become australia

 

[God of Nothing]

"Ok, you can play as the Mongols and kill everybody, but you cannot rape anybody in the city"

that's like the one fun thing you can do in ck2

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

Someone had a comment about how Steam could be faking this to use it as an excuse to delete games. That's obviously not the case now that a terror group has claimed responsibility, but sure, they could use rule 15 as cover to delete anything and redirect any backlash in the future. Or rule 15 being added to the list could imply that they have agreed to an open line of communication for payment processors to get content taken down fast. It would be nice to get an official comment on that.

avtar time
https://x.com/MelTankardReist/status/1944963778749374933

https://archive.ph/CCEKU + https://ghostarchive.org/archive/GIQl0

We spearheaded an open letter signed by major anti-sexual exploitation partners and directed to 6 senior executives at 7 companies including Mastercard, Visa and PayPal. The same execs have also received more than 1000 emails from concerned individuals

https://x.com/MelTankardReist (ghost)
https://x.com/CollectiveShout (ghost)

Null has talked about how a relatively small amount of complaint volume can be very effective in deplatforming. I think getting a letter from the National Center on Sexual Exploitation and other orgs alone could probably do the trick, but a thousand angry emails probably helps.

How many gooners bought one of the initially affected pornslop games, maybe tens of thousands? They don't get a say because they're too indefensible, disorganized, stupid, lazy, out of the loop, etc.

Rest in peace to all the shitty renpy slop that only existed to be gag gifts and not much else. someone tell Valens all his favorite games just got nuked, I'm sure that'll make for a dogshit substack article.

He can actually post his articles on Vice.com for a few bucks, here's one from a few minutes ago:

Do You Want Eve Pregnant in ‘Stellar Blade’? This Mod Lets You Do That (archive)

I am waiting to see if he will talk about this, and will throw it in the thread if he does.

 

[Nice Stick]

Spoiler

24 hours later it has since been moved to 'New & Trending'
View attachment 7654805

I dont give a fuck if these games are made and consumed by adults. It just shouldn't be on steam. OR if you fucking coomers must have your cartoon tittes on steam then there should be a different account that needs to be made that a verifiable adult made the account. i dont give a fuck how it's verified that youre an adult. it's adult content.

when i was a child i couldn't go buy porno mags without an ID, why is this different?

My steam new and trending is almost identical. And no, I don't buy anime games.

Spoiler: Steam New And Trending

 

[God of Nothing]

Steam is for children you dumb nigger. Who said it's for babysitting?

"Hey dad, anything cool on steam we can buy and play together"
"I dont know son, lets check it out"

>Anime titties everywhere.

You're missing the fucking point. I should be able to open up my steam account with my children in the room and not have a chance to see cartoon titties. I'm not against it, it shouldn't be on a video game platform that children have access too... because you know steam is for kids. and because i can tell you're a low iq faggot, teenagers are still kids. every major video game published on steam is for teenagers.

24 hours later it has since been moved to 'New & Trending'
View attachment 7654805

I dont give a fuck if these games are made and consumed by adults. It just shouldn't be on steam. OR if you fucking coomers must have your cartoon tittes on steam then there should be a different account that needs to be made that a verifiable adult made the account. i dont give a fuck how it's verified that youre an adult. it's adult content.

when i was a child i couldn't go buy porno mags without an ID, why is this different?

My steam new and trending is almost identical. And no, I don't buy anime games.

[SPOILER title="Steam New And Trending"]
View attachment 7654933
[/SPOILER]

yup
this has been happening for a while now

 

[Jace on ice]

Fyi for anyone unaware but The National Center on Sexual Exploitation is a Evangelical group that used to be called Morality in Media. (MIM)

They rebranded as a fake feminist group a while back because they correctly realized that "Jesus hates titties" is not an argument anyone would take seriously.

Reddit and lefty Twitter get fooled by them all the time because they use the right buzzwords.

 

[Adidas Queen]

As much as I agree that nothing of value was lost I don't like that some person somewhere in the world is pumping their fist because they think they accomplished something important.

Sexual violence in these games usually exist for people who jerk off to it so it's reasonable that you'd want it removed but is it really going to solve anything in a world where you can go to a website and browse by the rape tag with way less friction? People are fighting the wrong battles here. Maybe ban porn websites first, you know? The ones children actually use?

 

[Spud]

You're missing the fucking point. I should be able to open up my steam account with my children in the room and not have a chance to see cartoon titties.

You can disable NSFW content being shown in the settings, it's set to not show by default you have to go into your settings to disable it for it all to be visible. An account that is made for a kid (have to 13+ to make one) cannot be shown NSFW content and can't disable the NSFW filter until they are of age anyways. Your point is mute as you disabled the NSFW filter to charge at a windmill, turn it back on if you're so concerned about it.

 

[Code991]

It is cosmic irony that Null decided to declare war on anime right before this happened.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

This place is quick to defend payment processors being tyrants while the site's owner has been debanked repeatedly for wrongthink.

Because it "owns" the animes

 

[Donald_J_Trump]

Sure, fuck the kikes at MC and VISA. Sure TOTAL PAYMENT PROCESSOR DEATH.

However, they know how to pick their targets and really ease the Goyim into their censorship.

They chose to censor porn… INCEST PORN. Excuse me if I’m not interested in throwing a pity party for creeps masturbating to sister fucking on steam.

 

[Do Not Touch Me Pls]

I know that the gooners that are the primary customers for "loli gangbang simulator 69" don't really think beyond their next goon sesh, but surely, even they can see that associating child pornography with free speech is quite possibly the most counterproductive thing in the fucking history of activism when it comes to actually promoting free speech right?

I know it attracts a lot of unironic gooners but the original intent is that the definitions are so vague that pretty much anything remotely suspicious enough, even if it is NOT innately CP, can be removed for this reason.

For example

* Any of the Gunvolt Games
* Gal Gun
* Danganronpa V3 and Danganronpa Another Episode
* Hyperdimensional Neptunia
* The Coffin of Andy and Leyley

I assume there are several others that technically cross the line, but these are the only ones I know of.

This is not at all about CP, this is about making things difficult for the regular (and sometimes corporate) game developer and forcing people to lay their heads down or curate themselves to prevent getting indicted for petty reasons.

And the sad thing is the Payment processors are merely one small part of this control grid. The elite has other ways to make sure you comply such as by fabricated internet mobs, by Discord or rarely by active arrest attempts. And then there's the ones who actively self-curate once they got wind of the news like r34.xxx.

 

[Slap47]

FPS games are violent murder simulators that teach children how to gun down crowds of people. Our benevolent overlords at Visa agree, they won't allow you to buy them anymore.

I think people are dishonest about videogames causing violence.

Some retards probably do get inspired to do crime by shows and games. Plenty of kids have made the local news for stealing their parents cars because of Grand Theft Auto.

The larger question is if we should completely sanitize society to slightly reduce crime or just accept that risk as a price of a free society where people can express themselves. In this case the question is if a corporation should be making that choice for us.

 

[Oilspill Battery]

* Any of the Gunvolt Games
* Gal Gun
* Danganronpa V3 and Danganronpa Another Episode
* Hyperdimensional Neptunia
* The Coffin of Andy and Leyley

The world is truly a worst place for us all now that you can't goon to... checks notes, underage cannibal incest porn and sentient videogame consoles.

How will civilization move forward without this monumental cultural loss is beyond me.

edit:

lmao

 

[COME ON OUT YOU RAPIST]

The larger question is if we should completely sanitize society to slightly reduce crime or just accept that risk as a price of a free society where people can express themselves.

Doesn't seem like much of a question. You can argue anything can radicalize people who were already unhinged enough to commit crimes. Do we ban books because some retard said Catcher in the Rye convinced him to try and assassinate a US president? If we accept the idea one book could do that, what's stopping any book from doing that?

 

[Do Not Touch Me Pls]

FPS games are violent murder simulators that teach children how to gun down crowds of people. Our benevolent overlords at Visa agree, they won't allow you to buy them anymore.

Well New Zealand and the fucking EU had like multiple hyper violent games like Hatred or Left for Dead 2 outright banned. (Notice how there's a theme?)

They didn't even use the Credit Card companies as fronts; the EU or NZ government themselves moved in and banned it.

Oh, and I just looked in the descriptions of one of these games, and it does have incest. So it hasn't even removed everything involving that type of shit yet. Now that I think about it, if you wanted to remove every game with questionable consent or family content, you would probably have to purge 95% of anime coomer games on Steam, which hasn't happened yet.

Watch, this is coming soon. 95% of them. And even if they aren't coomer games they'll be forced to self curate or lock their games off from foreigners.

 

[ZeCommissar]

I don't know chief. I just set my preferences to allow the gooner games to check, and the horde of anime slop washed over my store page like a plague. I guess it's good that it purged the "incest maker 9000 waifus" slop shit, but it certainly didn't kill the gooner scene on Steam. I wonder if this is just a classic case of Steam going "yeah bro we'll totally do something" and just pretending to actually do it.

Oh, and I just looked in the descriptions of one of these games, and it does have incest. So it hasn't even removed everything involving that type of shit yet. Now that I think about it, if you wanted to remove every game with questionable consent or family content, you would probably have to purge 95% of anime coomer games on Steam, which hasn't happened yet.

Then there's shit like this: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2739590/Mad_Island/ (Very NSFW obviously)

Still up, and it seems to have content I would even dare to argue is far worse than "Help me bro I'm stuck!" incest games.

This could be a case of "they just haven't gotten around to it yet", but its not like what I linked is exactly unpopular with almost 4000 current reviews...

 

[Punished Magician]

When will retards realize that when someone gets their foot in your door, the end result is not their foot detatching from their body and running around in your house while the rest of them stays outside, the end result is them forcing themselves the rest of the way in.

This is not a slippery slope that "might eventually" be used to censor sites like us, it's a slippery slope that already hit us years ago and has no qualms about returning to targetting "hate speech". It is not hypothetical, it already happened, and the financial pressure has never ceased so long as there has been any sort of avenue on which it could be exerted.

If your reply does not contain the name of the credit card you can use to directly purchase T&H on here (there are none) proving I am full of shit, I am not even going to read it, so don't bother.

but at the end of the day Steam is for underage children

The first games on Steam:
Counter-Strike (ESRB Rating: Mature 17+)
Half-Life (Mature 17+)
Team Fortress Classic (Mature 17+)

The first big release whose Steam exclusivity helped the platform grow:
Half-Life 2 (Mature 17+)

Current Top-Selling game on Steam (that isn't free) according to the front page:
Helldivers 2 (Mature 17+)

Top of the Popular Upcoming tab (Dreadzone) has no ESRB rating but has a Mature Content warning about nudity and intense violence, and the game below it is Robocop: Rogue City (Mature 17+)


Kiwifarms has plenty of threads about child-oriented topics like Mr. Beast, Minecraft youtubers, the Roblox community, and multimedia threads about Pokémon and Skibidi Toilet. While it might be "officially" targetted at adults, the fact of the matter is that plenty of young teenagers use it and everyone knows this on some level to be true (just look at the soyjak party thread). With that in mind, the amount of material here that is harmful to the development of minors is not just irresponsible, but reprehensible! We call upon the administrators of this website to do their due diligence to make sure no such things are ever found here again.

 

[Whiskey]

I've no moral objection to it. I just figure most porn games are both shitty porn and shitty games.

 

[Terrifik]

avtar time

https://x.com/MelTankardReist/status/1944963778749374933

View attachment 7654144View attachment 7654141View attachment 7654148

saw arch video got correcrt guess from tweet storm