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)

 

[Oulun]

Where is Parkourdude91 when the world needs him most? Nothing is over. This war never ended.

 

[FunPosting101]

Also,

View attachment 7673447

Note that they forced civitai to ban all of these since around half a year ago, nobody complained because they thought it was right.

The list also excludes underage characters and schools (background/school uniforms) but you get the big picture.

Some of them are not really vague, but others I think you can hit once you get a single foot wrong. They do not care about context. If they do we will not have ESRB in the first place.


Is this still Collective Shout/Australia or completely something else? Won't be surprised that it's the EU/UN for real this time unless the guy lives in Australia.

That list of prohibited items is fucking terrifying. If they start forcing steam to ban all that stuff it would literally kill the store. I mean come on now, no aiming guns at people? There goes so many fucking games right there. The illegal substances thing would fuck over stuff like GTA, the rules regarding no depictions of someone being drunk or drugged would fuck over games too. Even if you aren't interested in weird porn, this shit needs to be stopped, because they WILL come for the stuff you do care about eventually.

 

[Do Not Touch Me Pls]

Looks like 4chan is trying to set up a gamergate sequel in retaliation:

Gamergate did nothing other than making the far-left win, although that might be because the far left was at its apex during that time. I hope this is not the case especially because now this is probably going to spread all the way to the general public and not just some obscure doujin circles and the Far Left is now much weaker in terms of influence.

That list of prohibited items is fucking terrifying. If they start forcing steam to ban all that stuff it would literally kill the store. I mean come on now, no aiming guns at people? There goes so many fucking games right there. The illegal substances thing would fuck over stuff like GTA, the rules regarding no depictions of someone being drunk or drugged would fuck over games too. Even if you aren't interested in weird porn, this shit needs to be stopped, because they WILL come for the stuff you do care about eventually.

They've been doing this in their own soil for 30+ years and they no longer have the guts to mess with Rockstar and several others (and every commonwealth country that participated in the scare knows not to deal with those). Needless to say this still needs to be stopped and put back inside their own soil for other often overlooked games that would have way more impact in practice if they are banned/deplatformed globally.

 

[Big Brown Schlub]

The illegal substances thing would fuck over stuff like GTA, the rules regarding no depictions of someone being drunk or drugged would fuck over games too.

Fun fact regarding that: Virtua Fighter is in some places the only fighting game series of note that receives a Mature/16+ or equivalent rating. The reason? Shun Di is a drunken master who powers up and gets new moves the more he drinks. That's it, that's why Virtua Fighter has a much more sensible Teen/12+ rating with CERO or ESRB (Japanese and American) while the European PEGI and Australian ACB rates it M/16+.

 

[Do Not Touch Me Pls]

Gulp. Fedop confirmed

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

They've been doing this in their own soil for 30+ years and they no longer have the guts to mess with Rockstar and several others (and every commonwealth country that participated in the scare knows not to deal with those).

For now. They will try again when they feel powerful enough to. They won't keep shooting rabbits forever. They want to bag at least one rhino.

Fun fact regarding that: Virtua Fighter is in some places the only fighting game series of note that receives a Mature/16+ or equivalent rating. The reason? Shun Di is a drunken master who powers up and gets new moves the more he drinks. That's it, that's why Virtua Fighter has a much more sensible Teen/12+ rating with CERO or ESRB (Japanese and American) while the European PEGI and Australian ACB rates it M/16+.

I love how the countries with lower legal drinking ages freak out more about alcohol in video games. You can drink a beer at 16 but need a parent around to buy a game with a drunk adult martial artist.

 

[Do Not Touch Me Pls]

For now. They will try again when they feel powerful enough to. They won't keep shooting rabbits forever. They want to bag at least one rhino.

They tried.

 

[Oilspill Battery]

I don't really think this is comparable. Hard drugs are illegal but you're still allowed to both do them and depict them being done in fiction, and I don't think being allowed to depict it in fiction led to some kind of explosion of drug abuse.

Durgs are consumed by ingestion, pornography is consumed by observation. This is why depicting drugs is not the same as depicting pornography is. Unless you are incapable of second order thinking you should not even be asking this.

Loli isn't CSAM and furry feral isn't animal abuse, it's a depiction of a child/animal and not an actual child/animal.

Porn involving 2 guys fucking is -> Gay porn.

Porn involving kids is -> _____ porn

Porn involving animals is -> __________ Porn

just really can't care if someone wants to get off to fake shit, even if it's repulsive. I can't honestly say anyone has been harmed if John Smith the degenerate twitter gooner beat his shit to nazi guro/necrophilia 3D hentai games in the comfort of his filthy roach-infested coomden

Porn rewires your brain. People turning into depraved gooners hurts society on the whole. Yes it is harmful to the people consuming it, in the same way black tar heroin is, except detoxing from black tar is probably considerably easier.

This logic of "Well I'm not personally directly immediately affected by this, so it should be legal" is the most depraved of libertarian brainrot imaginable. Should we also allow people to sell krokodil to consenting adults because "so what its not hurting anyone"?

I cannot look at someone who sees "Loli gangrape incest simulator: Dogcock edition" and goes "so what its not hurting anyone" and side with them. When it comes right down to it, I'd rather live in their dystopia than yours.

 

[Jace on ice]

They tried.

View attachment 7673826View attachment 7673829

I love how their primary objection to Postal is Postal Dude doing crack, and not you know all the mass murder.

 

[Oilspill Battery]

I love how their primary objection to Postal is Postal Dude doing crack, and not you know all the mass murder.

Its not crack its health pipes.

 

[Jace on ice]

Its not crack its health pipes.

It can't be good for me but I feel great!

 

[Terrifik]

FASB posting again

https://x.com/XJosh/status/1947394592694849540

 

[Poisonbreath]

Porn involving 2 guys fucking is -> Gay porn.

Porn involving kids is -> _____ porn

Gay rape or kidnapping fantasy porn is legal even with real actors if everyone is consenting, and with fictional shit you can get away with whatever because they're not fucking real. With gay drawn porn there's not two men there, there's two drawn depictions of men. It's like that famous not-a-pipe painting. This is the same logic I'm looking at this with for the "child" and "animal." Along those lines, you'd be ridiculous to say necrophilia hentai and snuff porn are the same thing, the moral issue is that one of these has an impact on real living people and actual quantifiable harm being done. Someone kicking a dog to death in a game like POSTAL 2 might make someone feel bad or make other people around them upset, but there's a pretty drastic difference between that and a video of kicking a real dog to death. The same person who could enjoy kicking a real dog to death would probably enjoy doing it in the game, and if them doing it in the game keeps them from ever doing it to a real dog then I see that as a good thing.

Porn rewires your brain. People turning into depraved gooners hurts society on the whole.

Why should I believe these people aren't fucked up in the first place? I'm not going to assume it's rewiring their heads instead of them already being broken and seeking it out because that's what they're into already. People have been freaks for thousands of years, it's just that these retarded freaks document themselves now online.

If they're children, sure, I'll believe it's rewiring their brain. Children shouldn't be online in the first place, though.

This logic of "Well I'm not personally directly immediately affected by this, so it should be legal" is the most depraved of libertarian brainrot imaginable. Should we also allow people to sell krokodil to consenting adults because "so what its not hurting anyone"?

It's not "I'm not directly affected", I'm saying I don't believe you're affected either. Some retard gooner on the opposite side of the world that you'll never meet or talk to beating off to some random shitty anime porn game on Steam does nothing to you unless you let it. Some nig peddling krokodil to your neighbors is absolutely going to affect you a whole lot, it's not on the same level.

I cannot look at someone who sees "Loli gangrape incest simulator: Dogcock edition" and goes "so what its not hurting anyone" and side with them. When it comes right down to it, I'd rather live in their dystopia than yours.

Personally I just block and ignore fictional shit that I don't want to see. I don't like the idea of corporate oligarchs controlling every aspect of my life and being arbiters of morality, especially when those same ones are the most fucked up degenerate childfucking freaks on the planet. Maybe some years down the line some research will come out conclusively proving that seeing a drawing of a flat chest or a 3D model of a horse dick will instantly rewire your brain and make you a kidnapper or zoosadist or something. If so I'll consider my stance, but I really don't see that happening. Porn has been around since before recorded history, including zoophile shit as far as I know. Sure, it's more abundant and easier to access but blaming porn entirely comes off as a scapegoat, I think the people who like this stuff are fucked up far earlier in their life somehow.

I'm not going to side with powermad childfucking globalist jews that would kill me for an extra $5 on their $6trillion just to get one over on a furfag or anime pedo looking at drawings, especially when it's very obviously going to apply to normal shit too.

 

[JayseeDenton]

Gay rape or kidnapping fantasy porn is legal even with real actors if everyone is consenting, and with fictional shit you can get away with whatever because they're not fucking real. With gay drawn porn there's not two men there, there's two drawn depictions of men. It's like that famous not-a-pipe painting.

>"So you see... an act utilitarian would see the benefit in this kind of thing, while a rule utilitarian would say "oh, perhaps drawing children getting raped is perhaps... categorically. a good thing. This is an empirically correct fact."

I mean come on now, no aiming guns at people?

I believe it means "all sexual activity involving people pointing guns at each other" so basically coerced rape?

 

[ZMOT]

I'm not going to side with powermad childfucking globalist jews that would kill me for an extra $5 on their $6trillion just to get one over on a furfag or anime pedo looking at drawings, especially when it's very obviously going to apply to normal shit too.

not to mention it won't stop there. everybody knows this but there will always be retards dumb enough to fall for the MUH CHILDREN MUH SOCIETY angle.

>So you see... an act utilitarian would see the benefit in this kind of thing, while a rule utilitarian would say "oh, perhaps drawing children getting raped is perhaps... categorically. a good thing. This is an empirically correct fact.

"it's just a picture retard. there's no good or bad"

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

GamesHub: Australian Anti-Porn Group Collective Shout Escalates its War for Video Game Censorship (absolutely unarchivable)

As of late Monday, My Google News searches have turned up few outlets covering over half of Waypoint quitting.

 

[Oilspill Battery]

Someone kicking a dog to death in a game like POSTAL 2 might make someone feel bad or make other people around them upset, but there's a pretty drastic difference between that and a video of kicking a real dog to death.

As long as you refuse to acknowledge that sex shit exists on a level seperate from everything else none of your arguments hold any value. Violence isn't comperable to sex. Human brains are hardwired to seek out and want sex. Bitch about violence all you want, its not the same and it never will be.

Why should I believe these people aren't fucked up in the first place?

Could be, couldn't be. Neither case justifies making the problem worse.

It's not "I'm not directly affected", I'm saying I don't believe you're affected either. Some retard gooner on the opposite side of the world that you'll never meet or talk to beating off to some random shitty anime porn game on Steam does nothing to you unless you let it. Some nig peddling krokodil to your neighbors is absolutely going to affect you a whole lot, it's not on the same level.

Why is your neighboors being loli porn addicts somehow not a bad thing but being smack addicts is? Nobody is forcing you to do krokodil dude, why can't you just let people have fun?

I'm not going to side with powermad childfucking globalist jews that would kill me for an extra $5 on their $6trillion just to get one over on a furfag or anime pedo looking at drawings, especially when it's very obviously going to apply to normal shit too.

Imagine accusing jews of being chilfuckers when you've planted your flag on "loli gangrape tales: episode 8"

 

[Terrifik]

GamesHub: Australian Anti-Porn Group Collective Shout Escalates its War for Video Game Censorship (absolutely unarchivable)

As of late Monday, My Google News searches have turned up few outlets covering over half of Waypoint quitting.

Video game censorship is nothing new. In fact, it’s nearly as old as video games are. Valve recently removed a number of adult games from Steam, and left a host of stricter content guidelines in their wake. This move has drawn no shortage of discourse online, but was unfortunately only the beginning for this latest censorship controversy.

Collective Shout Provokes New Steam Censorship Rules
Shortly after Steam’s new moderation guidelines went live, Australian anti-porn activist group Collective Shout claimed responsibility. Collective Shout has cited payment processors (such as PayPal, MasterCard, and Visa) as primary targets in their campaign, which pairs with Valve’s confirmation that pressure from these payment processors played a role in their decision to ramp up content moderation.

Collective Shout co-founder Melinda Tankard Reist followed up with an inflammatory Twitter post, in which she referred to her detractors as “porn sick brain rotted pedo gamer fetishists”. It is difficult to read this statement and imagine it comes from someone who carries the best interests of the video game community at heart.

Collective Shout is a self-described feminist non-partisan organization, but has alleged ties with anti-trans and conservative organizations. The group has developed a reputation as a sort of puritan crusade that targets everything from Detroit: Become Human to Tyler, the Creator.

Former Waypoint Contributor Responds to Vice’s Collective Shout Controversy
In fact, Collective Shout has been very public about their motives, such as in their open letter to payment processors which initiated this entire process. However, journalist Ana Valens aimed to bring further details to light in a series of articles for Waypoint (the gaming section of Vice magazine). The first article discussed the rocky standing of Collective Shout’s claims against Steam, while the second sought to reveal the “powerful allies” backing the group’s ongoing censorship efforts. Both articles have since been pulled from public access, but remain available to read on the Wayback Machine.

In the wake of her articles’ removal, Valens has since resigned from her position as a Waypoint Contributor. In a brief interview with GamesHub, Valens stated that neither Collective Shout nor its alleged associates, which she believes is in part due to her history as an advocate for the rights of sex workers. Ana Valens’ editor Dwayne Jenkins reportedly argued in favor of keeping the articles up, but was met with the conclusion that there “might be too much legal risk” in doing so.

Jenkins has since left Waypoint in solidarity with Valens. In our conversation with Valens, she named the other contributors who have joined them in resignation as Matt Vatankhah and Shaun Cichaki. Valens noted that the contributors who remain at Waypoint continue to support her as well, but could not afford to risk their job at this time.

There is ultimately no evidence that Collective Shout was directly involved in the removal of these articles, which did not state anything that the group isn’t likely to corroborate themselves. However, any potential involvement would be in line with the tactics the group has employed against Steam. Likewise, there is no doubt that Collective Shout bears a degree of responsibility for the resignation of Ana Valens and her Waypoint colleagues, who believe themselves to be the next likely target in Collective Shout’s pressure campaign.

This calls into question if organizations like Valve and Vice have made the right decision by relenting to pressure. In fairness, financial incentives may have left them with little choice, but it is nevertheless worth considering if there is a reasonable end in sight to Collective Shout’s demands for censorship.

 

[JayseeDenton]

As long as you refuse to acknowledge that sex shit exists on a level seperate from everything else none of your arguments hold any value. Violence isn't comperable to sex. Human brains are hardwired to seek out and want sex. Bitch about violence all you want, its not the same and it never will be.

Edit: @Oilspill Battery I typed all of this out before reading further up and realizing you're in agreement with me so please forgive me for being a massive retard.

This is all true but it's not the one way street you think it is.

Sex is a beautiful thing that when done properly breathes life into the world, this also makes it corruptible. Violence is inherently a corrupt thing, there's really no wrong or right or "pure" way to handle it.

Additionally, as you point out, sex is something the human brain fundamentally desires, which also makes it coercive in a way violence isn't it. Violence is a problem and a fact of life that people will need to understand so they're ready for it. Sexuality is something you're supposed to awaken into.

The human brain is designed to handle immence struggle including pain and violence it is not designed to handle excess pleasure. This is why all the problems of the modern world are those of excess: Too much food, too much sex, too much laziness, too much news exposure, too much information, etc. We're designed to desperately try and find these things in a world that was scarce with them, now we've created a world that's lousy with them.

So yes they're fundamentally different which is why they're treated differently, but the 2000s liberal argument that exposing kids to sex is way better than exposing them to violence is absurd. The data is clear on this, young kids have been exposed to televised violence since the 1930s and before that most of them were commonly exposed to it in real life.

Kids have only been commonly exposed to sex since the 1990s or so and I don't think anybody is going to argue it has resulted in a healthier relationship with sex. Actual fucking/dating is way down while the nastiness of kinks and self mutilation are sky high.

If they're children, sure, I'll believe it's rewiring their brain.

The final step into maturity is realizing that at every stage of your life you're constantly rewiring your brain around whatever you're exposing it to.

 

[One Angry Computer]

Wait, wait, wait, are these totalitarian Karens who are nagging payment processors coming from Australia? And they are forcing shit like this on a fucking GLOBAL scale!?

Someone with diving experience, I beg of you to cut off the fibre optic cables connecting Australia. They no longer deserve internet access if they are run by these fucking evil lunatics forcing everyone to bend over their retarded laws.

They are now somehow worse than—ugh—England by now, and that is a very high bar to surpass.