Steam Updates Adult Content Policies Amid Payment Processor Pressure
The Rules of Pay
Valve Corporation’s Steam platform has long championed a permissive approach to game publishing, allowing titles that other storefronts might reject. However, on July 15, 2025, Valve quietly updated its Onboarding Documentation with a new rule: developers must not include “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.”
- New rule targets unspecified “adult only” content to satisfy Visa, Mastercard, and other payment networks’ merchant risk policies.
- Ambiguity remains over which explicit elements trigger processor flags—ranging from incest and under-aged themes to non-consensual or extreme BDSM imagery.
- Developers must now certify compliance with PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) at integration points beyond Valve’s own checkout API.
Enforcement and Recent Removals
In tandem with the policy update, community trackers at SteamDB observed the removal of dozens of titles that reference incest or exploitative themes such as “slave” or “prison” settings. Among the delisted games were:
- Interactive Sex: Incest Sister (barred for implied familial sexual relations).
- Prisoner’s Pleasures: Hard Time (removed for non-consensual violence imagery).
- Slave Market Saga (pulled over exploitative adult role-play references).
Valve has not published a comprehensive takedown log, but estimates suggest between 30–50 titles were affected in this wave. A spokesperson for Valve told Ars Technica that “payment processors hold veto power over categories of content that carry elevated chargeback or fraud risk.”
Payment Processor Compliance Mechanisms
Major card networks enforce automatic and manual reviews based on Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) and chargeback ratios. High-risk MCCs—for example, adult entertainment (MCC 5764)—face stricter scrutiny. According to Global Payment Solutions compliance manager Jane Doe:
“Processors use AI-driven fraud detection models to score transactions. Merchants exceeding a chargeback ratio of 0.5% in a 30-day window can face suspension or increased reserve requirements.”
Steam’s integration with Adyen and Stripe means Valve must flag content at the API layer. Any flagged product may trigger an automatic hold on payments pending manual review by teams in Ireland and Singapore.
Technical Impacts on Developers
Indie studios and AAA publishers alike rely on Steam’s Steamworks SDK for age-gating and regional restrictions. The new policy forces them to:
- Implement more granular content metadata tags specifying sexual themes, consenting adults only, and no exploitative narratives.
- Integrate third-party age verification APIs such as Yoti or Bouncer to ensure compliance in markets with strict censorship laws.
- Update ESRB, PEGI, and CERO ratings to align with Steam’s internal classification system, linking them to Valve’s digital rights management (DRM) checks.
John Smith, lead developer at PixelForge Studios, noted: “We had to add two extra API calls in our build pipeline to pass through Steam’s compliance layer. It increased build time by 7–10% but cut down on false positives during content review.”
Global and Regulatory Context
Steam’s policy shift mirrors broader regulatory trends worldwide. The EU’s Digital Services Act mandates proactive content moderation, while the US enforces COPPA and 18 U.S.C. § 2257 record-keeping for sexual content. National bodies in Germany and Australia impose fines for explicit depictions of minors or incest, compelling platforms to adhere or risk multi-million euro penalties.
Comparison with Other Platforms
Competing storefronts like Epic Games Store and Itch.io maintain adult content sections but have lower payment volumes and thus reduced oversight. Itch.io, for instance, permits bare-bone listings for 18+ games under an “unfiltered” category, but developers must self-host payment processing to sidestep processor rules.
Potential Future Implications
The deference to payment processors sets a precedent for external entities to shape platform policies. As cloud gaming and subscription services (e.g., NVIDIA GeForce Now, Xbox Cloud Gaming) grow, content gatekeeping may shift further upstream. Industry watchers predict:
- Adoption of decentralized distribution using blockchain and NFTs to bypass centralized controls.
- Emergence of content moderation as a service, where third parties certify games for compliance.
- Increased AI-driven content analysis built into engines like Unreal and Unity to preemptively flag policy violations.
Digital rights advocate Maria Lopez warns: “When payment networks hold the final say, platforms become de facto censors. We’re entering an era where economic power dictates creative boundaries.”
Expert Recommendations
- Developers should maintain an audit trail of all age-verification and content classification steps to simplify dispute resolution.
- Platforms must offer clear guidelines and real-time compliance dashboards to reduce developer uncertainty.
- Stakeholders should advocate for transparent collaboration between payment networks, regulators, and content platforms.
As Steam navigates the tightrope between open publishing and financial compliance, the gaming community will closely watch whether creative expression can withstand the constraints imposed by payments infrastructure.