Nintendo and Steam crack down on hentai and other ‘eSlop’ filling up game stores

Steam has rolled out new guidelines in an attempt to stop games with ‘certain kinds of adult-only content’, as Nintendo tackles a similar problem on Switch 2.

For anyone who has looked through Steam or the Nintendo eShop over the past decade, you’ve probably noticed an abundance of very cheap and/or pervy-looking games, which occasionally creep their way onto the platforms’ best-seller charts.

These can range from low-effort idle clickers like the Banana game or sexually explicit slop designed for sordid individuals. Both types often use spam tactics to game their way up storefront listings, whether through cheap incentives or by overcrowding stores with bundles.

Steam has now updated its ‘rules and guidelines’ in an effort to combat these types of games, especially those with ‘certain kinds of adult-only content’.

Earlier this week, the platform’s guidelines for game distribution were updated with a 15th rule under the ‘what you shouldn’t publish on Steam’ subheading. This reads: ‘Content that may violate the rules of 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.’

While this may seem very vague, various payment providers have taken action against purchases on certain platforms over the years. In 2020, Mastercard and Visa blocked transactions on Pornhub over concerns of illegal content on the platform.

Mastercard updated its requirements the following year, stating that ‘banks that connect merchants to our network will need to certify that the seller of adult content has effective controls in place to monitor, block, and, where necessary, take down all illegal content.’

However, it’s worth noting that this is only a guideline on Steam, so it likely won’t solve the problem outright. You can see some of the games being removed over on SteamDB, though, with the majority over the past week having words like ‘incest’ in the title.

There is a concern that these rules may inadvertently impact games that tackle any sexual themes, especially those involving LGBTQ+ subjects, but it remains to be seen if this will prove a problem.

For the launch of the Switch 2, Nintendo has also made some changes to its guidelines for companies publishing on the Nintendo eShop.

As reported by IGN, these guidelines, which went into effect on June 5 and relate specifically to storefronts in Asia, include restrictions on how many game bundles can be sold at once – with only five now allowed within the first year of a game’s release. However, this increases by one each year to a maximum of eight.

These guidelines also highlight new restrictions around ‘sensitive content’, which is described as anything that ‘would be considered damaging to the Nintendo brand’, including the sexualisation of children, overly sexual content, discrimination and hate, and instructing criminal activity.

The other new guideline is designed to tackle inaccurate descriptions of games, with the new rule stating, ‘It is prohibited to provide description of the content of a product as under development if it is not expected to be implemented in the product.’

Ahead of the Switch 2 launch, Nintendo changed the criteria of what shows up on the eShop chart, in what seemed to be a bid to counter heavily-discounted games. Before April, the charts page ranked games based on the volume of downloads over the past two weeks, but now it’s been altered to a revenue-based system over the past three days.

While this helps restrict lower-quality games, often nicknamed ‘eSlop’, it may have a detrimental effect on indie games in general, although for now, we’ll just have to see how things work out.

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