Steam removing adult games shows

Steam recently began to prohibit games that violate the “rules and standards” of payment processors and banks. It’s a move which many consider a form of censorship, predominantly affecting adult games. Nier creator Yoko Taro says not only is this bad for games, but it “endangers democracy itself.”

Yoko Taro tweets (as spotted and translated by Automaton): “About credit card payment companies refusing to process payments for legal adult content. Publishing and similar fields have always faced regulations that go beyond the law, but the fact that a payment processor, which is involved in the entire infrastructure of content distribution, can do such things at its own discretion seems to me to be dangerous on a whole new level.”

Payment processors like PayPal, Visa, and MasterCard have a huge amount of power due to how ingrained they are in global financial systems. Countries all over the world use them, so if one decides it won’t deal with a certain type of product, it becomes much harder to make money from it.

Beyond just money though, Yoko Taro warns, “It implies that by controlling payment processing companies, you can even censor another country’s free speech.” Steam confirmed that its move to ban these games came after it was “recently notified that certain games on Steam may violate the rules and standards set forth by our payment processors and their related card networks and banks.”

The payment methods accepted by Steam here in the UK are PayPal, Visa, MasterCard, JCB, Skrill, PaySafe Card, and Trustly. These companies are from the US, UK, Sweden, and Japan, but they can determine what can be sold in many countries.

Yoko Taro adds, “I feel like it’s not just a matter of censoring adult content or jeopardizing freedom of expression, but rather a security hole that endangers democracy itself.”

Australian “anti-porn group” Collective Shout has claimed credit for the change at Steam. It calls itself “a grassroots campaigns movement against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls.” The group previously successfully stopped Target and Walmart in Australia from selling GTA 5.

Even though 100 titles have been removed, the best Steam games are still around.

I’m Issy, a freelancer who you’ll now occasionally see over here covering news on GamesRadar. I’ve always had a passion for playing games, but I learned how to write about them while doing my Film and TV degrees at the University of Warwick and contributing to the student paper, The Boar. After university I worked at TheGamer before heading up the news section at Dot Esports. Now you’ll find me freelancing for Rolling Stone, NME, Inverse, and many more places. I love all things horror, narrative-driven, and indie, and I mainly play on my PS5. I’m currently clearing my backlog and loving Dishonored 2.