Steam quietly begins removing adult games over new rule

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Steam has decided to take down adult-oriented games from its platform due to a recent shift in its policies, which are now aligned with limitations set by payment processors.

By mid-April 2025, Valve amended its developer guidelines to ban specific forms of content suitable only for adults, which might breach the regulations set by financial processors such as Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal. This adjustment didn’t receive a public announcement, but actions were taken soon after.

Initially, the modification was noticed on SteamDB, a third-party site that tracks updates in Valve’s developer manual. Without any official announcement, the new guideline emerged within the “Things not allowed to be published on Steam” section.

Following the update, Polygon announced that over two dozen games (at least 22) were taken down from their marketplace. Although Valve hasn’t released an official list of the impacted games, it appears that many of the removed titles contained mature subjects often flagged as problematic by financial institutions.

Steam is banning “certain kinds” of adult games

The updated Steamworks documentation now states that developers may not publish:

Content that might not comply with the guidelines established by Steam’s payment processors, financial institutions, and internet service providers, especially content intended for adults only.

The policy lacks clarity about what actions would be considered as violations, and Valve hasn’t provided clear instructions or explained specifically how they are implementing this rule.

This marks a shift from Valve’s past stance on adult content. Back in 2018, the company adopted a more permissive approach, allowing developers to publish mature games as long as the content was legal and properly labeled.

For quite some time, that policy was kept unchanged, enabling a vast array of mature content to persist on the platform, though only accessible under age restrictions. However, it seems Valve is now adjusting its enforcement strategy to match the norms of external financial services. Regrettably, there’s been no clear guidance or a mechanism for developers to appeal decisions, leaving them in a state of confusion about which content types might be at risk.

By the end of July, it’s still uncertain how extensive the removals will be, and it seems that the enforcing actions are continuing. So far, Valve has remained silent about any public comments regarding these changes.

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2025-07-17 13:50