Steam has updated its content guidelines and has started to withdraw certain problematic games in response to the pressure exerted by payment service providers, including Visa and Mastercard.
Steam’s “Onboarding” section on the documentation home page was discreetly updated to include the following in Rules and Guidelines (rules and directives): “The content that can violate the rules and standards established by Steam payment processors and card networks and related banks, or Internet networks suppliers. In particular, certain types of content reserved for adults.”
As has spotted https://www.thegamer.com/steam-publisher-guidatelines-card-networks-visa-mastercard-block-dult-content/ by Thegamer, it sparked a mini-purge https://steamdb.info/history/events/ according to the Steam database, with many problems such as that“Incest Tales“,“Wolf on Rail“,“Sex Village“,“Slave of the Police Officer“, And many others, which have been removed from the list.
Although we do not know exactly what “certain types of content reserved for adults” means, it seems that more problematic and fetishly subjects will no longer be authorized on the store.
In a way, it’s a good thing, because Steam has a long story with adult games that had to be treated. On the other hand, this gives payment companies more influence on what is published on the store, effectively saying the type of games to which people can play.
This is not a novelty for Visa or Mastercard. The two companies have already raised against adult content on platforms such as Pornhub and Onlyfans.
Open letter from Collective Shout
At the beginning of the month, Collective Shout, a popular campaign movement against the objectification of women in the media, sent an open letter () to payment operators, including Paypal and Mastercard to payment companies, including Paypal, Visa and Mastercard, accusing them of taking advantage of hundreds of problem games on Steam.
The association has urged payment companies to “show social responsibility and immediately cease to treat payments on Steam and Itch.io, as well as any other platform hosting similar games”
