Valve allows ISPs and payment processors to censor content on Steam

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At an unknown date in 2025, Valve updated its Rules and Guidelines for developers on Steam. Within these rules, they granted internet service providers (ISPs) and banks/transaction providers the power to delist games from their platform. Consumers have shown considerable criticism despite the nature of the content removed from the platform due to the vagueness of these rules leaving a window open for expanded censorship.

Background

Steam's content policies

Prior to 2025, Steam maintained a permissive stance towards adult content, following their 2018 policy change that allowed "everything" except illegal content or "obvious trolling." This policy allowed a diverse range of adult-oriented games on the platform, including visual novels, dating simulators, & games with mature themes.

Payment processor precedents

The gaming industry observed similar payment processor interventions in other digital platforms. In December 2020, Mastercard & VISA suspended services to Pornhub following allegations of illegal content, resulting in the removal of over 10 million videos from the platform.

Unfair content policy creation

At an unknown time within 2025, the Rules and Guidelines for developers on Steam was updated by Valve due to pressures from payment vendors to delist content published with excessively mature content. However, vagueness of the following new rule within the policy has brought concern from consumers and the press:

15. 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.

This is because enables payment processors, banks, and even ISPs to delist content based on what they solely deem to be unsuitable, which may extend beyond sexually explicit content.

Timeline of events

July 11, 2025: Collective Shout campaign

The Australian advocacy group Collective Shout, which also defended the film "Cuties" that used underage girls published an open letter to payment processors titled "Open letter to payment processors profiting from rape, incest + child abuse games on Steam." The letter was addressed to the CEOs of PayPal, Mastercard, & Visa, demanding they "immediately cease processing payments on Steam and itch.io."

July 12, 2025: PayPal blocks Steam in most countries

Starting on July 12, many Steam users from other countries took to Reddit to ask why PayPal had stopped functioning. The error message on the Steam checkout webpage when failing to use PayPal reads "We are temporarily unable to process transactions with this payment method at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience."

July 15-16, 2025: Rule implementation

Steam updated its developer guidelines to include Rule 15. SteamDB tracking indicated that over 100 games were removed from the platform within 16 hours of the policy change. The removed games primarily featured adult themes, with particular focus on titles containing incest narratives, sexual violence simulations, or slavery themes.

July 17, 2025: Collective Shout claims victory

Collective Shout published a follow-up article claiming credit for the policy change, titled "Win – New policy on Steam and rape + incest games removed." Co-founder Melinda Tankard Reist made statements that were characterized by gaming media as inflammatory.

August 1, 2025: Mastercard responds, Valve clarifies

In an article by games journalist website Kotaku, Mastercard had responded by claiming "Mastercard has not evaluated any game or required restrictions of any activity on game creator sites and platforms, contrary to media reports and allegations", However, Valve responded within the same day clarifying "Mastercard did not communicate with Valve directly, despite our request to do so, Mastercard communicated with payment processors and their acquiring banks. Payment processors communicated this with Valve, and we replied by outlining Steam’s policy since 2018 of attempting to distribute games that are legal for distribution. Payment processors rejected this, and specifically cited Mastercard’s Rule 5.12.7 and risk to the Mastercard brand.", where MasterCard rule 5.12.7 states "A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks."

August 9, 2025: MasterCard warns gaming tournaments about negative sentiment

The games journalist who had their articles removed from Vice's website later mentioned that a source had told them that MasterCard, as a major sponsor for "League of Legends" eSports tournaments, had warned Riot Games (game developer of popular eSports game "League of Legends") about negative comments related to the recent games censorship issue, with the implication of deleting related comments from the chatroom on the official livestreams, as well as on the livestreams of content creator partners who work directly with Riot Games.

August 12, 2025: Valve Support update on PayPal payment issues

Valve updated their checkout website with a support link when failing to checkout using PayPal that reads "In early July 2025, PayPal notified Valve that their acquiring bank for payment transactions in certain currencies was immediately terminating the processing of any transactions related to Steam. This affects Steam purchases using PayPal in currencies other than EUR, CAD, GBP, JPY, AUD and USD.". This affects most countries, especially Eastern Europe, South America, and Asia, who cannot use PayPal for payments on Steam.

August 14, 2025: Valve confirms PayPal issues are related to the Mastercard issue

In an article by games journalist website RockPaperShotgun, Valve clarifies the withdrawal of support for Steam transactions by one of PayPal's acquiring banks "is regarding content on Steam, related to what we’ve previously commented on surrounding Mastercard. In this case, one of PayPal’s acquiring banks decided to stop processing any Steam transactions, which cut off PayPal on Steam for a number of currencies".

Currently, the content being removed from the platform has included excessively sexual and mature topics, however, no significant game without this questionable content has been labeled as retired according to SteamDB currently.

Valve's response

The gaming news website Gaming on Linux contacted Valve regarding the matter, with its press team responding with the following:

We were 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. As a result, we are retiring those games from being sold on the Steam Store, because loss of payment methods would prevent customers from being able to purchase other titles and game content on Steam. We are directly notifying developers of these games, and issuing app credits should they have another game they'd like to distribute on Steam in the future.

GamesRadar+ reported that Valve confirmed the removals were due to pressure from banks and card companies, with the company stating that losing payment methods would prevent customers from purchasing any content on the platform.

Impact on other platforms

Itch.io

On July 19, 2025, the indie gaming platform itch.io announced it would be "deindexing" adult content due to payment processor scrutiny. The platform's founder, Leaf Corcoran, stated they were "actively reaching out to other payment processors" and acknowledged having "limited ability to push back" compared to larger platforms like Valve.

Rascal News reported that itch.io had deindexed over 21,000 adult games, making them invisible in searches while technically remaining hosted. The platform later announced that free adult content would be re-indexed with improved content warnings.

The deindexing of itch.io games has significantly affected the Queer and Furry communities who hosted a lot of popular Visual Novel (Interactive Story) games on that website, some of which did not contain any erotica but were labelled as NSFW just because of containing story themes about queer people. Because of this, a large amount of users from BlueSky have organised a few campaigns against payment companies, including the creation of certain posters and websites as a call to action.

Consumer response

Consumer response is currently split, while many recognize that the content that has been taken down so far contains questionable topics, a majority both notice and dread the flaws of allowing third-parties to control what content would be allowed to be sold on Steam. A Reddit post written by u/TeaLycan shared their concerns about how the new rule can be abused to unfairly delist content via nondescript rules on the platform.

Petitions and organized campaigns

A Change.org petition titled "Tell MasterCard, Visa & Activist Groups: Stop Controlling What We Can Watch, Read, or Play" gained over 200,000 signatures. Game Rant reported that the petition was "blowing up" as Steam users rallied against the censorship.

TheGamer reported that Steam users were coordinating campaigns to contact Visa directly about the game removals. TweakTown later reported that Visa had responded to the backlash, though the company's statement did not directly address the Steam situation.

Due to itch.io games removal significantly affecting queer people, users cereza.zome and meltingcomet.com from BlueSky created websites full of activism information and sources.

Community discussions

Steam Community forums saw extensive discussion about the payment processor influence, with users expressing concern about the precedent being set. PC Gamer characterized the new rule as putting "the kibosh on 'certain kinds of adult only content' that make Visa and Mastercard sad."

Consumers have linked this incident to an open letter written by the lobbyist group Collective Shout, especially since the delisted content matched closely to the content decried by the aforementioned letter.

It has also raised questions about the dominance of traditional payment providers and users have been suggesting various open and privacy friendly alternatives to established systems that would not allow for such influence to be exercised on the kinds of goods being sold and could even allow for anonymity when purchasing digital goods.

Industry and media response

Game developers

The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) issued a statement expressing concern about the removals, stating that they were "materially harmful to game developers" and that games featuring "consensual adult content, including queer, kink-positive, or romantic narratives, are easily targeted under vague or overly cautious enforcement."

NoobFeed reported that multiple developers were caught off-guard by the sudden removals, with many learning about their games' delisting through community reports rather than direct notification from Valve.

Gaming media coverage

Kotaku published an article titled "The War Over Credit Cards Censoring Games Is Just Getting Started".

VICE reported on user anger toward Valve "for Banning Adult-Only Games off Its Platform".

NotebookCheck reported that journalists investigating the censorship had resigned from their positions, though specific details were not provided.

Alternative payment methods

Cryptocurrency options

Following the controversy, services offering Steam gift cards for cryptocurrency got more attention. PayRam reported a 300% increase in gaming-related cryptocurrency transactions. Multiple services including Bitrefill, Coinsbee, and CryptoRefills offer Steam gift cards you can buy with different cryptocurrencies.

Steam previously accepted Bitcoin directly from 2016 to 2017 but discontinued the service citing high fees and volatility.

Scary precedents set

Financial censorship concerns

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has characterized payment processor restrictions as creating "choke points to accomplish widespread censorship." The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) issued a statement on free speech and online payment processors, noting concerns about the expanding influence of financial intermediaries on digital content.

Aftermath published an article titled "Controversial Opinion, But Faceless Payment Processors Probably Shouldn't Be Able To Run The Whole World From The Shadows," bringing up concerns about unaccountable financial censorship.

International responses

CBC Radio reported on the situation as "How an anti-porn lobby on payment processors censored thousands of video games."

Japanese gaming news outlet GIGAZINE reported that "'Gamer Outrage' became a trending topic on Japan's X (formerly Twitter)" following the removals and Collective Shout's statements.

See also

• Collective Shout