Valve Bows To Credit Card Companies, Announces Steam Ban On “Certain Kinds Of Adult Only Content” As Determined By “The Standards Set Forth By Payment Processors”
In becoming the latest major commercial entity to acquiesce to the rising puritanism of Western credit card companies, Valve has announced that all games submitted for sale through their Steam digital storefront, but in particular those that are more ‘adult-oriented’, will now be subject to review and action according to the “rules and standards” set forth by their various payment processors.
This developer-specific change to Steam’s terms of service was made to the ‘Rules & Guidelines‘ section of Steamworks’ Onboarding Documentation, as published in order to help get developers acquainted with the ins-and-outs of the platform’s submission process, on July 16th.
As a result, in addition to the 14 previously-established guidelines for developers to follow when selling their games through Steam, which includes such standard requests as ‘No copyright infringement’ and ‘No child exploitation, the company now warns that “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.”
Following this update, Valve quickly moved to start enforcing their new ToS, resulting in a number of risqué games being outright removed from Steam.
And while the list of games dinged thus far is currently made up exclusively of outright pornographic titles, many bearing such ‘collar tugging’ titles as Heavenly Badonkers Angels B-tches and Paze Knight Ellen and the Dungeon town Sodom, there exists a distinct possibility that, in this current ‘pearl clutching’ era of human civilization, it’s only a matter of time until more traditional video games like the Senran Kagura series or Lollipop Chainsaw come under fire for their ‘cheeky’ features.
As noted above, while Valve may be arguably the biggest company to do so, it is far from the only one to change their attitude towards risqué content under threat of losing their ability to process credit card payments.
In the past year alone, similar switch-ups have been seen from art-centric social media platform Nico Nico Shunga, the online out-of-print manga repository Manga Library Z, popular doujinshi outlet Melonbooks, and nerd merchandise chain Suruga-ya – all of which, notably, were based in Japan.
And while Visa’s Head of Product in the Asia Pacific region Cietan Kitney has admitted that “sometimes it is necessary to disallow [adult content] to protect the brand”, those who stand to be affected are genuinely worried about the end goals of the credit card cabal – including NieR series creator Yoko Taro.
Taking to his personal Twitter account on November 5th in the aftermath of Manga Library Z’s forced shutdown, the eccentric video game director decried, “Credit card payment companies are refusing to accept legitimate adult content payments. Regulations beyond the law have been in place in publishing and other fields, but the fact that a payment processor, which is involved in the entire distribution infrastructure, can do so at its own discretion seems to me to be a different level of danger. If they have control of the clearing house, they can even use it to control speech in other countries.”
“I get the sense that this is not just a matter of adult regulation or freedom of expression,” he added in a follow-up tweet, “but a security hole for democracy as a whole.”
As of writing, Valve has yet to offer any direct communication to its users regarding their new credit card company-based morality standards.
