PayPal Reportedly Closing Accounts Of Gamers Buying Adult Games, Keeping Profits Of Adult Game Developer
In the aftermath of Steam and Itch.io purging “illegal” adult games after pressure from payment processors such as Mastercard and Visa, it seems even adult games with legal adult content is under scrutiny. In the prior weeks, there have been claims of PayPal not only closing the accounts of gamers buying adult games, but even those of an adult game developer.
The profits of said game, due to featuring cheating and “corruption,” resulted in PayPal allegedly keeping their profits.
Reddit user Goro_Majima, posting to the r/lewdgames subreddit, made a shocking claim on August 20th, starting a thread titled “Buying NSFW games on Itch.io? PayPal may Nuke your account!” The user encloses screenshots of several purchases made on Itch.io from August 6th to 16th (totaling $47.27), and an email from PayPal.
[Editor’s Note: The user does not disclose the name of their game, ergo none of the screenshots in this article are from said game.]
“Just woke up to an Email from PayPal stating that my account was permanently limited, thinking it’s a scam I check and lo and behold: I was limited. But what had I done? Well my only purchases using PayPal were through Itch.io, that’s the only thing I use it for,” Goro_Majima claimed.
“It seems I was limited for breaking ‘the policies of our partners’ mentioned in the first paragraph of the notice. It’s no secret that PayPal are quite close with Mastercard and Visa, who have been pushing hardest for this porn ban (sorry, specifically the NSFW Games sphere),” the user proposed.
“So this is a PSA: if you’re using your PayPal account for anything else, don’t use it for Itch.”
The alleged email from PayPal declared “we’re no longer offering PayPal services for this account,” barely elaborating, “Sometimes we can’t offer services to an account for a variety of reasons, including local laws, our policies or the policies of our partners.”
“Based on the information we have today, it appears that there has been activity on this account that we cannot process.” The email, emphasized Goro_Majima, could withdraw any funds remaining.
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An interesting wrinkle is that Itch.io de-indexed their offending adult content on July 24th. Around July 28th, Itch.io updated FAQ, explaining that to meet the ToS of PayPal (along with Stripe and Payoneer), the “non-exhaustive” list of forbidden content. This included the likes of sexual content featuring a lack of consent, under-age characters, and the like.
Several possibilities arise over the adult games Goro_Majima bought in August. One or more were against Itch.io’s ToS (somehow avoiding bans even if their content wasn’t on their non-exhaustive list), PayPal refused service due to an older purchase that featured forbidden content, or PayPal refused service for buying games even within their ToS.
Mid-August saw some gamers unable to buy games on Steam via PayPal. Reddit user “jeeg123” shared a message that appeared when attempting to add funds to their Steam account, noting, “PayPal use on Steam us currently unavailable in my currency. Why?”
“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,” the message explained.
Valve insisted they “hoped” they could offer PayPal in those currencies in the future, but “the timeline is uncertain.” They stated they were also evaluating additional payment methods for those affected.
Valve confirmed with Rock Paper Shotgun that one of PayPal’s acquiring banks pulling support “is regarding content on Steam, related to what we’ve previously commented on surrounding Mastercard.” This may explain what one adult game developer happened to them, despite being based in the UK (using GBP).
Reddit user Fit-Commercial-5681 turned to r/LegalAdviceUK for help on August 25th. “I owe a massive corporation tax bill to HMRC and PayPal has frozen all my funds because I made an adult game.”
“I’m a programmer for games on Steam (primarily adult games) and a month ago I was expecting payment for a game I released which netted me ~£80,000 [$108,115]. This money was supposed to be used to pay a large corporation tax bill due in August. However, for 4+ weeks now PayPal have refused to release ANY of the money to me,” Fit-Commercial-5681 claimed.
The developer continued. “They interviewed me and asked where it came from. I said it came from programming work I did for video games. They asked me where the games were sold, I said Steam. Then they asked me what specific game it was and demanded I link the store page.”
“I linked the store page and when they realised it was an adult game they refused to release my money. They have also not refunded it to the lead developer either. I’ve raised complaints that have gone NOWHERE. I’ve been told that I’ve violated PayPal’s terms of service.”
“Bear in mind PayPal is very far removed from the actual sales of this game,” Fit-Commercial-5681 justified. “Steam pays lead developer. Lead developer takes money into his corporation. His corporation sends its share of the profits to my corporation’s PayPal. I withdraw from that PayPal and into my business bank account.”
The user then insisted “The game we developed is perfectly legal. It doesn’t contain any genres that violate UK laws. It’s about cheating in relationships, basically. Is it legal for PayPal to interfere and restrict legal business activity this way?”
Speaking to other users, Fit-Commercial-5681 revealed to have already been “de-banked” — along with the lead developer — by three high street banks and other banking apps before turning to PayPal. In addition, PayPal had allegedly refused to pay the lead developer; with the latter also revealed to not having the money for a lawyer.
In reply to another user asking what terms PayPal said he broke, Fit-Commercial-5681 quoted, “you may not use the PayPal service for activities that: relate to transactions involving… (i) certain sexually oriented materials or services.”
The developer also elaborated, “[PayPal] are arguing that the genre we created (cheating and corruption) are against their acceptable use policy.”
Again, Valve had purged their offending adult content around July 18th. If the developer’s content was illegal under UK law (like the content purged by Valve), then PayPal would likely have notified the authorities.
There have also been prior unconfirmed claims of PayPal keeping money when closing accounts for violating policies, and PayPal previously established terms stipulating that spreading “misinformation” could get you a $2,500 fine for “damages.”
To give credit, there is a chance the “corruption” kink (degradation of sexual morals) was implemented in a way that violated PayPal’s terms, or even the “cheating” element. Nonetheless, it’s hard to imagine what content could be legal in the UK, yet against PayPal’s terms.
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True to Fit-Commercial-5681’s word, PayPal’s UK Acceptable Use Policy‘s “prohibited activities” include “certain sexually oriented materials or services,” while “Mature Audience Content” requires approval. The US Acceptable Use Policy (as Valve is a US company) is identical in this regard.
Yet under the US help center‘s “What is PayPal’s policy on transactions that involve sexually oriented goods and services?” category — not present in its UK counterpart — PayPal lays down further stipulations for account holders.
The payment platform specifies that account holders are neither allowed to buy nor sell “Sexually oriented digital goods or content delivered through a digital medium. Examples of digital goods include downloadable pictures or videos and website subscriptions”, “Sexually oriented goods or services that involve, or appear to involve, minors,” and “Services whose purpose is to facilitate meetings for sexually oriented activities.”
PayPal insists, “We don’t factor in sexual preferences and viewpoints when determining what our policy prohibits.”
“Regulations or restrictions placed on the purchase or sale of the product” , “The product’s classification by a recognized ratings board” , “Whether the product describes or depicts sexual conduct in a patently offensive way” , “The dominant theme of the product material or website” , “The literary, artistic, political, or scientific value of the product” , “Potential medicinal or educational uses for the product,” and “The product’s impact on the safety of our customers” are the considerations PayPal takes when deciding the sort of “sexually oriented goods and services” they allow.
Those terms seemingly make PayPal’s limitations on adult material far wider, and offer new light on what has been restricted before. “Patently offensive” content can differ between cultures, but “literary, artistic, political, or scientific value” is hard to argue.
Many games on digital stores have no ratings, especially in the case of indies. Though bypassing that (costly) process, said games would still need to meet the terms of Steam and the like, along with being honest about their content.
This may also explain why vtuber Miilkywayz had their PayPal closed, shared on X on August 27th, due to their “18+” Patreon.
All of this still prompts some questions. Even if PayPal is forbidding purchase of only certain kinds adult material, why aren’t we hearing more outcry? Whether all adult content or only some, shouldn’t we be seeing more cases of adult material sellers and buyers being affected?
Is this the tip of the iceberg, or does PayPal lack the means to enforce their own terms against everyone?
