Valve Rule Change Effectively Gives Banks And Payment Processors Power Over What's Allowed On Steam

By Wallace Truesdale  |  July 16, 2025 | 12:00pm
Games News Steam
Valve Rule Change Effectively Gives Banks And Payment Processors Power Over What's Allowed On Steam

Changes to Valve’s Rules and Guidelines section of their Steamworks’ Onboarding page give banks and payment processors some degree of influence over what games can appear on Steam. RockPaperShotgun verified a new addition to the guide under its “What you shouldn’t publish on Steam” section that reads, “[What you shouldn’t publish on Steam:] 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.”

While this may seem like a small update, it’s anything but. This change effectively allows payment processors, banks, and internet service providers to pressure Steam into removing games they have an issue with on the platform. Although the rule update stipulates that this only applies to adult only content, this term can be nebulous.

For example, as YouTuber and former game developer NoahFuel_Gaming noted on Bluesky, LGBTQ+ games and devs could be hurt by this due to how often queer culture gets unfairly labeled as adult only. In their words, “Queer content gets flagged as ‘explicit’ even when it’s PG. A trans dev making a personal story? ‘Too controversial.’ A surreal queer VN? ‘Sexualized.’ Financial deplatforming in action.”

This concern is not unfounded, especially in the present day where even safe-for-work events like drag queen story hour are called too adult. Let’s also not forget the avalanche of legislation passed by the current Trump administration that targets the LGBTQ+ community as a function, not by happenstance. This all contributes to a normalization of LGBTQ+ presences being sexualized and erased over fundamentally flawed logic and personal agendas—things that banks and payment processors are not immune to. This is on top of Valve’s own less-than-stellar track record of handling adult content on Steam. 

Additionally, if there’s any question about whether this power would be used, there is already plenty of precedent. One of the more high-profile instances was in 2020 when Visa, Mastercard, and Discover shut down their services with Pornhub in light of their serious underage content issue at the time. While that specific move was easy to get behind, given the crimes involved, this same power has been used against OnlyFans and Patreon in ways that may have harmed platform users more than helped, especially in Patreon’s case, since it already banned pornographic material. Age verification laws in particular, which come up frequently in the arena of policing NSFW content online, raise multiple eyebrows given that their execution can clash with digital privacy and free speech.  

Overall, it will be important to pay attention to how the parties in question define adult only when it comes to Steam, as it will have major implications for what gets to stay on the most popular online video game storefront.

Keep scrolling for more great stories from A.V. Club.
 
Join the discussion...