Therefore, credit card companies can put pressure on Gabe Newell’s company to remove certain games from its digital platform. In a recent statement to PC Gamer, Valve confirmed that it had recently removed a number of adult games from its store because they upset payment processors: “We were recently notified that certain games on Steam violated the rules and standards set forth by our payment processors, related card networks, and banks. As a result, we are retiring those games from the Steam Store,” Valve said.

The company will contact affected developers and issue app credits if they wish to distribute other games on Steam in the future (presumably, if those games receive approval from Valve’s payment processors). Valve specifically stated that it is removing the offending games because losing payment methods would prevent customers from purchasing other titles and game content on Steam. Valve is taking a beating under the tyranny of payment processors, but Steam can’t really stand up to companies like Visa and Mastercard.

Valve has not disclosed which games have been removed from Steam due to the credit card companies’ actions. The new policy appeared in Steam’s documentation at the same time that a bunch of adult games with a family theme suddenly disappeared. There are still some games on Steam with this theme, so it’s unclear whether this sparked the processors’ action. Credit card processors are incredibly sensitive about adult content online. They are not only magnets for scams and chargebacks, but are still reeling from the incident a few years ago when it was revealed that Pornhub hosted content featuring underage or non-consenting performers (the processors cut ties with the company, and that situation has not changed).

Steam does not allow explicit content featuring real people on its platform. All adult content on the platform is in some form animated, and apparently even this makes payment processors nervous. It sets a terrible precedent for Mastercard to decide what we can and cannot buy on Steam.

Source: PCGamer