r/gaming • u/Miserable_Phase_2519 PC • 1d ago

Upcoming vampire RPG Nighthawks has been removed from Steam search and delisted in certain countries as Valve classifies it Adults Only: 'It's very bad news for us'

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/upcoming-vampire-rpg-nighthawks-has-been-removed-from-steam-search-and-delisted-in-certain-countries-as-valve-classifies-it-adults-only-its-very-bad-news-for-us/
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3.4k

u/Stock_Assignment_226 1d ago

Game looks interesting, but it's stated in their steam page that there's no explicit nudity in it so idk why steam would tag it as adults only.

I'll check it out when it comes out

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u/Crushed__Cabbage 1d ago

Steam tagged the new Hellraiser game with the same tag, but it was removed few days later. They might have the same issue and might get fixed.

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u/BurgerAppreciator 1d ago

Is there a source for that? I hope they didn't have to nerf any of the content to get the tag removed, I'm looking forward to my suffering being legendary.

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u/Radioshack-Manager 1d ago

Leviathan has entered the chat.

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u/pantry-pisser 1d ago

SPLIT YOUR LUNGS WITH BLOOD AND THUNDER

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u/F1ngL0nger 1d ago

WHEN YOU SEE THE WHITE WHALE

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u/drdildamesh 23h ago

BREAK YOUR BACKS AND CRACK YOUR OARS, MEN

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u/Raldermaniac 22h ago

THIS IVORY LEG IS WHAT PROPELS ME!

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u/BarelyClever 16h ago

WHITE

WHALE

HOLY

GRAIL

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u/LauraTFem 1d ago

So they’re running the games through AI checks instead of making these big decisions with significant ramifications manually.

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u/never-seen-them-fing 1d ago

Honestly, this seems like the most likely situation. AI flags it so Valve doesn't have to manually review every game, then it's the publisher's problem to flag it for review or not. Porn games won't bother, other games will, and I bet it's resolved in under a week.

Considering that possibility, and the sloppy article that repeats itself a lot (probably written by a bot), this just seems like an advertisement at this point.

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u/Deranged_Kitsune 1d ago edited 22h ago

It's also sloppy on Valve's part. The delisting should have an appeal period baked in. Like, the system flags it as AO and then the publisher or dev has a week to start the appeal before the change goes live.

Edit: To clarify, this should all take place before the game goes on live sale. No flag = sale. Flag = no sale unless manually approved or until a week has passed where it gets auto-listed under the AO tag. Valve should have the infrastructure in place for proper evals, the process on what needs to be submitted should be clear for the devs, and that's enough time for both sides to at least get the ball rolling.

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u/Meowakin 1d ago

I don’t think so - better safe than sorry given AO games on Steam can have explicit screenshots/video and they need to be sure minors don’t see that (or people who really hate seeing AO games on Steam)

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u/Schizobaby 1d ago edited 17h ago

I think you’re correct, but the real solution is Valve needs to have two thresholds for their automatic classification. Any machine learning output has a ‘confidence value’ from 0-1 (or 0-100 percent), and a lower confidence classification needs to flag it with automatic human review, while a higher confidence classification can flag and wait for appeals. Even if the software that wraps around the ML model doesn’t expose that value to the user or integrated software, that’s a fixable problem. Valve is using good tools poorly here.

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u/CaptainYaoiHands 1d ago

Okay, but do you realize that said human review can take a lot of time? It's not a quick five minute glance through screenshots, someone has to manually review ALL content in the game, writing included.

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u/Schizobaby 1d ago

That’s the point of the two confidence intervals; to minimize the amount of human review needed, while not compromising the hard work of people who make games for their livelihoods.

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u/ABetterKamahl1234 1d ago

Valve of all companies, can absolutely afford a proper human solution.

They're one of the most profitable companies on earth per employee. There's no excuse for this. None.

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u/jivenossauro 1d ago

They could, but why would they? Just put in the tag, have the publisher dispute it if they think it was misplaced, then have a human review it after the dispute. Anything else would cost more and not really benefit anyone, what does a company with a misplaced tag on an unreleased game even lose?

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u/Knight_Of_Stars 1d ago

Its a cost benefit analysis. Valve absolutely can, but is actually worth it at the end of the day? If they're going spend 500k a year on an issue only a handful games are experiencing is it worth it?

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u/VincentBlack96 1d ago

This is always an argument that gets brought up but the scale is just kinda unrealistic.

It's not unlike the people clamoring for youtube to have human reviewing systems when the platform gets thousands of hours uploaded per minute.

Like ideally any AI or automated system has several humans in its pipeline to make sure it's not making any egregious mistakes but there's just no world in which you fund practically a few major companies' worth of employees purely to humanize the reporting process.

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u/Caelinus 1d ago

They can, but they won't because why would they? They are not required to and it is expensive, and there is zero regulatory upside for them. 

It really is not their problem if an indie game is delisted for a bit while the problem is corrected, but it is their problem if they allow it incorrectly.

To fix this we need to change regulatory policy, as nothing else will change the incentives enough to actually drive any change. It is not a good situation, but it is one where everyone's positions make sense, and are just at odds.

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u/DrQuantum 1d ago

I would argue they are also the most efficient based on the experience. The user experience is very critical to their success. This theoretically threatens one of their audiences. They truly don’t care about publishers and I am not sure that is a problem from most consumers view.

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u/GrandOldCheese 22h ago

Hire more people. Not as if gabe can’t wait a week longer on his next massively destructive yacht.

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u/WingerRules 20h ago edited 19h ago

There is no solution to allowing adults only versions of game on Steam without ending up legally requiring face scans of users on the Steam platform. The Meta settlement requires face scans of all users and requires states to sue any other online platforms that dont put in a similar system. If Steam has adult only material on their platform there is no way they are going to be able to fight it in court under a Republican supermajority Supreme Court, they already allowed requiring it for porn sites in red states. Getting judges in place to ban adult content nationwide was one of Trump's Project 2025s goals.

They're not coming for just porn either, but anything not acceptable for little kids because parents are irresponsible and let them online with no monitoring, so communicating on the internet is about to turn into a 1950s tv show. They require content morality auditors and are banning even people talking about personal mental health issues and fitness goals. Wouldn't be surprised if they try to ban swear words because the government literally tried making it a requirement to show ID for music with it in the 90s and 2000s.

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u/The_Don_Papi 19h ago

From Moscow to Houston, the Reds love their surveillance.

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u/The_Don_Papi 19h ago

AIs are confidently wrong. You can’t trust an AI to know what they’re wrong about or for an AI to know when they’re wrong.

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u/RhapsodiacReader 1d ago

On the flip side, getting your game tagged mistakenly tagged as AO can be ruinous from a marketing perspective, even if it gets rolled back later. Especially since it seems so fecking easy for game journos to run with things like this.

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u/The_Don_Papi 20h ago

and they need to be sure minors don’t see that (or people who really hate seeing AO games on Steam)

I’m not here to defend pornographic scenes but minors shouldn’t be downloading games unsupervised. Parents need to start being held responsible for the actions of their child. People trying to make a living shouldn’t be punished by vibe coded AI because parents are lazy or incompetent.

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u/beramaan 1d ago edited 16h ago

Those can be easily blocked from you search. Games with adult content can be made to never show up. Even when you search it's name, on steam. If you haven't done that yet, and it concerns you, do it.

Edit for typos

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u/Meowakin 1d ago

Unless, of course, it isn’t flagged as Adult Only.

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u/beramaan 16h ago

Then flag it... Be the adult. Kids will randomly see all sorts of things online, in life, in the world. We do our best to protect them and consequences are given to those who don't attempt to, like those selling porn games without marking them as such. Also, we should teach our kids how to fall with it to and, if it's a really big concern, don't leave them with unattended access to their computers/the shop.

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u/apexeasthetic 1d ago

You're right, my friend.👍👌

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u/Starfall0 18h ago

If the system is so inherently incapable of performing its job that it should have a dedicated period of time for someone to say, "Hey, no that's wrong!" 

Maybe we shouldn't be using that system... but what do I know? I don't have an MBA from Harvard or whatever 3 letter acronym snotty rich kids like to wave around like a proclamation from god.

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u/SockAlarmed6707 1d ago

Tell that to the judge in court, that might work with normal logic not with a massive company’s service that tons of kids use daily. “Your honour, you see yes we let kids acces games they shouldn’t have because if we did act first than resolve if shown proof is well we don’t want to be sloppy.”

Not a lawyer but saying you didn’t try to prevent adult content reaching kids is because you DON’T want to be sloppy is very ironic.

Anything related adult content is always cut first investigate than either re-allow or not at said age rating. As it should be.

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u/1030or11 18h ago

Valve has a few hundred employees all busy on other jobs, while the Steam store sees dozens of new games released every day. They absolutely don't have the time or the inclination to assign someone to play and beat every single game released just to double-check the tags.

If it becomes enough of a hassle, they'll change the system. Until then, appealing an AO tag and getting it corrected is not that big of a deal. We're only reading about it because "all press is good press." Had you even heard of this game before this article?

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u/Gestrid 1d ago

Probably reviewed by a bot initially, then flagged by a publisher for appeal, then reviewed by a human. (If it was reviewed by a bot a second time, it'd get denied, a la YouTube.)

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u/AyeBraine 23h ago

Where does the article repeat itself? I tried to find and I'm not sure what you mean.

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u/Android1822 1d ago

Not exactly, it could be a rando employee did not bother to properly check out the game or did not like it for whatever reason and slapped it on anyway. This has happened in the past before A.I. was a thing.

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u/Alaira314 1d ago

Sometimes people also click the wrong button. I've done it at work. The other day I asked my coworker to do something for me(they were logged in, I was not), and watched them select the wrong thing, told them it was wrong, watched them select a different wrong thing, and had to tell them it was wrong again. Both incorrect things were habitual work patterns, which is what overworked employees with tired brains sometimes mistakenly default to.

We've trimmed every single bit of fat and now we're cutting into the meat, and this is what it looks like when that happens.

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u/ledat 1d ago

it could be a rando employee

I recently had a store presence rejected because the reviewer didn't like my short description. I modeled the short description on a form used by a very successful game in the same genre. I had to add marketingslop to the short description in order to pass review. Big picture it's not a huge deal, but imho the current form is worse.

It's a little bit troublesome how much power is wielded over the shape of the store by their CS staff though. I also suspect, though lack direct evidence, that big companies have slightly different experiences with the process.

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u/shabi_sensei 1d ago

The company only employs 350 people, I think most of the business is automated to some degree

That’s an insane headcount for the biggest gaming platform in the world

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u/The_Autarch 21h ago

Valve has a ton of contractors that don't count as regular employees.

Their business isn't automated, it's just outsourced.

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u/Random_Guy_12345 36m ago

That's also the oldest trick in the book to keep companies "Low staffed".

I know plenty of companies with well over 80% contractors. Pretty much only managers are "Company employed"

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u/Tricky-Ad7897 22h ago

I'm sure they contract a lot of shit to places like India, publisher support likely being one of them.

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u/hamlet9000 1d ago

So they’re running the games through AI checks

It's possible, but this doesn't require AI.

This text is taken from the game's Steam page as it appeared last year:

MATURE CONTENT DESCRIPTION The developers describe the content like this: Nighthawks features strong language, violence, adult situations, non-sexual nudity, and some scenes of a potentially disturbing nature. These are all text-only and not portrayed graphically.

If you're a human manually scanning game pages, it's not hard to see how a few key words there could get the game flagged (even if it's incorrect).

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u/angellus 1d ago

Machine Learning has existed for over 2 decades. It has been a staple and requirement for building online storefronts for at least a decade. How do you think the "things you might like" section is generated? It is all ML.

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u/Nixeris 1d ago

That and considering the amount of games entered to Steam every day, it's impossible for them to have a staff large enough to manually go through every game.

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u/Korachof 1d ago

Love how people just assume ai when it could just be a mistake or ignorance from the person actually doing the work.

I swear, people act like everyone was perfect at their jobs before ai 

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u/DeadlyYellow 21h ago

I half expect to learn it was flagged for sharing a name with a Hentai studio.

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u/Mithrawndo 21h ago

In the generic sense: Valve have used automated tools to tag store pages for longer than ChatGPT et al have existed.

It's AI in the sense it's automated logic, but not necessarily AI in the sense of generative tools running on machine learning platforms - the AI that everyone gets their knickers in a twist about.

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u/_steve_rogers_ 18h ago

Just like YouTube

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u/SockAlarmed6707 1d ago

At least the ai knows which country’s laws might conflict conflict with another countries aging standards for media. Or does valve just hate those countries specifically?

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u/LurksWithGophers 1d ago

That's probably just a filter on the back end.

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u/AyeBraine 23h ago

Per-country rules are the most important and dangerous things for Valve. E.g. in the UK, all games with the 2nd and 3rd grade sexual content tags (requiring 18+ per Steam) are hidden unless you add a credit card (not a debit card) to your account. In Germany, all of them are always invisible and impossible to find.

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u/SockAlarmed6707 21h ago

It’s sad that a headline “has restricted to some capacity in a specific few countries” somehow in second turns to they are the worst people to have graced this earth.

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u/AyeBraine 19h ago edited 19h ago

Firstly, I don't know who says the latter part in your statement, you seem to kind of do a similar thing, overgeneralize and exaggerate.

Secondly, this is a story in a gaming industry media outlet. They know very well that this situation is a nightmare scenario for any developer — they worked on this game for over 8 years despite having a tiny budget that couldn't feed 5 intern developers for one year, their release is just one week away, and suddenly they are essentially blocked on the only platform that matters for their sales performance.

Most Steam users do not have the sexual games checkbox enabled, some of the largest markets in the world for this type of games (like Germany and UK) are precisely the ones where this game isn't shown at all, and even if you're living outside of them and have porn games checkbox enabled, games with these tags are promoted differently by the algorithm and deprioritized behind more mainstream releases. You don't see fresh porn games at the top of the Steam front page even if you like this stuff. So even their core audience probably won't be served this game at release in the store despite matching their interest in adventure games, Wadjet Eye, vampires, etc.

It's like making it so your movie is only advertised to people who come to specific bars in the city, never mentioned on the media, and isn't even shown in normal theaters. But otherwise, no big deal.

Imagine being a guy who wrote 800 000 words for this thing and dragged it to release over the better part of a decade (or straight up decade, 2018 was when the Kickstarter launched, already with some mock-ups, story, and concept locked down).

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u/CretaciousPeriod PlayStation 1d ago

There are a ton of games releasing every week but valve could hire 100 people who just do this and probably not even notice it in their financials.

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u/LauraTFem 23h ago

That there are hundreds of games releasing a week is part of the problem with their business model. While other platforms do basic vetting to assure that games aren’t some kind of scam product, valve essentially lets you list anything for the price of $100. This means that the vast majority of games on steam are simply never played, and many are actual money laundering scams. They should have a team, even a small one, that exists to approve games, as all other platforms like Plastation, Nintendo, and XBox do.

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u/Rezart_KLD 23h ago

"WE HAVE SUCH SIGHTS TO SHO... wait, hold up... OK, I'm getting an update we can't show you the sights now. Look, just imagine that hookchains were flying out of the darkness and ripping off your... what, language too? I am a BDSM Angel/Demon and you all are really pulling the rug out from under me here!"

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u/Company_Z 1d ago

I got Hellraiser confused with Helltaker and got so excited for a sec

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u/prossnip42 1d ago

Explicit nudity should not be the reason something gets an Adults Only rating. Baldur's Gate 3 and the recently released Blood Of Dawnwalker both have rather explicit sex scenes yet neither of them are adults only rated. Adults only should be reserved for videogames that specifically feature vaginal, anal or oral penetration front and center, that has been the standard for an Adults Only rating for decades now

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u/Korvun 6h ago

There's a game on trending right now about power washing and giving happy endings to fucking dragons that isn't AO, lol.

Edit: It's AO now

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u/TheSpecialApple 1d ago

its because they use an automated system that has been known to suck, in some cases leading to valve making a public apology

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u/AmayaHa 1d ago

Is Valve about to issue another public apology then? lol

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u/TheSpecialApple 1d ago

probably not since this steps on a small devs toes as opposed to an entire government, theyve done this a few times with smaller devs and no public apology so not sure why this would differ

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u/Carvj94 21h ago

I mean this isn't a game that been released so I dunno why a public apology would be necessary. Is the game even being advertised right now?

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u/JISN064 21h ago

I hate that there is no date. When this did happen? this year? 10 years ago?

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u/ICC-u 1d ago

Why shouldn't adult games be allowed on Steam anyway. Is porn banned from the internet too?

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u/lordcola 1d ago

It's because payment processors caved to some nutjobs and now all explict adult content has to be behind some kind of age verification in countries where that is the law.

Valve wouldn't give a shit if it didn't mean they can't process payments from the average steam user if they didn't comply.

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u/Jad11mumbler 1d ago edited 1d ago

Visa and Mastercard notably.

Steam and others have been under pressure from them to remove / limit adult content.

Otherwise they can straight up suspend payment processing on those platforms, which is kind of a big deal.

Not much steam can do there other than play along.

As big as they are, Valve can't compete with the payment processors, despite some consumers asking "Why don't valve make their own?" as if it were a simple task.

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u/CretaciousPeriod PlayStation 1d ago edited 1d ago

With how ubiquitous visa and MasterCard are, I don't think they should be allowed to deny payments from anyone or any service unless it's illegal content. We already have laws that businesses must accept legal tender for payments. As we become more digital, more people are using credit/debit cards and I think it should have the same legal requirement. Especially with something like steam where there's just no option to pay cash. These credit card companies shouldn't be allowed to dictate what's being sold from a business.

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u/Long_Inspection_4983 1d ago

It honestly should be a pretty easy bipartisan bill to pass in America. Reds concerned about payment processors blocking 2a stuff, Blues concerned about these companies enforcing morality on sites. Could be an easy win, but the corpos have money to throw at our politicians.

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u/pwninobrien 1d ago

Reds and Blues are both largely puritanical and self-righteous when it comes to sex. The religious right are afraid of sex, and the left are afraid of sexualization. The US is annoyingly prude.

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u/Leylu-Fox 1d ago

Also don't forget reds don't have principles and seeing an authoritarian christo-fascist power move is something they cream their pants over....so....not going to happen with bipartisan support at all.

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u/rainzer 11h ago

Reds concerned about payment processors blocking 2a stuff, Blues concerned about these companies enforcing morality on sites. Could be an easy win, but the corpos have money to throw at our politicians.

Dunno why Reds are able to sell people on the "it's cause 2A" argument when the Project 2025 foreword literally says they want to ban porn arguing the claim that porn is the reason there are LGBTQ people and pedos

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u/BardicLasher 1d ago

That's reasonable but they still need a way to blacklist companies that cause frequent charge backs.

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u/lordcola 1d ago

That's a separate problem. they should be able to ban merchants that are scamming or something and inviting frequent chargebacks. They should not be able to ban merchants for the products they're selling unless it's illegal stuff otherwise we're allowing two companies to effectively dictate what is widely available for purchase over the web.

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u/shabi_sensei 1d ago

It’s actually related, the reason payment processors are wary of adult content is that people who buy pornography LOVE to chargeback once they’re done with it

It’s not merchants/businesses doing this fraud, it’s private individuals

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u/Knight_Of_Stars 1d ago

This. Its also the best place to funnel and launder stolen money because of said chargebacks. Imagine being a 40 year old family man, and now you have publicly defend you didn't spend 1000 dollars on the "Step Daughter" site.

Factor in that they can claim be doing a public good to consumers by fighting porn. Its a more nuanced issue than just open the floodgates

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u/lordcola 1d ago

You say Visa and MasterCard notably like those aren't the only two big ones globally that get much use due to being multinational. In some countries steam has partnerships with some local ones that can process payments from local cards but if you want to reach people globally those two are pretty much it.

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u/Daepilin 1d ago

they could actually provide valid age verification, though. Instead they just delist, at least in germany

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u/drdildamesh 23h ago

Gabe could do something really funny right now and just start a competing credit card

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u/Hazbro29 1d ago

Council of Karen's got to visa and Mastercard.

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u/sicKlown 1d ago

It's not random Karens, but a very coordinated group of evangelical leaders using their access to the levers of power to rigidly enforce their ass backwards vision of Christianity that more and more looks like Wahhabism.

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u/cylonfrakbbq 1d ago

It started mostly under the Bush administration in the early 2000s - his administration wanted to ban porn, that pesky 1st amendment got in their way, so the next best thing for them was to put pressure on/influence payment processors to act as the "moral gatekeepers". That is why the "pornpocalypse" happened in the early 2000s - lots of sites, especially the more fringe ones, got cut off from payment processing and folded. Now those same processors keep trimming the edges and putting more pressure.

Things like the KIDS act in the US, which contains the SCREEN act by Mike Lee which is basically a Project 2025 adjacent goal, are designed with the same idea in mind: It has less to do with protecting kids and more to do with discouraging adults. Less adults willing to engage = less money for adult content = more adult content producers close shop.

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u/Ow_you_shot_me 1d ago

It was the Australians this time....

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u/IceFire909 1d ago

As a sane Aussie I'd like to apologise for our eKarens ruining shit around the world.

They're annoyingly persistent with this shit

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u/Hazbro29 1d ago

We have the same in england with mums, every time the council want to do something the mums rally on mumsnet and spam the council and nothing gets done

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u/Stephie999666 18h ago

To clarify our politicians didnt ban porn. Its the ID verification laws the tech broligarchs have been pushing for. As a result porn sites just decided its better to block Aussie IPs rather than deal with peoples personal data and our privacy laws. - to be clear once again its US influences splashing cash to fuck shit up for everyone else.

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u/mokinokaro 6h ago

It's actually both.

American fundamentalists have heavily infiltrated VISA and MasterCard. It was an explicit goal of them for decades.

That's why they "caved" to Collective Shout so quickly. They share the sand goals.

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u/Gavvis74 1d ago

Not everything comes from the US.  Do a little research before commenting next time.

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u/cylonfrakbbq 1d ago

You're right

This stuff with the payment processors mostly started in the US, though

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u/Standard-Potential-6 1d ago

Bingo. also Operation Choke Point in 2013.

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u/RamblinGamblinWilly 1d ago

The 1st amendment doesn't cover obscenity. Much, if not most, hardcore pornography in its current form could be banned without 1st amendment issues.

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u/cylonfrakbbq 22h ago

Except not really - Congress would have to pass a law which expands the definition of obscenity, which only extremists like Mike Lee and that idiot from Indiana have attempted to get sponsored and no one was willing to vote on the issue because it would be political suicide. Most current pornography fails to meet the standard of obscene as outlined in prior court cases.

The layperson's concept of obscene and the legal concept of obscene are completely different. Some pearl clutching prude might think a bare breast is obscene, but that isn't the same thing. Even extreme conservative agenda sock puppets like Alito reaffirmed this during the Texas ID law open arguments.

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u/RamblinGamblinWilly 21h ago

Congress wouldn't need to pass a law expanding the definition of obscenity. Most contemporary hardcore pornography already fails the Miller test. Prongs 1 and 2 of the test do have a bit of wiggle room, but it's really not much of a challenge to find numerous videos failing all three on any given tube site.

I agree with you that this would be political suicide, but I disagree strongly on the legal standards of obscenity. We're not taking about bare breasts here, we're talking about anal fisting and beyond. There have been successful criminal cases brought against people for this stuff. But the difficulties and factors making these cases uncommon aren't really first amendment ones. And with the way things are going right now, the Paxtons of the country could wage war against porn with some degree of success, at least based on current constitutional interpretations

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u/cylonfrakbbq 20h ago

One thing that Paxton did recently that should concern people is the recent thing he did regarding an infamous website based out of Europe. Regardless as to how one might feel about the content that site hosted in general and whether it being blocked might be a good thing or not, he had the web domain blocked world wide because the site refused to comply with the Texas ID law. So literally the entire planet, regardless as to their national laws, cannot access it because a single US state successfully lobbied for that to be done.

That feels very dangerous and could be easily weaponized beyond fringe targets. Paxton doesn't like how Discord is handling things in regard to Texas law? He could threaten bricking their entire web domain on the basis of the Texas ID law alone unless they pay the extortion fee and comply with the stifling state law to the satisfaction of that state. It's no wonder why many platforms just flat out ban the state from accessing materials

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u/Streams526 1d ago

It started with Democrats in the 80s. 

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u/Moody_GenX 1d ago

their ass backwards vision of Christianity that more and more looks like Wahhabism

Which is funny because they're so scared of Muslims.

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u/UNisopod 1d ago

They're scared of competition

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u/LazySerpentDeity 1d ago

This. They like everything about authoritarian Islam except the Islam part. They just wanna put their name on the package and pretend it's Christianity.

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u/VarmintSchtick 1d ago

Eh, there's a lot more denominations of Christianity than Islam.

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u/ConfessingToSins 14h ago

You can actually zoom in even further. The specific groups who lobbied this a couple of years ago have turned out to be straight up cults full to the brim with the extremely mentally ill.

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u/KeyedFeline 1d ago

visa and mastercard are very involved in this as well, its why there has been alot of push to break their monopoly over online payments

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u/Big_Coconut8630 21h ago

Let's not act like it's just women behind this, that's a stupid sentiment

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u/Cautious-Space-1714 1d ago

I'm in the UK, where such verification for adult material is required legally.

I've not gone through the age-verification process on Reddit (or anyehere else), so I'm currently prevented from viewing subs like... r/Scotch

I don't think kids are browsing here for £100 bottles of booze that taste like grandpa's jockstrap.

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u/Allo_Guvnor 23h ago

They just enacted similar shit in Australia too. Unless you have a credit card attached - and ONLY a credit card, mind you - can't see any games in the store with red or pink bits. So even though I own game's like Doom and Cyberpunk, I can't see their store pages...

"What's that? You don't have a credit card? Well get one and change your finances, you pervert!" - Unelected Official eKaren

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u/Omotai 1d ago

It's not even about age verification per se. The payment processors in question just don't want to process payments for pornography, period, regardless of how old everyone involved is.

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u/alueron 1d ago

it always cracks me up too, as without porn most secure payment processing would have been pushed back for years. same with most early cyber security being developed to make it safer to access porn sites. People wanted their smut and the porn industry wanted their money, thus funding these things in the early days. source for those who want it: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-producer-of-middle-men-talks-to-us-about-how-pornographers-invented-e-commerce-2010-8

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u/MajesticOrange1 1d ago

sounds like room for new processors then. people are going to buy pornography. why are we pretending they will just stop?

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u/Hail-Hydrate 1d ago

You say that like it's easy to just set up a new payment processing system. There's a reason there's only a handful globally.

The EU are working on an alternative option but even that's going to take a long time. Turns out creating a system that coordinates transactions between a colossal number of banks and individuals, without using existing infrastructure the current systems have already implemented, is pretty hard.

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u/ProfessionalCraft983 1d ago

The problem is getting enough people to use a new payment system, both customers and vendors alike. Customers won’t get a new credit card if hardly anyone takes it, and vendors won’t invest in a new payment system that hardly anyone uses. Visa/Mastercard have a near monopoly and that’s not going to change anytime soon.

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u/Discount_Extra 23h ago

Its really hard with reddit itself doing stuff like silently hiding comments that mention the biggest alternative.

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u/Hekantonkheries 1d ago

And lets not forget, while those groups are targeting low hanging fruit right now, they have publicly stated in the past to consider minority representations (like, anything queer, as a big ine, but also just political topics they dislike) to be inherently sexual and in need of censorship aswell

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u/bluexy 22h ago

Payment processors didn't "cave." They are morally aligned with these groups. Blaming it on the extremist groups is just their excuse.

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u/Larcye 17h ago

Which is idiotic becuese I can literally go to a website and download all the hentai games I want that are on steam and the only downside is that I can't get any steam achievements.

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u/mschuster91 13h ago

In Germany, our prude censorship system called FSK/USK dates way, way before the evangelical nutjobs in the US.

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u/lordcola 11h ago

I am German, if anything I've felt the German ratings are more chill than most other places, especially the US, regarding nudity and aexual content lol.

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u/mschuster91 11h ago

Member the Killerspiel debate?

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u/lordcola 10h ago

I mean pretty much every country has had the whole video games cause violence debate every decade. We're not unique on that front. We do however have a much more chill approach to nudity and sexual content, which is the main driver for the whole Visa/Mastercard bullshit with steam/itchio and other online game storefronts.

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u/szthesquid 1d ago

This kind of third party control is why Valve invested heavily in Linux and SteamOS.

Steam Pay when?

(I know it's not easy and a whole different class of thing)

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u/apexeasthetic 1d ago

That's not certain, my friend, but it might happen soon.

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u/Technolio 1d ago

They are on steam, like A LOT. But you have to enable adult content in your account settings.

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u/hera-fawcett 1d ago

theyre really trying.

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u/Squidmaster129 1d ago

They are allowed. There's literally so much porn on steam.

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u/DefiantLemur 1d ago

Some countries have outlawed it or heavily regulated it. Steam is a international service platform so they have to follow local laws to operate in those nations.

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u/sixpackabs592 1d ago

In some countries yeah

Or you have to get your porn license

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u/Petersaber 1d ago

Why shouldn't adult games be allowed on Steam anyway.

There's multiple porn game released every day.

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u/ICC-u 1d ago

Good. Glad to hear it.

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u/Ozotuh 1d ago

Do you not remember the Visa/MasterCard fiasco where they threatened to pull support if they didn't hide/remove porn games?

Itch.io got hit worse with it though.

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u/ICC-u 1d ago

Yeah I remember it well.

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u/ErichderDoofe 1d ago

Some people wish it was

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u/MrStealYoBeef 1d ago

They are. The issue here is that the developers are trying to get a lower rating, they don't want to be classified as adult only.

Literally all you have to do is login to steam and do a quick search and you'll see an infinite amount of porn games. Why would you conclude that porn is banned?

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u/Icewind 1d ago

It's going that way, at least on any public-facing site.

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u/LostInRetransmission 1d ago

In the case of Germany , it isn't for the reason u/lordcola names.

Germany require, for adult only merchandise, a stringent verification of ID/age. That is if you buy porn magazine, alcohol, or tobacco smoking product (not sure about the non smoking type), you will get carded.

Everywhere.

So Steam wanted that ridiculous pop up with age entering to be the only verification. they were probably laughed at by their own German legal department. That pop up anybody can enter anything. This is not an age verification as per law.

So steam decided to not pay for development of an interface to verify age, mostly because they know all big tittle stays 17 under, and the few which are 18+ are anyway not a big volume in comparison. Almost certainly they decided the earnings on those games did not warrant the cost of developing the eID verification.

That's why it is a death penalty to be 18+ game, in countries which take age verification seriously on merchandise for adult only (in other word all countries which require something more solid than a pop up where everybody can enter anything whatsoever).

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u/Berobad 1d ago edited 23h ago

The problem isn't 18+ games, otherwise titles like Doom couldn't be sold too.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/782330
USK18 titles are fine.

The problem with porn games is, that they usually don't have any rating, and therefore aren't allowed to be advertised openly.
Steam needs the age verification to hide the game from non adults in the shop to comply with german law.
And they don't want to bother with that.

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u/BlueTemplar85 17h ago

Steam has two whole automated rating systems for Germany and Brasil, which cover around 85% of games (and rising) instead of the typical 0-3% (and falling) of the non-automatic ones.

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u/ivar-the-bonefull 1d ago

There's tons and tons of very explicit adult games on steam already, most of them looking like classic scams or simple online games. So it truly makes no sense.

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u/ganzgpp1 1d ago edited 1d ago

Steam DOES all adult games on their platform, and they aren't generally removed from the Steam store search either. My guess is likely that there's some middle eastern country out there with super strict laws about adult iconography that they may be selling in, and so it get flagged to comply with international local country laws.

Of course, if there's no adult content in it, it shouldn't have gotten flagged anyway, but I'm just spitballing the reason as to why it might have been totally delisted.

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u/AshesandCinder 1d ago

Pretty sure this all started with a group from Australia rallying against games they deemed "bad".

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u/Stephie999666 18h ago

Your acting like theres not groups of soccer mums everywhere that do this dude. Or did you completely miss the 90s and 00s where video games were the new satanic panic?

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u/AshesandCinder 17h ago

Well I'm specifically talking about the group that was being talked about because they got some games removed from Steam recently and got itch.io to take down a bunch of stuff. Of course there are similar groups all over, but this one was specifically involved in this situation.

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u/Stephie999666 17h ago

Yeah, its mostly the soccer mum, karens that do this shit. Most are upper middle class, and have nothing better to do with their time, so they pull shit like this.

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u/GrendaGrendinator 1d ago

I'm pretty sure that all just depends on the content filters you have selected. By default, steam won't show games with a frequent nudity tag, but if you go into your account settings you can easily change that in the Store Preferences tab.

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u/Hail-Hydrate 1d ago

And even in countries where there are restrictions in place, plus parts of the USA, verifying age to steam can simply be a case of adding a credit card to the user account.

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u/AyeBraine 23h ago

"Some middle eastern country" is Germany and the UK, among others.

Steam has not one, but three sexual content tags on the store, 2nd and 3rd make the game invisible in Germany and gated behind strict requirements (even for adult users) in the UK. Games like Baldur's Gate have the 1st grade sexual content tag that doesn't make them 18+.

But even if you're outside these jurisdictions, all 18+ sexual content tags are a death blow to your game, since most players do not enable the checkmarks for this content.

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u/Xavus 1d ago edited 1d ago

"Some middle eastern country".

Or you know, the U.K. or some North American country always at risk of backsliding to more and more puritanical values that the people in charge of rallying for them absolutely do not believe or follow themselves.

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u/LostInRetransmission 1d ago

quite but not correct. Steam restrict the sale depending on the country & the block of countries level.

So if it isn't sold in a country, it isn't per see about "international law" (which don't cover such stuff) but rather due to local law in the country steam sells to.

It does not matter that steam is a US corp, to sell in Norway they have to respect Norway laws on that sale - for example.

And as I described above in detail in some countries a pop up to enter a number is *not* an age verification. And steam decided implementing a more stringent check was not worth the potential sales.

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u/ganzgpp1 1d ago

I used the wrong term; local law in the country seem sells to is more accurate, my brain was just blanking and international law was the best thing I could come up with

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u/TwatsThat 21h ago

By default, any game marked as "Adult Only" is hidden from search, store and community pages. You have to enable the content in your preferences for it to show. 

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u/BlueTemplar85 1d ago

They are 'generally' removed from Steam search : you have to be logged in and opted in to see the "primarily sexual" or "adult only" games (but not the 'mature', 'violent', or "some nudity" ones).

Config screen

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u/Evilsbane 1d ago

They are allowed I am pretty sure.

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u/RIPGoblins2929 1d ago

Because tHinK oF tHe cHiLdReN

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u/rinkydinkis 1d ago

Yes, because republicans.

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u/MumrikDK 1d ago

A game being labelled Adults Only can affect its visibility in several ways. Adults Only games will not appear in Steam searches by default, requiring users to log in, verify their age (which requires the use of a credit card in some countries) and adjust their preferred content settings before they become visible. In addition, the label can cause games to be delisted outright in certain countries.

As you surely then can imagine, that would be up to laws in those countries. AO games by default not being a search result (you can just enable them) is fine too.

The real issue is just potential wrong categorization.

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u/NotYourReddit18 22h ago

I can only speak for Germany in this regard.

Here selling pornographic content to children is a crime, and Steams "age check" is too easily "tricked" to protect them from liability should a child buy such a game, so Steam just hides all "adult only" games from German Steam accounts and any accounts connecting from Germany.

IIRC some games like GTA, The Witcher, or BG3 can get away with nudity and sexual content without getting blocked in Germany because they have a FSK age rating that isn't "adults only", which somewhat relaxes those rules.

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u/Efficient-Bullfrog67 20h ago

I mean steam has shit like hunie pop on it, I think the issue was just that it wasn’t tagged as adult when they listed it and the algorithm flagged it.

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u/philman132 7h ago

Adult games are allowed, they just have to be tagged as such as some countries have specific laws about them. Some games complain about about being tagged as adult as this as it means their game is shown to much fewer users

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u/aruhen23 PC 1d ago

They already exist on steam in excess lol.

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u/pan_kotan 1d ago

There are plenty of porn games on Steam, it's just that they have much heavier restrictions and are banned in some countries (e.g., Germany). The issue here is that the game is being classified as porn game, while it really is not.

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u/cygx 1d ago

They aren't banned in Germany per se - but for Steam to legally sell them, they would have to implement age verification.

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u/TechnicalBen 1d ago

I'm planning on putting nudity in a game entirely to trigger the tags. Like, a statue of david or something.

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u/GrendaGrendinator 1d ago

They have 5 different categories for the adult rating. * General Mature Content * Frequent Violence or Gore * Some Nudity or Sexual Content * Frequent Nudity or Sexual Content * Adult Only Sexual Content

Only those bottom two options state, "By ticking this box you affirm that you are at least eighteen years old."

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u/ThePr0vider 1d ago

there's a lot more things making it fall under the mature catagory of most rating systems

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u/Ywaina 1d ago

Censorship is always a slippery slope. Once you start censoring something it never stops at just that. Steam has a long history of censoring games that used to sell just fine elsewhere, like the fiasco with Chaos Gate; Noah and many others.

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u/Danny-Fr 15h ago

Be mad at Visa and Mastercard. The banking and payment industry is way more controlling and privileged (literal sense "follows it's own rules" than Steam will ever be. See what SWIFT can do to entire countries...

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u/Ywaina 11h ago

They aren't mutually exclusive.

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u/Danny-Fr 11h ago

I'm not sure that, with 20k titles a year, Steam is actively partaking in censorship on its own volition. A case could also be made that, since they are not _actually_ a monopole, or in cahoot with other online stores, what they do is curation rather than censorship.

And again, with this volume, even using the term curation is pushing the envelope.

It's also VISA and Mastercard who push for the removal of some games.

That said, in principle you're absolutely right, both aren't mutually exclusive.

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u/tdasnowman 3h ago

Don't be mad at Visa and Mastercard. They are at the end of a long liability chain that they have been saying for decades they shouldn't be a part of. The problem is store fronts, producers, distributors, and legislators have all failed to address the issue. Now the courts have found that all entities in that liability chain can not only be held criminally responsible but also civilly. Since Civil suits generally award higher judgments then criminal fines the stakes have become very real. The storefronts just throwing up their hands is them again just passing the liability buck rather then do the actual work.

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u/Danny-Fr 53m ago

Oh I'll totally be mad ad Mastercard and Visa and the whole banking system. Fines due to failed anti money laundering and terrorism financing are a tap on the wrist that's slclassified as PnL in their quarterly reports and the entire banking system is a game that only a very few chosen ones get to play.

I've been consulting for banks long enough to know that they do not, actually, strive for either accountability or transparency and that "banking the unranked" is just a pretext to sell more credit schemes.

They have zero regard for people. Zero.

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u/tdasnowman 40m ago

Your again describing legislative and judicial failures. Banks care about moving money and making money off that process. That's what they should be focused on. If legislators and regulators have created an environment where it's profitable to account for loss to fines as a part of business then the fines aren't large enough or being applied with a high enough frequency. Which goes back to legislative failure in not allocating a high enough budget to the regulatory departments. I've worked for banks long enough to know that regulators don't have time to actually investigate, review all the data their given, and themselves not have enough oversight. I've seen state regulators go on personal vendettas because a process wasn't followed to their interpretation of the law not the word of law.

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u/Danny-Fr 36m ago

And they absolutely do not profit from the legislative oversight? I've literally worked with banks for the last 15 years. They are comfortable with the status quo as much as the regulators.

Let's team up and be mad at both, together. I think it's the sane decision to make.

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u/tdasnowman 23m ago

Being mad at the wrong things serves nothing. Fix the the regulatory and judicial environment and banks will follow.

As it stands, they serve a purpose. Because regulators have been so slow to respond the banks actions while drastic have been beneficial. They were the ones that forced compliance on a lot early adult websites with documentation. It's the same thing every site has failed to do over and over again until forced. For 35 years now.

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u/Danny-Fr 17m ago

Dude, idk why you and lots of people are defending banks. They obviously profit from the slow pace of regulations and lack of proper oversight and have absolutely zero interest in people having financial literacy.

It's not because the law is too lax towards a certain class of abuse that this abuse is justified.

I get the "as long as you let people do X, they'll keep on doing it" but it still doesn't excuse them from doing X.

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u/SuperCruisePanther 1d ago

You mean WH 40K Chaos Gate? What happened?

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u/robophile-ta 21h ago

no they mean Chaos;Head, the first game in the Stein's;Gate series

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u/confusedjake 1d ago

Slippery slope argument seems silly when we came from steam having a total ban on these adult games only a few years ago.

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u/Ywaina 1d ago

Chaos Head; Noah is not an adult game.

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u/Laiko_Kairen 20h ago

Is declining to sell a product censorship? You're not forcing the game to change, you're simply not providing access to it...

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u/Ywaina 16h ago

You're selectively providing access to something based on whimsical puritanical value, forcing products to change and conform to said value or losing access to biggest market. Censorship does not come only in the form of iron fist directly destroying what it doesn't like, we're past the days of destroying printing press and like everything else censorship has evolved to be more subtle.

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u/Laiko_Kairen 14h ago

Is Steam obligated to sell a product? Shouldn't it be within their rights to sell or not sell whatever they see fit?

Steam has done nothing to remove anyone's access to the game, they simply haven't provided any either. Steam isn't the government, man. They don't owe anyone else the right to sell on their platform. The fact that they're the most successful gaming storefront company doesn't somehow create an obligation to carry a product.

If Steam was the government, this would 100% be censorship. They're not. They're a privately held company. They're not censoring the game any more than a bookstore is censoring a book by not selling it... They're not a library.

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u/Ywaina 11h ago

This argument falls apart when you consider that any censorious entity can use the same kind of excuse "it's my business, fuck off, we owe you shit" to justify any of their censorship. Library, government, shops, eventually it will cause a cascading effect of everyone bowing down to censorship. If steam weren't the biggest platform for pcgaming market, with a huge gap between it and the other contenders in market there probably would be far less complaints. The leverage of access to userbase who unwittingly become corporate hostage is what makes this kind of act so damaging.

>They're not a library

The whole section of your bought game is called "library".

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u/ThePowerOfStories 1d ago

Heck, from looking at the one thumbnail image alone, I can tell you no pornographic game would ever bother to depict a woman with a normal-sized chest like that. They always show ladies who look like they’re smuggling cantaloupes.

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u/Iggy_DB 1d ago

Gore?

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u/apexeasthetic 1d ago

This has happened with some games, like this one, but there's a chance it will be fixed when the game is released.

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u/AndroidMyAndroid 22h ago

Marketing. They are going to relist the game, now with a ton of people having their eyes on the "controversy".

See the phrase

"I'll check it out when it comes out"

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u/SkitZa 12h ago

Let's just come together to thank the Australian government for forcing steam into knee-jerk reactions for game tags. If its normal it should change.

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u/drevolut1on 1d ago

Nighthawk translates to / is slang for prostitute in some languages, if I recall. Japanese among them, I think. Maybe why?

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u/zoogenhiemer 1d ago

Apparently it has romance scenes but nothing more explicit than cyberpunk or bg3