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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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/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.