Remember that sex and nudity are bad, but excessive violence is a-ok.

This week, GamingOnLinux reported on a policy change for Steam that is already seeing some big repercussions. Valve just added a new rule to the onboarding guide for game developers looking to add their games to Steam. This new rule basically says that some games cannot be published on Steam due to "rules and standards set forth by Steam's payment processors."

In other words, financial institutions are once again wagging their fingers of morality at what is and what is not acceptable for you to purchase. This time, banks and payment processors such as PayPal are seemingly taking issue with at least at least one very specific niche of porn game on Steam: Incest.

SteamDB also noticed the new policy as well as the removal of these games from Steam.

The new rule from Valve was added under the "Rules and Guidelines" section for the Steamworks onboarding page for developers. Under the "What you shouldn't publish on Steam" you can now find the following rule:

Your personal feelings on that genre/niche of porn aside, the fact that the banks and payment processors have such a huge say in what entertainment you can purchase sure has been a slippery slope for years. Several banks and payment processors have been very anti-porn and anti-adult entertainment for years. Countless adult websites have died abruptly simply because their payment processor closed their accounts, not for any legal reason, but because they did not want to be associated with porn or sex work.

One of the more recent and most notable examples of this was happened in 2021. You may recall seeing news articles about how OnlyFans was going to ban sexually explicit content, which led to several creators leaving and trying to find alternative means for sharing their content. This bizarre policy change from OnlyFans was allegedly due to pressure from Mastercard. Other payment processors such as PayPal and Venmo already have a blanket ban on being used to pay for adult entertainment and sex work.

Now, it seems those same payment processors have started to regulate the kinds of games you are allowed to purchase on Steam.

Mind you, this really isn't Valve's fault per se. They are merely caught in a tough spot here. If they ignore the demands of these payment processors, those payment processors will no longer be allowed to be used on Steam to make purchases. Depending on the size of the payment processor making these demands, ignoring the demands would be disastrous for Valve's business and for gamers that may only have access to those payment methods.

Valve did issue a statement to GamingOnLinux with a few additional details on why they had to make this policy change.

In the future, don't be too surprised to see other games banned from Steam that were previously sold without issue. Again, they won't be banned for any legal reason. They will be banned purely because banks and payment processors continue to act as the moral police.