Who Decides What Games You Can Buy? The Card Networks, It Turns Out

For years, Valve's rule for what could be sold on Steam was simple to state: if a game was legal and not trolling, it could go on the store. In July 2025, a new line appeared in Steam's rules for developers. Steam would no longer allow content that may violate the rules and standards set by its payment processors, the card networks and banks behind them, and internet network providers.

Within days, a wave of adult games vanished from Steam. A week later, itch.io, the indie storefront known as the most open marketplace in PC gaming, hid its entire adult section from browsing and search. The two biggest open stores on PC had changed their rules, and neither had chosen to on its own.

What happened on Steam

The new rule appeared in mid-July 2025. Steam did not publish a list, and SteamDB tracked removals without reasons, but many of the removed titles had incest themes in their names, and Valve later confirmed it had pulled certain adult content to comply.

Valve then explained why. In a statement at the start of August 2025, it said Mastercard had not contacted Valve directly. Instead, Mastercard communicated with payment processors and their acquiring banks, which passed concerns on to Valve. When Valve replied that it sells games that are legal to distribute, a policy it had followed since 2018, the processors pointed to a Mastercard rule, 5.12.7, and to "risk to the Mastercard brand".

Mastercard told a different story. On August 1, 2025, it said it "has not evaluated any game or required restrictions" on game platforms, and that it allows all lawful purchases on its network while requiring merchants to stop unlawful ones.

itch.io hides its adult section

On itch.io, the effect was broader and faster. In late July, the store deindexed all adult (NSFW) content from its browse and search pages, saying it had "come under scrutiny" from its payment processors. It told creators they would have to confirm their adult content was allowed under the policies of the payment processors linked to their accounts, and that some pages would be removed permanently.

Founder Leaf Corcoran later explained that some well-known games, such as Consume Me, which won the Independent Games Festival's top prize in 2025, had not been hidden by the deindexing because they did not meet the store's indexing requirements in the first place. In the weeks after, itch.io began reindexing free adult content while it looked for new payment partners for paid games.

Who was behind the pressure

The campaign that triggered the crackdown was led by Collective Shout, an Australian anti-pornography group. It had targeted what it called hundreds of games depicting rape, incest and child abuse on Steam and itch.io, using the notorious game No Mercy, which had already drawn criticism from the UK government, as leverage. The group sent an open letter to payment processors and urged supporters to contact Visa and Mastercard.

Nobody defended the most extreme content. The issue was the method. The International Game Developers Association said it was "seriously alarmed" by the delistings, deindexing and payment disruptions. It said it did not condone content that sexualises minors or promotes sexual violence, but that enforcement had come with little or no notice and was catching legal, consensual and ethically made games, including work by creators from marginalised communities.

Why it matters

The episode revealed how PC game stores actually work. Steam and itch.io decide what they sell, but they depend on a small number of payment networks to take money. If those networks, or the banks and processors between them, decide a type of content is a risk, a store has very little choice. There is no appeal process for a game developer to a card network.

It also showed how quickly a small campaign can reach the top of that chain. A campaign backed by roughly a thousand supporters, aimed at payment companies, achieved what years of public argument about adult games had not.

WGC's take: platforms should be free to set content rules, and players should know what those rules are. What happened in 2025 was the opposite: rules written by companies with no stake in games, applied through intermediaries, explained only after the fact. If stores are going to follow payment processors' standards, those standards need to be public and specific. Otherwise any legal game can be next.

For how Steam's rules and fees became the centre of PC gaming, read our history of Steam.