LogInSteam suggests they come back when the games are ready.
Dammitbird
If you're planning to launch your adult game in Early Access on Steam, you might be in for an unpleasant surprise. Dammitbird, the developer of one such title, called Heavy Hearts, posted a screenshot of the reply they received when trying to sign the game up for the program.
The message said: "Your app has failed our review because we're unable to support the Early Access model of development for a game with mature themes."
Steam didn't specify the reason for the change, but many believe it's connected to its earlier controversial decision to ban "certain kinds of adult-only content."
"Due to current events, I panicked and contacted my publisher to help me get on Steam Early Access. The general rule is that your game should be about 65% done before doing EA. Well, we are about 70% done so the time was right anyway. But now, all of a sudden and without a policy announcement, the rules have changed and now I can't join Steam EA," Dammitbird told GamesMarket.
If you don't play adult games, it might seem like a trifle to you, but this is yet another limitation in the system, which might eventually lead to much stricter censorship.
On the other hand, this might actually stop some developers from pushing an unfinished version of the game on Steam and then asking for money for updates on another site.
There will always be a market for mature titles, and perhaps we'll see a new host emerging with all the restrictions on Steam, Patreon, and itch.io, which also crumbled under the pressure from payment systems like Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal.
"Heavy Hearts is still available on itch, but you'll never be able to search it, because it is de-indexed. I made a free demo page that you can find though. Itchio was 50% of my games revenue. It's how I paid my artists and other partners. I still have Patreon and Subscribestar, they are keeping the game afloat, but it won't be enough in the long run," Dammitbird said.
X/Twitter might think it's freer, but it doesn't like links to other socials, so developers of adult content have it hard.
"Since Patreon used to be the king of de-listing kinky adult games, I never put much stock in it. Now it's basically all I have, and I still have the risk of getting deplatformed from it," Dammitbird added.
Remember: today it's someone else, but tomorrow it could be you – but can we do anything about it?
Join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Discord server, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Telegram, TikTok, and Threads, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.