LogInAmid Steam removing dozens of NSFW games, Nier creator's warning from last year feels more relevant than ever.
If you're in any way interested in the gaming industry, you've probably already heard that Steam recently caved to pressure from payment processors like Visa and MasterCard, implementing a new rule that prohibits developers from publishing content that may violate the policies of those processors. In doing so, Steam delisted dozens of NSFW games, drawing heavy backlash from gamers who are justifiably angry that a third party now has a say in what can and cannot be published on the biggest PC gaming marketplace.
Amidst the debacle, a couple of interesting Twitter posts from Nier creator Yoko Taro have resurfaced online, showing that the renowned developer tried to raise awareness about censorship by payment processors back in 2024, when the issue wasn't yet directly tied to video games.
Made back in November last year, Taro's tweets spotlighted the "issue of credit card payment companies refusing payments for legal adult content," referencing the then-impending shutdown of manga archive Manga Library Z after numerous credit card companies dropped them as a client due to their hosting of erotic comics.
"While regulations exceeding the law have been applied to publishing and other areas," the developer wrote, "it feels like a different level of danger when payment processors, which are tied to the entire distribution infrastructure, can make such decisions on their own."
He further tried to warn that if left unchecked, payment processors could be used "for speech control in other countries," stating that it's "not just about adult content regulations or freedom of expression," but that it "feels like there's a security hole affecting democracy as a whole" – a sentiment many gamers now share in light of what many perceived as the last decent AAA game company bowing down to faceless corporations.
Not helping the situation is Steam's response to the backlash, where they maintained the vagueness and ambiguity of the new rule and never explicitly stated that only weird sex games would be removed, leaving open the possibility that Visa and MasterCard could censor and delist other games their directors simply dislike if they choose to do so.
"We were recently notified that certain games on Steam may violate the rules and standards set forth by our payment processors and their related card networks and banks. As a result, we are retiring those games from being sold on the Steam Store, because loss of payment methods would prevent customers from being able to purchase other titles and game content on Steam. We are directly notifying developers of these games, and issuing app credits should they have another game they'd like to distribute on Steam in the future."
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