Adult games removed from Steam and itch.io: a dated timeline

In July 2025, Steam removed a set of adult games and itch.io hid all of its adult content from search, both under pressure that reached them through payment companies. This page puts what happened in date order, using the companies’ own statements wherever they exist, and marks clearly what is still not known.

Key points

• 11 July 2025: the Australian campaign group Collective Shout published an open letter asking six payment companies to stop processing payments on Steam and itch.io.
• 16 July 2025: Steam added a rule against content that “may violate the rules and standards” of its payment processors, card networks and banks, and removed a number of adult games.
• 24 July 2025: itch.io deindexed all adult content from its browse and search pages.
• 31 July 2025: itch.io reindexed adult content that is free. Paid adult content stayed out of search while itch.io talked to payment partners.
• 1 August 2025: Mastercard said it had not required any restrictions. Valve said the pressure had come through processors citing a Mastercard rule.
• Neither store has published a list of what was removed.

Three words that get mixed up

Reports on these events use three terms loosely. They mean different things, and the difference matters to anyone who owned or sold one of the games.

Most of what happened on itch.io was deindexing. What happened on Steam was delisting of specific games.

Before July: the game that started it

Both itch.io and Collective Shout trace the campaign to one game, No Mercy. It was a game about sexual violence that was sold on Steam in spring 2025 and withdrawn in April after public complaints, including from Collective Shout. itch.io says the game was also on its platform for a short time before being banned in April.

Collective Shout describes itself as a movement against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls. After No Mercy was withdrawn, it went looking for similar games and took its findings to the companies that process the stores’ payments.

The timeline

11 July 2025: the open letter

Collective Shout published an open letter addressed to the chief executives of PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, Paysafe, Discover and JCB. It said the group had found hundreds of games on Steam and itch.io with themes of rape, incest and child sexual abuse, and it asked the companies to “immediately cease processing payments on Steam and Itch.io and any other platforms hosting similar games”.

The request was not aimed at particular games. It asked for payment to be cut off from the stores as a whole.

Early July 2025: PayPal stops working for most Steam currencies

Around the same time, PayPal stopped being available on Steam for most currencies. Valve explained this in August: one of PayPal’s acquiring banks had ended its processing of Steam transactions in early July, which left PayPal working only for purchases in US dollars, euros, British pounds, Japanese yen, Australian dollars and Canadian dollars. Valve linked the bank’s decision to the same concerns about content, as GamingOnLinux reported.

16 July 2025: Steam adds a rule and removes games

The tracking site SteamDB noticed a new entry in the list of things developers should not publish on Steam. The rule, quoted by GamingOnLinux, reads:

Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult only content.

On the same day a batch of adult games disappeared from the store. SteamDB’s records showed that most of them were games with incest themes. 404 Media reported the change that day.

The rule does not say which “kinds of adult only content” are affected. That is still the case.

17 July 2025: Valve confirms the reason

Valve gave a statement to the press, which GamingOnLinux published in full. It said the company had been “notified that certain games on Steam may violate the rules and standards set forth by our payment processors”, and that it was retiring those games “because loss of payment methods would prevent customers from being able to purchase other titles and game content on Steam”. Valve said it was contacting the affected developers directly.

24 July 2025: itch.io deindexes all adult content

itch.io’s founder published an update saying the site had “deindexed all adult NSFW content from our browse and search pages”. The post named the cause: Collective Shout’s campaign had directed concerns to itch.io’s payment processors, and the site acted quickly because “our ability to process payments is critical for every creator on our platform”.

itch.io said it would audit the content and that creators of adult work would have to confirm it was allowed under the policies of the payment processors linked to their accounts. The site did not give notice before the change, and the post acknowledged that.

Many reports at the time gave a figure of about 20,000 affected games. That number is a press estimate. itch.io did not publish a figure of its own.

28 July 2025: itch.io says it is looking for other processors

In an update to the same post, itch.io said it was reaching out to other payment processors that are more willing to work with adult content.

29 July 2025: the IGDA responds

The International Game Developers Association published a statement saying it was alarmed by vague enforcement that removed games “often without warning or explanation”. It asked platforms and payment companies for clear written guidelines, specific reasons for each action, an appeals process and regular transparency reports. The statement also said the IGDA does not support content that promotes sexual violence or sexualises minors.

31 July 2025: free adult content returns to itch.io search

itch.io announced it was reindexing free adult content. Paid content stayed deindexed. The post said: “We are still in ongoing discussions with payment processors and will be re-introducing paid content slowly.”

The same post quoted the position of Stripe, one of itch.io’s two main processors: Stripe is “currently unable to support sexually explicit content due to restrictions placed on them by their banking partners, despite card networks generally supporting adult content”.

1 August 2025: Mastercard and Valve give different accounts

Mastercard published a short statement: “Mastercard has not evaluated any game or required restrictions of any activity on game creator sites and platforms, contrary to media reports and allegations.” It added that it requires merchants to have controls against unlawful purchases.

Valve answered through the press shortly afterwards. As TechCrunch and GamingOnLinux reported, Valve said Mastercard had not spoken to it directly despite a request to do so. Mastercard had communicated with payment processors and their acquiring banks, and those processors had then come to Valve. Valve said it had replied by explaining its policy since 2018 of distributing games that are legal, and that the processors rejected this, citing Mastercard’s rule 5.12.7 and “risk to the Mastercard brand”.

Both statements can be true. A card network can set a rule and leave banks and processors to apply it, without ever looking at a game itself.

1 August 2025: GOG’s protest

GOG and several publishers launched FreedomToBuy.games, giving away 13 games for 48 hours to draw attention to legal games being withdrawn from sale. In the same period, a petition addressed to Visa and Mastercard passed 205,000 signatures within days.

What rule 5.12.7 says

Rule 5.12.7 of the Mastercard Rules is headed “Illegal or Brand-damaging Transactions”. It bars merchants from submitting transactions that are illegal, and also transactions that Mastercard, at its own discretion, considers damaging to its goodwill or its brand. The examples it gives of brand-damaging sales include material showing non-consensual sexual behaviour, sexual exploitation of a minor and bestiality.

Two features of the rule explain the events above. It covers legal content as well as illegal content, and the judgement belongs to Mastercard and the banks that apply its rules, not to the store.

What itch.io does not allow now

itch.io’s creator FAQ now lists adult themes that cannot be sold on the site. The list includes non-consensual content, whether real or implied; underage or “barely legal” themes; incest or pseudo-incest; bestiality; rape, coercion or force; sex trafficking; and voyeur or hidden-camera content. It also says anyone collecting money must follow the acceptable use policies of the payment processors on their account, and names PayPal, Stripe and Payoneer.

The FAQ states that fictional, illustrated and rendered adult content is otherwise generally fine if it is legal.

What is still not known

• Which games were removed. Neither Valve nor itch.io has published a list. SteamDB shows individual removals, and community members keep informal collections of affected itch.io pages, but nothing complete exists.
• Which adult content Steam’s rule covers. The rule names “certain kinds of adult only content” and stops there.
• Who gave the instruction. Valve’s account names processors and acquiring banks without identifying them.
• Whether paid adult content is fully back in itch.io search. itch.io said in July 2025 that it would return slowly. When this page was written we could not find an itch.io announcement saying that process is complete.

How this page was put together

Every dated entry above comes from a statement by the company or organisation involved, or from a news report that quotes one. Where a figure comes only from press estimates, the text says so. This page does not rely on first-hand knowledge of any removed game.

The page was written on 2 October 2026 and will be updated when either store publishes something new. Corrections are welcome under the corrections standard.