Porn games on Steam and itch.io after the 2025 payment-processor crackdown

You can still buy porn games on Steam and itch.io in 2026, but fewer of them, under stricter rules, and with the knowledge that the rules are set as much by card networks and payment companies as by the stores. In July 2025 both stores pulled adult games within days of each other. Free adult games came back to itch.io within a week; paid ones returned slowly, and some themes can no longer be sold on either store. Here is what happened, in the stores' own words, and what it means if you buy adult games.

What happened to adult games on Steam?

On July 16, 2025, Valve added a line to its Steamworks onboarding rules¹ under "what you shouldn't publish on Steam": content that may violate the rules and standards of Steam's payment processors and related card networks and banks, "in particular, certain kinds of adult only content." Adult games started disappearing from the store the same week.

Valve's statement to GamingOnLinux² was blunt: "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." Developers were told directly and given app credits for future games. Valve never published a list of the titles it retired, so counts in the press varied widely.

Who was behind it?

It depends who you ask. itch.io's own announcement⁴ pointed to a campaign by the Australian advocacy group Collective Shout, which had targeted Steam and itch.io and taken its concerns to their payment processors, after a game called No Mercy was briefly sold on both stores earlier in the year.

Mastercard denied steering anything. In a statement reported by GamingOnLinux³, it said it "has not evaluated any game or required restrictions of any activity on game creator sites and platforms" and that "we allow all lawful purchases on our network", while requiring merchants to have controls against unlawful purchases, "including illegal adult content". Valve answered that "Mastercard did not communicate with Valve directly, despite our request to do so", and that payment processors "specifically cited Mastercard's Rule 5.12.7 and risk to the Mastercard brand." Both statements can be true at once: a card network doesn't need to name a game if the banks and processors in the middle read its brand-protection rule broadly.

What happened on itch.io?

itch.io's update on NSFW content⁴, dated July 24, 2025, said it had "deindexed" all adult content from browse and search, with no advance notice to creators, because it was under scrutiny from its payment processors. Pages stayed reachable by direct link and in buyers' libraries. Stripe payments for 18+ content were suspended, and creators of adult games would have to confirm their work met their payment processors' policies.

On August 1, owner Leaf Corcoran posted that "today, we are re-indexing free adult NSFW content", as VGC reported⁵. Free games came back with a new content-warning system; paid ones stayed hidden while itch.io talked to processors, and it said it would be "re-introducing paid content slowly". Stripe, its card processor for over a decade, had told it that it couldn't support content "designed for sexual gratification" because of restrictions from its banking partners.

Why couldn't itch.io just push back?

Because it has far less leverage than Valve. itch.io is a small company whose open storefront depends on a couple of payment providers, and in a July 28 addendum to its update⁴ it explained how its position differs from Steam's and published the list of prohibited themes. Its stated plan, per VGC⁵, was to add "one or more new processors to avoid putting the platform at risk". For creators, that meant marking free adult games "no payments" and filling in the new content warnings before their pages came back. For players, it meant a stretch when many paid adult games could only be reached by a direct link, with no way to buy them by card.

Can you still buy porn games on Steam?

Yes. Steam still lists adult-only games behind its mature-content settings and an age check (signed-out visitors are sent to log in first). What changed is the line on themes, and the fact that it's drawn by the rules of payment companies rather than published in full. A useful example of Steam as it is now: 3DXChat, a long-running adult multiplayer game, has a Steam page⁷ marked for adults only and still "coming soon", while it sells memberships on its own site.

Steam remains the lowest-risk place to buy a fixed-price adult game while it's there, because of its refund policy⁸: a refund on request within 14 days of purchase and under two hours of play. No adult store we know of matches that.

What happens to games I already bought?

On both stores, buying a game that is later pulled doesn't take it away from you. itch.io's update says paid content stays in your library and collections and downloads remain available unless the creator removes the files. Steam's statement spoke of "retiring those games from being sold"; retired games normally stay in the libraries of people who own them.

Two habits protect you anyway. Keep a local copy of the installer for any adult game you care about: on itch.io you get the file itself. And note where you bought it, so you can re-download from the source rather than a mirror if a store changes its mind. Mirrors and repacks of removed games are a known malware route; see are porn games safe.

Where else can you buy adult games?

• Nutaku, the adult game store owned by Aylo, which bills through its own company, Aylo Billing, rather than a general-purpose store. Its catch is a store currency that expires; see free vs paid.
• The developer's own site. Kinkoid's games, including Hentai Heroes, and smaller games like Harem Villa bill through adult payment processors such as Segpay, which exist precisely because mainstream processors avoid adult content.
• Creator memberships. Many visual-novel developers release builds to paying supporters first. 3DXChat now activates accounts through a Patreon membership. These are subscriptions, so cancel the month you stop playing.

What does this mean for players?

Three things. First, on a general store, adult games exist at the pleasure of payment companies, and the line can move without notice. Second, the content most at risk is the content card networks single out, so if a game's premise sits near those themes, buy it from its creator directly and keep the file. Third, when a store pulls games, the pirated copies multiply, and so does the malware riding on them. The legal options are narrower than they were in early 2025, but they're still there, and they're still the safe ones.