As one Reddit user noticed, there has been a region lock on Steam for a few days that removes all "adult-only", ie s*x games, from the German Steam store. This is a tough step towards censorship and it could have further consequences. Also for popular titles like Cyberpunk 2077.
What happened? Steam offers the right category of games for almost every taste. The "Adults Only" area is more popular than you might think. Now, according to a Reddit user, Steam has banned all erotic titles that are primarily about s*x from the German shop. If you want to visit such a game, you will not find any search results at first and will be redirected to the following screen if you use a direct link:
This is the situation: In Germany, pornography or adult games are not prohibited. However, there are laws that stipulate that certain age controls are required. Steam only offers a simple age query in which you enter a date of birth. Even a 12-year-old could indicate that they are 18 or older and thus have access to all adult titles.
This is not strong enough for the German authorities, and so Steam is theoretically illegal. But that actually also applies to popular platforms like Twitter or Reddit, on which there are tons of NSFW content and the age control is not strong enough.
Even in the account options, where you can activate adult and sexual content, sample products are no longer displayed at the push of a button.
So Steam decided: Steam was probably too stupid and instead of introducing a stronger age control, Steam simply bans all adults-only games without age rating in the German store. This is a severe blow to censorship and could have further consequences.
Germany is one of the strongest gaming markets in Europe. According to statistics from broadbandsearch.net, the gaming market in Germany earned $ 4.430 billion in 2019. Second place in Europe is the UK with $ 4.238 billion. Steam thus cuts off the developers' most important market in Europe and could ensure that some studios do not achieve their goals.
According to a developer on Reddit, he should remove all erotic content in order to be displayed again in the German Steam Store. Simple censorship, such as black bars or pixels, is not enough.
What does this mean for other games? Not only s*x games could be affected by this censorship in the future. Steam offers tons of titles that are only released by the USK (the german rating board for games) from the age of 18 and often use violence and eroticism as a subgenre. A current example of such a game is Cyberpunk 2077, in which you can even adjust your genitals as desired and eroticism plays a bigger role.
Important: Currently, however, the ban only affects titles that have not received USK approval. A few adults-only games such as NekoPara, the Sakura series, or HuniePop are still available in the German shop. Sex games that have already been purchased and are blocked can still be started without any problems.
Whether Steam will decide to ban further titles in the future that are located in the erotic sector or that are clearly 18+ cannot be completely ruled out. However, it remains highly unlikely that this will also include games like Cyberpunk 2077. Steam could also decide to ban those titles in other countries as well. We do not hope so.
What do you think of this region lock or this censorship by Steam? Write your comment below!
does anyone knows the name of the game used in the poster??
Can't find it anymore. Not sure what it was either, sorry.
EN: i dont fucking understand that bullshit, i mean you can go on porn websites and just click „yes i am 18 or older“ and can be a 12 year old, but uuuuu steam has games with 50% or less porn in it lets ban them.
DE: ich verstehe die scheiße absolut nicht, ich meine man kann auf porno seiten gehen und einfach „ja ich bin 18 oder älter“ klicken und 12 jahre alt sein, aber uuuuuu heul steam hat spiele die 50% oder weniger sexuelle inhalte beinhalten, lasst die mal wegbannen.
EN: It remains to be seen what step Valve will take, but I don't hold high hopes for this, as long as there is no reaction from the government towards their age 'verification' process for USK 18+ titles, there probably will not be anything done on Valve's side, the impact of no adult-only title sales in Germany to their profits might just be small enough to ignore. Age verifications that comply with the law might even be too expensive to implement.
DE: Es bleibt abzuwarten, was Valve tun wird, aber ich hege keine großen Hoffnungen. So lange Deutschland Valve nicht auf die Füße tritt wegen ihrer Alters-"Verifizierung", wird Valve wahrscheinlich nichts unternehmen. Der Markt von adult-only-Titeln in Deutschland ist wahrscheinlich nicht groß genug, um eine Reaktion zu rechtfertigen. Eventuell sind vernünftige System auch zu teuer und zu aufwändig, vor allem wegen der Vorratsdatenspeicherung.
Best game