Steam Direct didn't update their policy on game content from what I see. Doesn't looked like Steam fought back. Seems as though Steam has never supported games with rape, incest, child exploitation, etc.
Steam Direct didn't update their policy on game content from what I see. Doesn't looked like Steam fought back. Seems as though Steam has never supported games with rape, incest, child exploitation, etc.
So what? Steam simply didn't want to start a fight with its payment providers over some niche content. The problem is that this incident has proven it's possible to ban whatever content you want, globally, by pressuring middle management in Mastercard and Visa.
"Steam simply didn't want to start a fight with its payment providers over some niche content."
Or the content was never supported by Steam, per their policy. You can check Wayback machine for support for my position. Dod you have any evidence of Steam's motive otherwise?
I don't think inferring causality here is far fetched. They were fine with the content before. And we know it because said content was banned in some countries (including Australia) to comply with local regulations, so they clearly knew what the games were about.
Given that fact we have two options: either they decided to change their approach to content moderation and remove games that previously passed all their checks, with these games being coincidentally the same that were requested by Mastercard; or they decided to remove every game requested by Mastercard regardless of Steam's own policies.