'Dangerous on a whole new level'—while Steam's policy change is new, the shadow of credit card porn-hibition has been looming for a while, with Nier: Automata's Yoko Taro sounding the alarm last year

Last week was a weird one for videogames—with Steam clamping down on games featuring adult content due to the pressure of credit card companies like Visa and Mastercard which, apparently, was itself a decision made due to an Australian anti-porn group.

But this isn't a new phenomenon. Back in 2021, Mastercard began a policy forcing adult websites to go through stringent requirements that were, logistically, impossible to keep up with. In Japan, Visa's also been coming down on doujinshi and manga archives to...