‘Gay As A Service’ Game Bundle Eludes Steam Due to Strict Censorship Policies

Indie game developer Robert Yang is taking a unique approach to re-releasing remastered versions of his queer experimental games. Dubbed “gay as a service,” this concept flips the traditional “games as a service” model on its head. Instead of launching each updated title with its own store page, Yang has bundled his games together and made them available for free, with a commitment to regularly add new content. However, he faces a significant hurdle: Steam’s inconsistent and often unclear restrictions on adult content make it difficult for potential players to discover his work.

Yang expressed his frustration on his blog, noting that Valve has classified his game as containing “frequent nudity and sexual content,” effectively hiding it from most users on the platform. He mentioned, “While I was careful to avoid explicit nudity, compliance-in-advance is never enough to appease a zealous censor.”

If it were up to him, Yang would steer clear of Steam entirely. However, he pointed out that itch.io has also stopped hosting adult games due to pressure from payment processors influenced by anti-porn advocates, leading him to feel he has no choice but to return to Steam. As the leading platform for PC games, Steam offers a much larger audience than itch.io. Yet, like itch.io, Steam is also subject to the whims of payment processors like Stripe and PayPal. To avoid losing these services, Steam has implemented a broad content review process that obscures Yang’s games from the majority of its users. “Steam content reviewers have decided the game’s general ‘nature’ was just too gay, regardless of my good faith efforts,” he stated.

Yang criticizes this system as arbitrary and hypocritical, arguing that it disproportionately affects indie games with meaningful messages while allowing more mainstream titles to escape scrutiny. He pointed out, “Valve loves it when Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur’s Gate 3 throw customizable genitals at you in the first five minutes. But of course I can’t, because I actually have something to say about genitals!”