Nighthawks, the long-in-development vampire RPG due to be released later this month, is the latest game to run afoul of Steam’s increasingly stringent rules regarding adult content. According to publisher Wadjet Eye Games, the game has been labelled ‘Adults Only’—causing it to be removed from Steam search and outright delisted in certain countries like Germany—despite claims from both developer and publisher that the RPG’s depictions of sex and nudity are very mild.
“We are aware that Steam has classified Nighthawks as an adult game and has excluded it from searches,” Wadjet Eye boss Dave Gilbert wrote on Bluesky. “We are working on it. Valve is under the impression that this game is way sexier than it actually is.” Gilbert further commented that “Valve is basically treating Nighthawks like a porn game!” in responding to a reply to his initial post.
A game being labelled Adults Only can affect its visibility in several ways. Adults Only games will not appear in Steam searches by default, requiring users to log in, verify their age (which requires the use of a credit card in some countries) and adjust their preferred content settings before they become visible. In addition, the label can cause games to be delisted outright in certain countries.
I see, forgot about the GDPR thing.
It doesn’t stop other sites that do want your personal data to ask for photo ID and a matching selfie, as the GDPR still lets you collect data when it’s strictly necessary, so only ever inconvenienced companies using it for evil or who outsourced something to a company that used data for evil. Once robust age verification becomes necessary, collecting any data that helps you verify ages is effectively fair game. You can easily point out in court that adults sometimes sleep while their children are awake, so theoretically could access their credit card without waking them, and therefore you felt it was necessary to collect more data.