The amount of NSFW game titles on the Steam platform has skyrocketed in the last five years, according to a new data analysis showing that there were 523 games tagged as ‘NSFW’ in 2022, a significant increase on the year before.
According to numbers crunched by The Mary Sue website, in 2018 Steam had 93 titles tagged as ‘NSFW’, likely because they contained some kind of sexual content. 2018 was the year Valve, owner of Steam, said it would allow “everything” on the platform aside from “things we decide are illegal or straight-up trolling”.
By 2019 the number of NSFW titles on Steam had risen to 180, then in 2020 to 261, then in 2021 to 365.
Not so simple NSFW rules
Games available on Steam such as Sexy Mystic Survivors, Honey Select 2: Libido Deluxe and Sex Chess come under the NSFW bracket. Between them they contain sexually suggestive gameplay and character nudity, but despite its ‘everything goes’ statement in 2018, Steam has said that “sexually explicit images of real people” are not allowed on the platform.
The Mary Sue blog also found rises in the ‘Adult Content’ game tag, up from 148 titles in 2018 to 833 in 2022.
Some game developers have been confused by what Steam does and doesn’t allow on the platform in regards to sexually explicit and suggestive content. In 2021, the studio Holodexxx, which specialized in making “photo-realistic adult stars in virtual reality” had its products blocked from Steam.
Also in 2021, dating simulation game Super Seducer 3 was banned from Steam. The game features ‘real life’ footage that is sometimes pretty racy and intimate, but no nudity.
Despite instances like these, the numbers suggest that NSFW content is still very much on the rise on Steam.
“Once, there was a time when you could barely find a mere tit on Steam. Those times have changed,” as The Mary Sue noted.
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