PayPal joins Visa, Mastercard in pressuring Steam over on-platform content

PayPal has become the latest payment giant to effectively squeeze Steam’s content policies, following a pattern established by Visa and Mastercard in their ongoing battle over adult gaming content on the platform. The move has left millions of Steam users worldwide unable to use PayPal for purchases, creating widespread frustration in the gaming community.

Steam users around the world started reporting that PayPal had become mysteriously unavailable as a payment option sometime in July 2025. What initially appeared to be a technical glitch has since revealed itself as something far more calculated. According to Valve’s official statement, PayPal informed them that their acquiring bank was “immediately terminating the processing of any transactions related to Steam” for most currencies outside of EUR, CAD, GBP, JPY, AUD, and USD.

This sudden withdrawal mirrors the tactics previously employed by Visa and Mastercard, who have used their financial leverage to pressure platforms into restricting adult content. Just a couple of weeks ago, I highlighted how the controversy surrounding adult games was heating up, and with this development, it seems that take was spot-on.

Reddit communities have exploded with complaints from affected users, many of whom relied on PayPal as their primary payment method. For instance, check this post from eight days ago, which has amassed nearly four thousand upvotes with hundreds of comments.

Even Steam’s official forums are flooded with frustrated gamers asking when the service might return, only to receive Valve’s standard response about an “uncertain timeline” for restoration.

The situation highlights a troubling trend in digital payment control. When a handful of financial companies can effectively dictate what content millions of users can access by simply withdrawing payment processing, it raises serious questions about corporate censorship. This isn’t just about adult games anymore; it’s about who gets to decide what digital content consumers can purchase.

For users caught in the crossfire, Valve suggests using Steam Wallet codes as a workaround, but this creates additional friction and expense. The company promises they’re “evaluating additional payment methods,” though no concrete alternatives have emerged.

All this is happening at the same time when even governments around the world are now trying to control what content we can consume online. Take, for instance, the UK’s Online Safety Act, which is already receiving immense backlash. Meanwhile, Australia is also going to introduce a ban on social media for teens. Canada’s government is also taking a look at Bill S-209 in the Parliament, which calls for age verification.

We’ve recently highlighted how YouTube and even Google Search have started enforcing AI-powered age estimation in the US to control what people have access to, in the name of protecting children online.

So as this situation continues to unfold, it becomes clear that the future of digital content access may increasingly depend not on user choice or platform policies, but on the comfort level of financial intermediaries and/or governments. For Steam users still waiting for PayPal’s return, that’s a particularly unwelcome reality check.