Steamy Games and Steam: Erotic Games on the Biggest Digital Games Store
Steam, the largest online digital games storefront, has been slowly sliding the doors open wider and wider for adult games to thrive on its platform in recent years. While there have been many troubles along the road, and many more to come, the massive storefront has embedded itself as a cornerstone in the online NSFW creator space.
Steam has been the number one online storefront for games distribution for well over a decade now. Despite the recent rise in online distribution in the mainstream gaming markets (PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo systems) there still isn’t a storefront that is quite like Steam. All the online distribution methods on home consoles are run by the companies who make the systems their own customers bought and play on. Everything in the stores needs to be verified by these companies since it ties directly to their storefront’s bottom line and serves as a showcase of what they want to present directly to their customers. While this serves as a great means to avoid poor quality products, scams, and maintain a public image (most of the time), this also eliminates many other games from the market.
Since Steam was initially just a storefront and not directly connected to a specific system they had to sell, they have incentive to distribute games that they don’t necessarily have to be represented by. The showcase of games on the storefront isn’t as representative of Valve themselves as something like the Google Play or the PlayStation and Microsoft online stores are. Everything else on the storefront simply needs to follow the store’s guidelines and they’re allowed to compete with everything else on the market. While some of the guidelines seem to be moving from time to time, they’ve opened up for a market that previously had no chance of wider distribution in more traditional retail stores: adult only games.
Steam isn’t the only online storefront to sell adult only games nor was it the first. Itch.io, Nutaku, DLsite, and individual sites created by developers all have functioned to sell NSFW games long before Steam opened their doors to them. What makes Steam unique is that it’s the largest online storefront with a dedicated install base. With millions of concurrent Steam users at any given moment on the store, it allows for more potential customers of these games to see these products. This does create somewhat of an issue for storefronts that previously were dedicated to these audiences though. Due to their previously small reach, these other stores could evenly compete for market viability. However, with just how massive the Steam install base is, it makes it more difficult for these smaller storefronts to grow just based around NSFW games since Steam now offers not only the largest possible audience but an ever growing collection of NSFW games. Part of this comes from the fact that they can market adult games directly to adult audiences while having such products hidden from younger users at the same time. Young customers potentially browsing these products was an issue with many of these games in more traditional stores since they would be exposed to content much above their age range even through just the cover material.
This difference means that Steam can be a more open store that allows different kinds of games onto its storefront since it doesn’t disturb customers who don’t wish to see it or who it would be inappropriate to show. Adult only games don’t even show up on Steam’s store if you aren’t of legal age or logged in. This allows for games like Melty’s Quest, Succubus Farm, and VR Kanojo to be displayed next to games like God Eater, Super Hot, and Necromunda. Unlike DLsite and Itch.io, Steam’s tagging system for each individual game allows users to also filter what they wish for and wish not to see. More general genre categories exist but it’s possible to specifically search for an anime inspired, female protagonist, hack and slash title with sexual content. While other sites and storefronts do have their own exclusive catalogs and unique perks as well, they aren’t nearly as wide spread in commercial use nor are they as user tailored, customizable, and experienced in this wide-range level of mass distribution.
With this larger platform, it has given a recent boom to the NSFW game scene. Erotic visual novels and RPG Maker games have already been a thing for a long time in Japanese doujin circles and large scale releases. Rance and other eroge (ero(tic) g(am)e) have roots stemming all the way back to the PC-8800 series. While there were games like Leisure Suit Larry and things like Custer’s Revenge, adult games (and adult content in general) never really caught on in a significant way in places like North America, and without something like Comiket (An annual Japanese market place focused around self-published fan works) to facilitate its growth, it never became a cultural touchstone as they are in Japan. Until digital storefronts and flash games become more popular did this American market finally get another chance to live. Only after Patreon came around and started offering a reliable means of generating funds from audiences who were willing to directly support the creators of these works, did the rise of more independent English NSFW games really start to take off. Developers now had a means of making money through their efforts and could openly distribute games to consumers as well without worrying about going through a publisher, distributor, and if their games will even be seen in the store.
Now that Steam also allows these games to be put onto their massive storefront, sites like Mangagamer, DLsite, and Nutaku aren’t the only way to find an audience. This also results in more Japanese NSFW games getting translated and distributed across seas since they’re more likely to see a return on a relatively low investment. Publishers like Kagura Games are publishing the localized releases of games that were previously only available in Japanese like Succubus Farm and Succubus Affection. Games like HuniePop 2 can also exist on the platform without needing a separate patch that needs to be downloaded from an external site like was the case with the first game back when it was released in 2015. It’s an environment where games like these can thrive and all parties involved (developers, publishers, Valve, and consumers) benefit.
While the indie NSFW scene seems to be experimenting in all sorts of directions now that these games are more commercially viable in their region, it’ll be interesting to see how the Japanese doujin circles react to the new space as well. A new global audience has opened up for them and some have already taken the initiative to see how the market responds to translations of past works or even some new projects like Action Taimanin from LiLith. Moreover, this wider audience also means that there’s more possibilities of even more unique games showing up as well. NSFW games from developers in other regions of the world or aimed towards more LGBTQ+ audiences could start showing up as well.
Steam still has some ways to go with NSFW works on its platform (NSFW mods seem to be questionable, certain games tend to have a harder time getting approval than others, and vague guidelines make the rules unnecessarily difficult) but it has proven itself as an impactful factor in the online gaming distribution space. As more and more games get added to Steam’s catalog, it’ll be interesting to see the kind of impact this has on a larger scale. Larger groups of indie developers could band together to make large scale NSFW games (similar to Illusions’ games) and release it on Steam. Perhaps there will be more overlap between English speaking and other global devs in terms of discussing ideas and collaborative efforts. Whatever happens in the future, a major aspect of it will be the result of Steam giving these games a chance in a space they previously never truly had a fair shot at.
