Steam Hid a Free Gay Game Collection From 99% of Users

Compliance-in-advance is never enough to appease a zealous censor, and the Steam content reviewers have decided the game's general 'nature' was just too gay, regardless of my good faith efforts.

That's developer Robert Yang, writing in a blog post announcing the release of Radiator Forever, his free collection of award-winning experimental queer games. The collection launched this week on both Steam and Itch.io, but on Valve's platform, you almost certainly can't see it. Yang says Valve flagged the game as containing "frequent nudity and sexual content," which he argues "amounts to a delisting/shadowban from 99 percent of the Steam user base." Unless you've specifically toggled your Steam preferences to show that category of content, Radiator Forever doesn't exist for you. It's hidden from search. In the UK, you'll also need a credit card on file for age verification.

Yang says he was careful to avoid explicit nudity in the collection. Valve tagged it anyway. I've seen the games in question. They're provocative, sure, and unapologetically homoerotic, but Yang's claim that this is about the games' "nature" rather than their actual content rings true when you look at what AAA games get away with. Yang himself made the comparison: "Valve loves it when Cyberpunk 2077 and Baldur's Gate 3 throw customisable genitals at you in the first five minutes, but of course I can't, because I actually have something to say about genitals!" It's a sharp point. When CD Projekt Red and Larian do it, it's a feature. When a small queer developer does it, it's a content violation.

Crawling back to Steam

Yang would rather not be on Steam at all. He's been releasing his short-form games on Itch.io for years, but the platform has been gutted by external pressure. As Yang explained in his blog post, a censorship campaign driven by conservative Australian pressure group Collective Shout pushed Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe to threaten payment processing for platforms hosting NSFW content. Itch.io was forced to delist or bury adult games in 2025. On top of that, the UK's Online Safety Act pushed Itch to geoblock the entire country rather than comply with what Yang calls "expensive, intrusive, and ineffective" regulations. So Itch's reach has cratered, and Steam is the only viable alternative for PC distribution at scale.

Radiator Forever bundles several of Yang's acclaimed titles into one package, with plans to add more over time. He's calling the model "Gay as a Service." The initial release includes Rinse and Repeat, a showering game about consent that's been rebuilt with new controls; Hurt Me Plenty; Succulent; and Stick Shift. His celebrated 2017 game The Tearoom, a historical bathroom simulator that doubles as commentary on sodomy laws and video game censorship, is expected to join later this year. Additional titles like Hard Lads, Logjam, and Rainbows Are Carnivores are also planned, with Cobra Club requiring a more substantial rework that could push it to 2028.

Yang also pointed to the experience of developer Santa Ragione, whose game Horses was rejected by Valve with no avenue for appeal. "Valve isn't interested in a nuanced conversation or in admitting any wrongs in moral judgment," Yang wrote. "If video games are a form of protected free speech, I do wish there was a bit more hand-wringing over blocking access to my games that were designed directly to be political speech."

Steam's content moderation has always been inconsistent, but this case exposes something more specific. A free, award-winning collection of games with no explicit nudity gets buried because it's "too gay," while blockbuster RPGs with full nudity and sex scenes sit comfortably in the storefront. Valve doesn't have to explain the discrepancy because there's no appeals process and no competition large enough to force accountability. Radiator Forever is available now on Steam and Itch.io, if you can find it.