The Australian anti-pornography advocacy group 'Collective Shout' has recently claimed credit for the removal of adult games from the Steam platform.

Collective Shout is a civil organisation dedicated to preventing the sexual exploitation of women and children. Founded in 2009, Collective Shout has spearheaded campaigns against the sexual objectification of children, the distribution of child pornography, the sale of sex dolls modelled after children, AI-generated deepfake sex crimes, and the implementation of age limits for social media. The organisation maintains that it is an independently registered charity with no religious or political affiliations.

The organisation has been quite active in pushing for the removal of various titles. In April, leveraging over 70,000 signatures, Collective Shout led a campaign to remove the adult game 'No Mercy', which featured themes of rape and incest, from platforms like Steam and Itch.io. Following the removal of the title, Collective Shout hailed the result as a significant victory.

On the 11th, Collective Shout announced that it had sent an open letter to payment processors linked to Steam, alleging that the platform hosts a plethora of games featuring rape, incest, and child abuse. Titled "Your company is facilitating and profiting from the sale of games featuring rape, incest and child sexual abuse," the letter claimed that approximately 500 such titles exist on Steam. It urged card companies and payment processors to cease services for Steam, which hosts this content. The letter concluded with a plea: "We urge you to uphold your corporate social responsibility and immediately cease processing payments for Steam, Itch.io, and other platforms hosting similar games."

The letter was dispatched via email by 1,067 supporters, and on July 14, it was sent as an open letter to the CEOs and presidents of major entities including PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, Paysafe, Discover, and the Japan Credit Bureau (JCB).

On the 19th, Collective Shout declared, "Victory - Steam has a new policy regarding rape and incest games," claiming their campaign had borne fruit. Collective Shout stated, "It appears that Steam is reviewing adult games and slowly removing titles tagged with rape or incest. We hope all these games will be removed." The organisation added, "As expected, misogynistic gamers have defended access to rape games, sending our team members abuse, threats, pornography, child sexual abuse material (CSAM), distributing our photos, and even encouraging suicide. We will not overlook this."

Whether payment processors acted directly on the demands of Collective Shout remains unconfirmed. However, the timing is curious: the open letter was sent just five days before Steam updated its content guidelines. Given Collective Shout’s track record—including the 'No Mercy' campaign—their influence cannot be entirely discounted. Indeed, Valve stated on the 19th (local time) that, "We have been notified by our payment processors and related card networks and banks that some games on Steam may be in violation of their rules and standards."

In the past, Collective Shout has failed in campaigns such as advocating for the deportation of Snoop Dogg and Eminem from Australia due to misogynistic lyrics, and attempting to ban the sale of 'Detroit: Become Human' over depictions of child abuse. Nevertheless, along with the 'No Mercy' removal, Collective Shout successfully campaigned to ban the sale of 'GTA 5' at the retail chain Target. Collective Shout considers this latest round of Steam game deletions yet another feather in their cap.