Steam adult game programmer has account frozen by PayPal, £80,000 in earnings withheld

Draugoth

Draugoth

Gold Member
A Steam game programmer claims that PayPal has frozen all of their funds due to alleged violation of the financial platform's terms of service. Around £80,000 GBP in proceeds were withheld as a result of the programmer's involvement in the development of adult games (as reported by Game*Spark).

Earlier last month, users were reporting that PayPal payments in certain currencies had been suspended on Steam. According to the official Steam Support page, PayPal reached out to Valve around July 2025, explaining that the bank that handles their payment transactions in certain currencies was immediately terminating the processing of any transactions related to Steam. While no concrete reasons were given for the sudden suspension of the transactions, users suspect that PayPal's actions are likely related to the recent wave of crackdowns on adult games across many digital distribution platforms, with Steam being most prominently affected.
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Article:
Steam adult game programmer has account frozen by PayPal, £80,000 in earnings withheld
 
Angry_Megalodon said:
Robbery. If Steam were the free platform people claim, they would reimburse the devs till the issue is sorted.
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Steam was being pressured by the credit card companies and Paypal. They would have had to stop taking all current forms of payment and create their own bank to beat this. I understand why they couldn't do that.
 
BennyBlanco said:
I wonder what the game was. If they are really making 100k+ on these extremely low effort porn visual novel games I am in the wrong biz.
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Some of them are incredible and not low effort at all. Being a Dik for example is an adult game and has better written characters with more depth than 90% of the "non adult" games on the market.The adult gaming scene is the same as the non adult one with games out there ranging from garbage to masterpieces. The only difference is they have sex at the forefront instead of murder.
 
Mr Moose said:
Why the fuck would you leave 80k in your PayPal account?

Anyway, this can't be legal.
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Depending on the income and the country, it could be really good to let the money slip to a precise date to match Y+1 and "soften" (not english birth labguage, I don't know how to explain it...) the global income (tax vta etc...)
 
Bojji said:
It's not but probably "legal" according to their TOS he "signed".
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Yeah, but than you close his account, pay him his money and be done with it. Why freezing his money and acting like he is a heavy criminal? For what is paypal waiting here with the freeze?
 
pudel said:
Yeah, but than you close his account, pay him his money and be done with it. Why freezing his money and acting like he is a heavy criminal? For what is paypal waiting here with the freeze?
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Yeah, unless goverment wants to freeze his money (some criminal charges, terrorism etc.), HIS money are HIS money. But credit card companies and PP are apparently above the law.

Moral fucking police...
 
Mr Moose said:
Why the fuck would you leave 80k in your PayPal account?

Anyway, this can't be legal.
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This is bizarre.....

"Steam pays lead developer.
Lead developer takes money into his corporation.
His corporation sends its share of the profits to my corporation's PayPal.
I withdraw from that PayPal and into my business bank account."

 
How is it legal to not only hold but not send it back to company that sent it. They basically stole the money from the company that sent it.
 
Jesb said:
How is it legal to not only hold but not send it back to company that sent it. They basically stole the money from the company that sent it.
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Seriously I don't understand how it's legal for them to keep the money. If they don't want to do business with him anymore that's fine just cut him a check and close his account.
 
Paypal is still the wokest payment processor and they will get all up in your shit to force you to fall in line with their way of thinking.

This isn't the first industry they have devastated with their "values."
 
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No idea why you would ever keep that kind of money in PayPal for any period of time. Dangerous. Hopefully he is able to get it unfrozen after however long it takes to dispute this.
 
Bojji said:
Yeah, unless goverment wants to freeze his money (some criminal charges, terrorism etc.), HIS money are HIS money. But credit card companies and PP are apparently above the law.

Moral fucking police...
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PayPal can freeze any funds at any time for what amounts to any reason. Don't trust them with significant balances!
 
pudel said:
I dont understand how this can all legally happen!
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Assuming there is no more to it e.g. why did the dev keep the money in the PP account instead of cashing it in, etc. - the problem is that before companies were afraid to break the law on principle, now the thinking goes "if we break the law, how much would it cost us"? The problem lies with punitive damages in the US that are incredibly low given some company revenues, and US federal agencies willingness to settle to get thing over with. Check Herbalife for a prime example - they get getting fined constantly, but because it is such a small portion of their revenue they just keep ignoring all the verdicts and continue on.
 
What is PayPal's policy on transactions that involve sexually oriented goods and services?

We don't permit PayPal account holders to buy or sell:

Sexually oriented digital goods or content delivered through a digital medium. Examples of digital goods include downloadable pictures or videos and website subscriptions.
Sexually oriented goods or services that involve, or appear to involve, minors.
Services whose purpose is to facilitate meetings for sexually oriented activities.


What is PayPal’s policy on transactions that involve sexually oriented goods and services? | PayPal US

PayPal allows US transactions for physical sexually oriented goods only within the country. No transactions are permitted for digital goods or involving minors.
www.paypal.com www.paypal.com
 
Topher said:
What is PayPal's policy on transactions that involve sexually oriented goods and services?

We don't permit PayPal account holders to buy or sell:

Sexually oriented digital goods or content delivered through a digital medium. Examples of digital goods include downloadable pictures or videos and website subscriptions.
Sexually oriented goods or services that involve, or appear to involve, minors.
Services whose purpose is to facilitate meetings for sexually oriented activities.


What is PayPal’s policy on transactions that involve sexually oriented goods and services? | PayPal US

PayPal allows US transactions for physical sexually oriented goods only within the country. No transactions are permitted for digital goods or involving minors.
www.paypal.com www.paypal.com
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Holy shit....if Visa and Mastercard doing the same thats a defacto worldwide ban for buying/selling "sexual oriented" stuff...while being completely legal!!! Nice!

...and its funny that they allow this stuff on videotapes, DVD's and magazines. Hilarious. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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pudel said:
Holy shit....if Visa and Mastercard doing the same thats a defacto worldwide ban for buying/selling "sexual oriented" stuff...while being completely legal!!! Nice!
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I'd like to know if this PayPal policy is new or if it has been this way for a while.
 
what are, if any, some good alternatives to PayPal anyway? I had not used it for more than a decade now and I had not really look into these sorta services.
 
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It seems that cash will always have reason to exist. If all these payment processors and banks continue to be all 1984 about what people do with their money, people will just gradually buy porn and other "morally questionable" stuff using cash or some cryptocurrency. No bank or payment processor or government can stop people from buying porn. People will just change how they get it.
 
PayPal policy or not, I don't get how they just sit on $80k. Either let the guy get his money and close the account or send the money back to the source and tell them to pay the dev by some other means. Good old fashioned checks still work, don't they?
 
Topher said:
I'd like to know if this PayPal policy is new or if it has been this way for a while.
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Just checked the german paypal site, there is nothing mentioned about these "permissions". Only gambling stuff can be restricted. Is that maybe just a US thing? (would still suck anyway)

I really need to check out for alternative payment stuff. paysafecard was always nice. But they hammered that company very heavily already (presumably because of money laundering...yeah sure) and making it pretty inconvenient (you cant pay more than 50bucks, maybe even less now, with one code)
 
pudel said:
Just checked the german paypal site, there is nothing mentioned about these "permissions". Only gambling stuff can be restricted. Is that maybe just a US thing? (would still suck anyway)

I really need to check out for alternative payment stuff. paysafecard was always nice. But they hammered that company very heavily already (presumably because of money laundering...yeah sure) and making it pretty inconvenient (you cant pay more than 50bucks, maybe even less now, with one code)
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I'm going to check the way back machine and see how long that policy page has been up on the US site when I get home. I suspect it is fairly new.
 
FeralEcho said:
Some of them are incredible and not low effort at all. Being a Dik for example is an adult game and has better written characters with more depth than 90% of the "non adult" games on the market.The adult gaming scene is the same as the non adult one with games out there ranging from garbage to masterpieces. The only difference is they have sex at the forefront instead of murder.
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https://media0.giphy.com/media/v1.Y...ZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/MvdaYPuKPMNZRJCl8Z/giphy.gif
 
How is it legal to keep money that does not belong to you, just because you are the middle man. You can decide not to serve anymore payments but you need to release the money.
 
AJUMP23 said:
You can decide not to serve anymore payments but you need to release the money.
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I think even if this is debatable. This bank/payment processor market is not some normal market where you can just go open a new store. I think even Elon, one of the richest guys on earth, tried it a few years back to get a license and he was denied. So if this is not a normal market where everybody can offer alternatives, than these companies shouldnt be allowed to act like normal businesses. Especially when you are being forced to use them.
 
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pudel said:
I think even if this is debatable. This bank/payment processor market is not some normal market where you can just go open a new store. I think even Elon, one of the richest guys on earth, tried it a few years back to get a license and he was denied. So if this is not a normal market where everybody can offer alternatives, than these companies shouldnt be allowed to act like normal businesses. Especially when you are being forced to use them.
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Paypal is a bank though, not a payment processor. I think. I know you can pay with paypal but that is always basked up with a credit card on your account. Paypal just holds bits. I don't think you should work to de-platform anyone other than a criminal or terrorist state. But to just hold money someone earned from sales for an indefinite period because you don't like the product.... I wonder how they handle intimacy toys and orders. Do those go against their sensibilities.
 
spongebob-nobody-asked.gif
 
Yeah, PayPal is about to bankrupt at any give moment, they had a hard time already for doing so with their customers, they basically flew somewhere else and were in a difficult position
 
You can choose to stop providing a service, but there's little reason to withhold that money. Give it to the person who already earned it.
 
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