Every few days, 27‑year‑old Rosario opens Steam to make sure his visual novel about a queer sex worker, Parfum Nostalgique, remains available. He’s aware of titles that have been removed from the storefront for including LGBTQ+ themes, and he’s heard equally many stories of creators surprised their work survived a sweeping purge. “Nobody really knows what gets a game taken down,” Rosario told Polygon.
Rosario is one of many independent developers caught up in a recent payments‑related controversy on Steam. During 2025 a batch of games was removed from the platform after pressure connected to a campaign by Collective Shout, an organization campaigning for stricter rules around depictions of violence against women regardless of context. Earlier this year the group approached companies like Visa and Mastercard, arguing that their networks were being used to buy what they deemed objectionable content. Payment processors have denied directing takedowns and say they only restrict what’s illegal; platform representatives, however, have described pressure coming from intermediaries with ties to those financial firms.
Put simply, the push to block or refuse NSFW titles may not have come directly from Visa or Mastercard, but from organizations that coordinate with parties representing their interests. The result has been confusing and inconsistent: developers report being unable to use Steam’s early access route for adult games and say the rules are opaque enough that it’s hard to know what to change to comply.
In response, Rosario published a pay‑what‑you‑can zine, Holding the Baby: How to make and distribute physical games in the age of digital download dominance, as a how‑to for self‑distribution. If digital gatekeepers increasingly control which works reach players, he argues, creators should reclaim distribution by selling their own physical editions. The idea can feel daunting for small‑budget teams, but Rosario believes physical releases offer meaningful advantages.
When Rosario speaks of “physical games” he isn’t limited to discs or cartridges. One of the most economical and flexible options is a USB drive — but not the plain rectangular kind. Drives are available in a huge variety of shapes, colors and styles: keys, credit‑card pop‑outs, and novelty forms that better reflect the game’s identity.
Physical editions let developers craft an experience that a generic online store page cannot. Even platforms that allow more customization, such as itch.io, still operate within fixed templates. A tangible release, by contrast, can be tailored freely. Rosario’s own products demonstrate this: at events he hands customers a circular “wafer” USB that folds into a thin stick, illustrated on the face and suspended from a long blue tassel. All of that nests inside a card shaped like a classic perfume bottle — an object that might not read as a game at first glance.
He’s taken releases further: some come in translucent envelopes tied with green twine and finished with a red seal that evokes a rose. Developers can even use custom wax seals or other handcrafted touches to make the moment of unboxing feel distinctive. The aim is to make the physical copy itself a keepsake.
Rosario acknowledges he didn’t invent this approach. He cites early adopters like State of Play, which has marketed games in cassette‑style packaging. Self‑distribution isn’t a cure‑all for broader marketplace control, he says, but making games into art objects can reconnect developers with the joy that motivated them to create in the first place and produce a more memorable player experience.
“Every title should have the chance to be more than a download,” Rosario explains. “It can be a memento of a day someone lived, an object that occupies space in a home. When I sell a physical copy, it begins a journey. Relying only on mass marketplaces or social algorithms reduces success to a single, sterile tally of numbers.”
He doesn’t advocate abandoning Steam — the platform still helps him find community and makes discovery easier — but recent events serve as a warning. Payment processors and the services that rely on them aren’t always aligned with creators’ interests.
Rosario still wonders why Parfum Nostalgique remains on Steam while others with far milder content have been penalized. He has wanted to make games since he was seven, and he’s not prepared to let an unseen, inconsistent system dictate his next steps.
“It’s naive to think everything would improve if we simply pulled our titles from storefronts and hosted them on our own sites,” he says. “That isn’t the point. What we need is plurality: multiple channels and methods for distributing work so no single archive or algorithm can erase whole swaths of games. Creators should take practical steps now to diversify how their work reaches people.”
Source: Polygon
