The ‘Ultimate Destination’ For Kids To Find Sexually Explicit Games
Why is Steam on the 2026 Dirty Dozen List?
Steam does nothing to protect children who don’t have the privilege of highly-involved, tech savvy caregivers enrolling them in family accounts. Any child can make a Steam account, without parental permission or age verification, and immediately have full access to all sexually explicit games.
"Simply check a box to claim your age as 18 or older, then jump into browsing all games – including those with NSFW and Adult Only tags. "
- NCOSE Researcher
The Problem
Steam is a PC gaming marketplace created by the Valve Corporation that allows anyone to create an account and purchase from over 120,000 video game offerings, including genres like action, adventure, strategy, sports, and more. It is the most popular PC gaming platform on the market. It boasts 132 million estimated monthly users, with recent concurrent users peaking over 41 million online at the same time. That’s more than double the number of concurrent users from just a few years ago, as the platform continues to grow and draw in more customers. Estimates show that just under 16 million of those users are under the age of 18, although without meaningful age verification, there’s no clear way to know how many kids are playing using adult accounts.
With their massive audience size and monumental impact on young gamers, one might assume that they have robust protections to ensure that their platform is safe for gamers of all ages. Sadly, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Steam continues to host thousands of games which contain explicit sexual content. These sexual games sometimes depict egregious violence and abuse—such as a game in which the user plays a master who buys slaves to rape and torture.
Even after Steam reportedly removed many “Adult Only” games in the summer of 2025, there are still nearly 7,000 games with tags like “NSFW” (Not Safe For Work). Our researcher took a closer look at these games and confirmed that, while some games may have been given that tag erroneously, most of them contain hardcore pornographic content.
The access that young gamers have to this content is why Steam is on the 2026 Dirty Dozen List. Steam doesn’t currently require any meaningful age verification for new users, and our researchers were able to simply check a box to supposedly confirm their age, then jump into browsing all games – including those with NSFW and Adult Only tags.
Steam implemented Family Accounts in 2014, and they’ve updated it over the years with more controls and ways to share games with other family members. Some of these updates include positive changes, such as filtering content by default for children enrolled in a family account. However, kids on family accounts can still preview sexually explicit games, which allows them to view explicit videos and screenshots of the game.
And again, Steam does nothing to protect children who don’t have the privilege of highly-involved, tech savvy caregivers enrolling them in family accounts. Any child can make a Steam account, without parental permission or age verification, and immediately have full access to all sexually explicit games.
Proof: Evidence of Exploitation
WARNING: Any pornographic images have been blurred, but are still suggestive. There may also be graphic text descriptions shown in these sections. POSSIBLE TRIGGER.
Children Can Access Sexually Explicit and Sexually Violent Content
On Steam, sexually explicit and sexually violent content is easily accessible to children. There is no age verification required to access this content—one need only click a button declaring they are over 18.
Within seconds, any child can create an account and immediately access hardcore pornographic content, including content that fetishizes and graphically depicts sexual violence.
Despite Steam reportedly removing many sexually explicit games in the summer of 2025, our researchers found nearly 7,000 games with tags like “NSFW.”
Although Steam filters explicit content for kids whose caregivers have set up Family Accounts, this does nothing to protect the majority of kids who do not have the privilege of highly involved, tech-savvy parents monitoring their every move online. Further, even children who are connected to family accounts are still able to view the previews of 18+ games, which are often sexually explicit and violent themselves.
For example, previews our researchers were able to access included pornographic videos of women being raped, beaten, chained, and tortured. These previews would not be hidden no matter how diligent a caregiver was about activating Steam’s parental controls.
Glorification of Sexual Violence and Slavery
Some of the content on Steam is so egregious it should be banned completely, not only age-gated. This includes content that glorifies and fetishizes sexual violence and other human rights violations, such as slavery.
For example, our researchers found a game in which the user plays a slave master who purchases slaves in order to rape them. The description of the game reads “Play a slave trainer in ancient Rome. Buy slaves, teach them the right way to F#$k a Roman!”
The previews of the game include graphic vides of female slaves being raped, beaten, and tortured by male slave masters. Disturbingly, the game featured overwhelmingly positive reviews from nearly 2,000 players.
Other sexually violent games made disturbing pretenses at morality by assuring the user that they would not be actively participating in any sexual assaults—simply enjoying being a “spectator.”
NOTE: More proof images and videos available upon request
It is imperative that Steam ban these sexually violent games. It is not enough to age-gate them; they shouldn’t be accessible to users of any age.
Research has established that consuming sexually violent, explicit media like these games increases likelihood of committing real-life sexual aggression or having attitudes supporting sexual aggression. For example, a 3 wave longitudinal study found that intentional exposure to “violent X-rated material” resulted in adolescents being 6x more likely to commit sexual aggression later on in life. An experimental study that controlled for causal order found that adult male participants who were made to play video games depicting violence against women and sexual objectification of women exhibited increased acceptance of rape myths (i.e. beliefs that minimize rape or victim blame).
Sexually violent games like the ones Steam hosts are not harmless fantasies. They have real-world effects on real-life victims. This is why they must be banned.
Requests for Improvement
Add a meaningful age verification process that requires all users to confirm that they are 18 or older before they can access sexual content of any kind on Steam. Currently, only users in the U.K. are required to go through any verification process, due to the country’s laws.
Prevent child accounts from being able to view or preview games with sexually explicit content.
Ban content that normalizes, fetishizes, or graphically depicts sexual violence and abuse.
Fast Facts
Steam has 132 million monthly active users and over 200,000 games.
In November 2025, Steam had earned $16.2 billion in annual revenue, and was on track to hit $17 billion by the end of the year.
A 2025 survey from the Family Online Safety Institute found only 35% of parents use parental controls for gaming platforms.
Resources
Recommended Reading
Collective Shout Interview:
Steam's Sexual Violence Game Defenders Are Abusers in Real Life
Video Games Chronicle:
Women in Games calls on Steam to remove game which promotes sexual assault
Collective Shout:
Open letter to payment processors profiting from rape, incest + child abuse games on Steam
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