Steam, developed by the ever-enigmatic Valve Corporation, is the go-to platform for PC gaming. It launched way back in 2003.
With popular titles like Half-Life, Counter-Strike 2, Dota 2, PUBG: BATTLEGROUNDS and much more, Steam is a massive digital storefront where users can buy, download, and play thousands of games from indie gems to triple-A blockbusters.
But little most gamers know that Steam has its own adult game ecosystem, intended for players aged 18 and above.
And one of the most controversial, would be No Mercy.
Because of its presence, Steam was under fire, receiving heavy criticisms due to the nature of the game.
No Mercy is a game that describes itself as an "incest and non-consensual sex" simulator.
Players that assume a male protagonist, is encouraged to engage in illegal sexual activities and violence against women.
"In this game, you’ll either become every woman’s worst nightmare… or rather: the best dick they'll ever have. Your goal is simple: leave no pussy non-fucked, since that's the only thing they all want. Never take 'no' for an answer," the games Steam page reads. "Fuck your mom, fuck your auntie, and even fuck your friend’s mom. Why not?"
When it was launched on Steam, the developer described it as a game based on "a 3D choice-driven adult visual novel with a huge focus on incest and male domination," and that it contains violence, incest, blackmail.
Because it encourages players , and that "unavoidable non-consensual sex" is part of the theme, No Mercy is simply a disturbing misogynistic simulator.
Even the screenshots and trailer on the Steam listing contain pornographic and disturbing content with very few barriers in the way of accessing it.
No Mercy is a visual novel that employs 3D models to depict its narrative, inviting players to make choices that influence the story's progression.
While explicit sexual content is common in adult visual novels, No Mercy has drawn significant attention due to its focus on taboo themes, particularly incest and sexual violence.
This emphasis on controversial subject matter has sparked widespread criticism.
The inclusion of taboo topics in adult visual novels is not unprecedented.
Such themes often serve to explore complex emotional dynamics or to provoke thought, but they can also be employed for shock value or to cater to specific fetishes. The controversy surrounding No Mercy underscores the ongoing debate about the boundaries of acceptable content in interactive media and the responsibilities of platforms in moderating such material.
The game is able to make its way to Steam because Steam is not signed up to any age rating frameworks such as ESRB or PEGI. What this means, any developer can upload a game onto the site and sell it. And what this also means, any Steam user who has provided that they're older than 18, can download the game and play it.
In the adult entertainment industry, genres like step-sister/step-brother pornography is one of the most popular, and that incest has been one of the main punchline in the fantasies of people on the internet.
But having a game that promotes such a thing is again putting Steam at the hot seat of debate.
No Mercy have sparked controversy not because of its explicit content since there are others similar to it on Steam. It went under fire because it further cemented Valve as a provider with little to no filter, and that it lacks effective measures against hate groups and extremist content, which have been reported to persist on the platform .
More than ten thousand new games were uploaded to Steam in 2024 alone, and many of those games aren't polished. Many in the list are either copycats, flips, or shovelware.
And the ratio between worthy and bad adults games on Steam is even worse.
Following the backlash and controversies, No Mercy has been pulled from Steam, and that users from Australia, Canada and more could no longer download the game from the world's biggest PC gaming platform.
Officials in Australia asked Steam to remove it for being "unclassified."
A spokesman for Australia’s department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts said: "The computer game, No Mercy, is unclassified and has now been removed from sale from the Steam platform in Australia."
Pepe Di'Iasio, General Secretary of the Association of School of College Leaders said: "Just copy Australia. Australia seems to have got a grip on this, they seem to have acted swiftly. They realize they have to protect young people who are at the heart of this… I think that we’ve got a game of tennis taking place between Ofcom and tech companies, what we’re seeing is people blaming one another."
"Let’s get the legislation doing what it should do and let’s make sure we can protect the young people who are most at threat from this right now."
UK technology secretary Peter Kyle said. "We expect every one of those [tech] companies to remove content as soon as they possibly can after being made aware of it. That's what the law requires, it is what I require as a secretary of state, and it is certainly how we expect platforms who operate and have the privilege of access to British society, and British economy, to do."
Responding to this, Valve quietly removes the explicit game in some countries.