Hassles with bank card processors over grownup content material is not the one cost headache Steam is dealing with as of late. Valve can be getting grief from PayPal, which is not being accepted as a type of cost in a lot of the world.
Going by posts about the issue within the Steam subreddit, the problem was first reported a few month in the past: Customers making an attempt to pay for purchases in international locations together with Switzerland, Poland, Norway, and Mexico obtained a message saying Steam is “briefly unable to course of transactions with this cost technique right now,” with no additional rationalization.
paypal briefly disabled since? from r/Steam
The PayPal exclusion appeared to go largely unnoticed exterior of discussions on the Steam subreddit, presumably as a result of it appeared sporadic, and maybe additionally as a result of this was proper across the time Steam bought caught up in a kerfuffle with Visa and Mastercard over grownup content material on the platform. Valve delisted a considerable variety of video games after being notified that a few of them “might violate the principles and requirements set forth by our cost processors and their associated card networks and banks.” Indie-focused platform Itch.io later deindexed a variety of video games on its storefront for a similar motive.
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Some within the Steam subreddit theorized that the Paypal downside was linked to the crackdown on NSFW video games, and perhaps it’s, however Valve has now clarified that the problem is not sport content material, however the particular currencies getting used: Redditor jeeg123 shared a popup message that is being displayed when Steam rejects PayPal as a cost system:
“In early July 2025, PayPal notified Valve that their buying financial institution for cost transactions in sure currencies was instantly terminating the processing of any transactions associated to Steam. This impacts Steam purchases utilizing PayPal in currencies aside from EUR, CAD, GBP, JPY, AUD and USD,” the message states.
“We hope to supply PayPal as an possibility for these currencies sooner or later however the timeline is unsure. We’re additionally evaluating including further cost strategies on Steam for the shoppers affected by this. Within the meantime, please use certainly one of our different present cost strategies throughout checkout. If you cannot use any of the obtainable choices, you possibly can think about using a Steam Pockets code so as to add funds to your account.”
An equivalent message was just lately added to the Steam Help web site.
To make clear one potential level of confusion, the currency-based restriction does exclude some EU nations: Steam customers in Poland, as an example, which nonetheless makes use of the złoty as its official forex, are unable to make use of PayPal for Steam purchases regardless of the nation being a part of the EU.
Valve was fairly pointed in its response when Mastercard tried to deflect the blame for the removing of NSFW video games on Steam, and its relative silence on this PayPal downside leads me to suspect that the 2 points are unrelated. So too is the truth that GBP stays one of many accepted currencies: Given the UK’s On-line Security Act laws, I’d suppose that anybody involved concerning the potential sale of grownup video games to minors would have that forex on the high of the “no thanks” checklist.
So that is the place we’re: We all know why PayPal is not obtainable in massive components of the world, however we do not know why. Which fairly frankly just isn’t a very uncommon state of affairs for Valve. I’ve reached out to ask and can replace if I obtain a reply.
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