It really annoys me when journalists write headlines that directly conflict with what the company has stated. In their own article they quote:
“When you start talking about more explicit content, like pornography in particular, there’s potentially some legal issues,” Steam developer Alden Kroll explained back in March 2017. “With Steam Direct, there’s going to be certain kinds of content where we have to say, ‘we can’t support that right now.’ It’s important to think globally, because almost every country and every state has different ideas on how to regulate pornography,”
The article states that steam has never allowed pornography, but has allowed games with pornographic content (what the article describes as games that blur the line, like Witcher III or some graphic novels).
I don't see how this quote contradicts the article, it's entirely consistent with what they're saying. Valve has always had a policy that content that is merely porn is not allowed, but that they don't want to be in the role of policing games with pornographic content. This is an abrupt change from that.
Valve can state 2 + 2 = 5 tomorrow, that doesn't make it true.
They already have geoblocks in place for several reasons ranging from their own whim, to copyright to legal reasons. I can't buy certain animes[0] and I couldn't buy Skyrim for few years (my country's physical box retailer got exclusive deal), you couldn't get Hotline Miami 2 in Australia (their censor banned it), you are forced to use your own currency (or the next best thing like dollar or euro, but there is no free choice) when buying games.
They also banned Hatred back in the day for violating their ToS, until they said it didn't actually violate it (because there was a shitstorm over it). And vague ToS that anyone can break or not break are a staple in online businesses by now.
They also have no problem selling Witcher or Mass Effect games that have way more sexual content that is way more realistic and detailed. In just Witcher 1 you have like 30 sex cards, several topless women, topless bloodied vampire girls, prostitutes, very crude references to sex, straight up softcore porn scenes with full animation, but like 10 naked anime girls in Hunie Pop is too far and a big legal problem for them?
They also had no problem breaking customer protection regulations, sniffing your DNS cache and iterating what processes you have running to find cheats, fighting in Australian court over lack of return policies, taking 0 responsibility for anything they sell for years (Skyrim paid mods, Greenlight trash, asset flips, scams and stolen games, etc.) but now hosting a couple games with anime boobs is a big no-no that opens them up to big legal problems.
All this content was also explicitly stated to not be any problem until now up to reassuring developers themselves about their specific games, do Valve and Steam operate their multi-billion global businesses in a "shoot first, ask if it's legal later" way?
All this is is just deciding to not bother with "weaboo shit" (as many people consider anything in anime style) on Steam Direct anymore for whatever reason (money, image?) and knowing they can do that without backlash because it's niche enough. There is no legal (unless countries now specifically ban static naked images of anime girls but allow 3D softcore mocap scenes of realistic models) or technical reason they couldn't make it work.
Valve's recent action is in contrast with what they state they are trying to achieve with Steam Direct, i.e. opening up the platform without Valve having to decide which titles to allow or not.
Of course, pornographic works were never going to be allowed on the service, but I think there was an expectation that non-pornographic works that have up till now been compliant with Valve's policies would continue to be allowed on the platform.
(Disclosure: I used to work in the VN localisation business.)
It's quite normal for there to be two sets of rules. Or maybe it's about the image of not being a "weaboo shit store" (as many people consider anything in anime style).
Even YouTube that's famous for being trigger happy with demonetization and bans has stuff like "Robin Thicke - Blurred Lines (Unrated Version)" which has 3 topless girls walk around in it without covering themselves at all.
“When you start talking about more explicit content, like pornography in particular, there’s potentially some legal issues,” Steam developer Alden Kroll explained back in March 2017. “With Steam Direct, there’s going to be certain kinds of content where we have to say, ‘we can’t support that right now.’ It’s important to think globally, because almost every country and every state has different ideas on how to regulate pornography,”