The Japanese horror visual novel This Game Is Not Real , developed and published by a small indie team known as “Viv,” was set to release on Steam this month, and, according to one of its developers, had even garnered 24,000 wishlists on the platform since its store page was added in August 2025. However, the team behind the project has now announced that the game will no longer be coming to Steam, as Valve has apparently denied it a spot on the storefront for “not meeting platform criteria.”
As spotted by Automaton , Viv developer “Bibu” announced on May 13 that This Game Is Not Real would be undergoing a “release platform change” due to an unspecified issue with Steam. “We had planned to release on Steam, but since it does not meet the distribution criteria, we will change the platform and release on DLsite／BOOTH,” stated Bibu , according to X’s platform translation.
📣【お知らせ】リリースプラットフォーム変更#ThisGameIsNotReal につきまして、
Steamでの配信を予定していましたが、配信基準を満たさないため、
プラットフォームを変更してDLsite／BOOTHにて配信します。発売日等については、あらためてお知らせいたしますので今しばらくお待ちください！… pic.twitter.com/vXEsYeunWz
— びぶ🐙COMITIA156｜は09a (@ruuya1124) May 13, 2026
Although Bibu didn’t explicitly state why the game had been removed from Steam, they did follow up on Automaton’s article with a second statement, in which Bibu (assumedly) jokingly blamed its removal on This Game Is Not Real’s “cute” artwork.
“If my artwork is ‘too cute’ for Steam, then maybe Steam and I just weren’t meant to be,” Bibu explained . “I use psycho-horror to express hatred, jealousy, love, dependency, and sexual desire. I’m not trying to make a mass-market adult game; I want to make something with literary and emotional value.”
However, after a quick browse through This Game Is Not Real’s official website, I think I may have found a different answer. The new store page for the game on DL Site has a “radical expression” disclaimer section that some lists of the game’s “serious themes,” including drug use, trypophobia, self-harm, murder, suicidal expression, and “sexual metaphors without agreement.” Steam started cracking down on games with adult content or themes last year. Many existing store pages were purged while releases like Horses were ultimately rejected from the platform over concerns about how sexual content was depicted .
While it would be easy to blame overreaching payment processors for something like this , it’s also possible this has more to do with Steam’s own guidelines and history of content moderation. Valve has allowed sexual themes and nudity in games on the platform, but it’s taken a hard stance on titles that contain sexual assault in the past, like 2025’s No Mercy .
