New age verification laws in the US are being tested against the gaming industry, as two sites that host adult games are facing legal action in Florida. This comes as many states in the US adopt similar regulations to the UK and many European countries, which require certain sites to enforce harsher age verification processes if they host content that is deemed inappropriate for children.
The sites which will be challenged in Florida are Nutaku and Lusty Heroes, the former for hosting p*rnographic games, and the latter for being a p*rnographic browser game. There are other adult sites included in the lawsuit too, but the case against Nutaku and Lusty Heroes could have implications for other sites that sell games that are p*rnographic, even if it isn’t their particular niche.
Florida Age Verification Laws Target Adult Game Sites
Florida’s Attorney General has filed lawsuits against platforms featuring adult games, claiming they fail to verify age of visitors. It’s a sign that AG, who is simultaneously attacking LGBTQ literature as pornography, intends to interpret the age-verification broadly.
— Mike Stabile (@mikestabile.bsky.social) 2025-09-15T20:04:30.291Z
“Florida is committed to being the best place to raise children,” reads a statement from Florida’s attorney general, James Uthmeier. “We passed strong legislation to keep kids from being exposed to harmful and toxic material, and instead of following it, these platforms ignored it. We are taking them to court to make sure they cannot continue bypassing Florida’s common sense safeguards.”
Age verification laws have been widely criticised for both their effectiveness and the restrictions they place on what adults can view online without handing over their personal information. Across Europe, many sites require you to have your face or ID scanned to access certain materials. The material being age-restricted has also raised concerns, as some have noticed LGBTQ+ and political content being deemed inappropriate for children.
But now, the US has similar laws in place, and it will inevitably affect the gaming community. While it begins with Nutaku and Lusty Heroes, we have seen Steam, Xbox, Nexus Mods, and more have to enable age verification, since they host some adult material. In Missouri, any site in which “one third” of its content is geared towards adults will be regulated as an adult website, so it seems likely that many gaming storefronts will be affected there.
This also comes as it becomes increasingly difficult for game developers to profit from their work. Steam and Itch have already removed some games following a campaign by the anti-p*rnography group Collective Shout, who put pressure on payment processors. These payment processors then threatened to pull their support for sites hosting material that campaigners objected to, which applied to all kinds of games. Most recently, a game developer had their profile removed from SubscribeStar, despite the site priding itself on being against censorship.