Japanese indie developer Mousou no Mayu says it has been blocked from receiving overseas payment for the Steam version of Hustle Battle: Card Gamers, an anime-style deckbuilding RPG published internationally by Kagura Games.
The tricky part? The Steam release is not the original R-rated version. According to the developer, the Steam edition was localised and adjusted as an all-ages version, after the game first launched on Japanese platforms including DLsite and Fanza in December 2024. The Steam version followed in March through US-based publisher Kagura Games.
In posts on X dated May 12, Mousou no Mayu said they were expecting payment from Kagura Games tied to the game’s Steam earnings. Instead, they received a call from Daishi Hokuetsu Bank suggesting the international transfer might not be accepted.
The developer said the bank appeared to be checking the game’s content and asked indirect questions along the lines of whether the revenue came from a game featuring girls. That already tells you where the concern was heading.
A day later, Mousou no Mayu visited the bank for clarification. The answer was still no: international payments linked to the Steam version of Hustle Battle: Card Gamers would not be processed. The bank reportedly said it had reviewed the game’s content and judged it problematic because the characters appeared to be minors, even after the developer explained that the Steam build was an all-ages release.
That is a very serious problem for any indie studio. Steam is global by default, and for smaller Japanese developers, overseas sales can be a huge part of the business. If a domestic bank refuses to accept the payout, the developer technically made money but cannot actually access it. Bro, that is nightmare fuel for creators.
The situation may not stop at Steam either. Mousou no Mayu said the bank also warned that, depending on future decisions, domestic payments from platforms such as DLsite and Fanza could also be refused. The developer said they were effectively being told to move deposit accounts within a one- to two-month window for domestic transfers, while overseas transfers would no longer be accepted.
For now, Mousou no Mayu plans to try switching banks after receiving advice from people in the industry. But this is not an isolated case. Automaton Media notes that Mai Itsuki of indie development circle Ren, another creator involved in adult games, recently had overseas transactions blocked as well. In that case, the bank reportedly cited undisclosed risks, despite the titles being legally compliant.
Why should Malaysian and SEA readers care? Because this is not just a Japan-only adult game issue. A lot of SEA creators, game studios, VTuber teams, artists and doujin-style sellers rely on global platforms, overseas publishers, payment processors and banks to actually get paid. If financial institutions can cut off legal revenue based on vague content concerns, indie creators become extremely vulnerable.
Anime-styled games already sit in a sensitive zone because art style, character design and platform rules can be interpreted differently across regions. For Malaysian fans, we usually see this from the consumer side: games getting censored, delisted, region-locked or unavailable on certain storefronts. But this case shows the developer-side risk too. Even if a game is legally sold and adapted for a mainstream platform like Steam, payment can still become the chokepoint.
Former Japanese assemblyman Zenko Kurishita has criticised this kind of debanking when it is based on weak reasoning, pointing to the US “Guaranteeing Fair Banking For All Americans” order as something Japan could learn from.
For indie gaming, the bigger question is simple: if a developer follows the law, ships an adjusted version, and earns money through a major platform, should a bank be able to decide they still cannot receive it? For small studios, that answer can decide whether the next game gets made at all.
Source: Automaton Media