Here at Goonhammer, we know that it’s hard to keep track of all the news happening all the time in the games industry. So much is always going on with games of all sorts, and their related media, it can be a real blink-and-you’ll miss it situation.
That’s why every week, we round up five of the biggest stories in the gaming sphere from the past week in the Games Industry News Roundup. Our trusty news boy, Dan “Swiftblade” Richardson, is at the very real and cool Goonhammer newsdesk with the scoop.
Steam Updates Payment Processor, Putting LGBTQ+ Games at Risk
Steam is taking center stage in this week’s roundup, which if you’re a long time reader of this article series you know is not good news.
The first item of our roundup reports about Valve’s massive games distribution platform comes in the form of an update to its rules and guidelines. Last week, Valve made a seemingly innocuous change to its Steamworks Documentation that adds a new rule requiring that games on the platform conform to standards and rules set by payment processors used by Steam.
Specifically, the new clause under “What You Can’t Publish on Steam” reads “Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult only content.”
At first glance, this change doesn’t seem like it’s going to affect Steam very much outside of its admittedly prolific smut and pornographic games library. In fact, a post by SteamDB on social media shows that this may have already started, with a massive crackdown of games with the Incest label happening at the same time the new clause was added.
While removing games of questionable moral content at best is probably a good thing, it does lead to a larger concern about the power of censorship that this allows for payment processors like Visa and Mastercard. Few will weep for incest being deplatformed, but this clause gives complete moral authority to large corporations on deciding what is morally acceptable, and these same corporations have been cracking down on anything labeled DEI in recent months, particularly LGBTQ+ content.
Valve has since responded to the change, addressing the reasoning for the additional clause but not addressing the vagueness of its wording or the massive power of censorship it provides to payment processors.
According to a statement provided to Eurogamer by a Valve spokesperson, “We were recently notified that certain games on Steam may violate the rules and standards set forth by our payment processors and their related card networks and banks. As a result, we are retiring those games from being sold on the Steam Store, because loss of payment methods would prevent customers from being able to purchase other titles and game content on Steam.”
As of this writing, Valve has not addressed the vagueness of this new rule, or what it means for LGBTQ+ games.
UK Board Game Retailer Denies Accusations of Toxic Work Culture
Zatu Games, the largest independent retailer for board games in the UK, has come under fire for promoting a toxic workplace culture at its warehouse distribution center.
According to a report from Boardgamewire, former employees at Zatu Games have taken to platforms like Indeed and Glassdoor to leave damning reviews of the workplace culture at Zatu’s warehouse. These ex-employees claim that Zatu has been exploiting the UK’s apprenticeship laws to bring on staff at rates below the required minimum wage before letting those employees go shortly afterwards. Staff are also overworked and expected to perform unrealistic tasks in a short time period, which in turn leads into the aforementioned “hire and fire” strategy employed by Zatu.
In an interview with Boardgamewire, Zatu Games commercial director David Budd denies these claims. He notes that many of these complaints come from the COVID era, where anxieties from all members of the team ran high, and that the company’s current turnover figures from June of last year are almost 11% higher than industry standard, and that the 120 units picked per hour is in line with industry standard.
He also addresses the accusations of abused apprenticeship, telling Boardgamewire that “An apprenticeship is, by its very nature, a fixed-term programme. It provides a year to 18 months of hands-on experience alongside structured learning, mentoring, and regular feedback, but it doesn’t automatically guarantee a permanent role at the end. That’s true across most businesses who offer apprenticeships. We adhere strictly to the rules of the scheme, and if apprentices weren’t receiving the desired training and development from our programmes, we would be struck off from the scheme.”
Budd reported that about 9% of the current Zatu workforce are a part of the Apprenticeship program, and are paid above UK mandated minimum wage.
Zatu ended the interview by noting several new employee experience programs, such as designated quiet rooms, open-door management policy, and a ‘Peoples Champion’ selected from the warehouse and office teams to act as a safe space for Zatu employees to provide feedback or raise concerns.
Games Workshop Confirms Missing Horus Heresy Units to Return in Legends
Horus Heresy players have finally gotten an answer from Games Workshop to the question that’s been sending some fans into an apoplectic posting rage: why aren’t my models in the new books?
Last week on Warhammer Community, Games Workshop addressed the removal of many older units from the new rulebooks for Horus Heresy 3rd edition. Like Warhammer 40,000 and Age of Sigmar before it, Horus Heresy is introducing a new legends system to retire older models in the Heresy range.
These PDF documents, titled “Legacies of the Age of Darkness”, will be available for free online, and contain rules for retired models, as well as army rules for Ruinstorm Daemons and Talons of the Emperor. A small number of units that never had an official release will be permanently removed from the Horus Heresy line and not included in the Legacies.
Games Workshop addresses why these units were not included in the Liber books, writing “The army lists in the Liber books are a reflection of the current range of miniatures. They are written to reflect the contents of boxed units, so new players can build armies without feeling the need to buy multiple kits just to make one unit. The boxes themselves are designed to represent the most typical wargear loadouts those units would have. It also means that these rulebooks can still be compact enough to transport to your games.”
Horus Heresy does make a major distinction about the units included in Legacies that its 40k and AoS cousins don’t make. According to Warcom, units included in theLegacies documents will be legal for official organized HH play, writing that “This is designed as a narrative wargame above all else. If you’re looking to create an optimised, cut-throat, all-conquering, unbeatable army, all power to you – an epic win-at-all-costs throwdown can be a lot of fun! But it’s not the main focus of the rules for this game.”
The Legacies of the Age of Darkness PDF is scheduled to release later this month.
Generative AI Use in Steam Games Sees Massive Spike in 2025
Our second story about Steam in this week’s roundup is not about the platform itself, or the company that runs it. Rather, it’s about a startling trend seen in games released on Steam. According to a report by Totally Human Media, 2025 saw a shocking spike in games that use generative AI in some way, shape, or form.
According to the report, nearly 8,000 games on the platform use generative AI in their game, up 800% from last year’s number of 1,000 games, making up about 7% of Steams current library of games. To put it in an even more shocking perspective, 1 in 5 games released on Steam in 2025 publicly disclosed using GenAI as a part of their development process.
There are multiple ways that companies use GenAI as a part of their development.These include anything from AI voiceover, art, backgrounds, models, or music. Totally Human Media states that of these categories, virtual asset generation is the most common, making up around 60% of GenAI usage. Some games go all in on GenAI for their game, even using Gen AI tools for gameplay purposes, such as content filtering for the party game “Content Warning”.
Since generative AI is the current tech zeitgeist, it’s not likely that we will see the momentum behind it stall in games development anytime soon. Considering that Microsoft’s recent layoffs lauded the use of AI in games development as a way to reduce its own workforce, the consequences of this increase aren’t going to be good.
Scale Model Legend Shansaku Tamiya Passes Away at 90
Shansaku Tamiya, one of the chairmen and key figures in the history of scale model company Tamiya, passed away on July 18th at the age of 90.
Tamiya, founded in Japan in 1948, is one of the most recognizable brands in the scale modeling world to this day. Shansaku Tamiya joined the company four years after Tamiya was founded, when the company was still only producing wooden models. Shansaku was a key figure in producing the first plastic model for Tamiya, a scale model of the Japanese battleship Yamato, which was lauded for its impressive level of detail that was previously unattainable by wooden models. The Yamato model launched Tamiya to international success, and the company was able to branch out into hobby accessories like Tamiya’s popular extra thin glue as well as greatly expand its scale model line.
Tamiya’s already had a private funeral service attended by family and friends, and his surviving family do not wish for any gifts of condolence. More information about public memorial services for Tamiya will be made public at a later date.
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