Steam doesn't sell a single game that is banned in Japan. Honestly, I don't know why people keep thinking games must be banned here simply because its publisher is an idiot and doesn't want our money. (There are in fact, very very few banned games here, and I can't even name one of the top of my head as it's such a rare occurrence).

However, Valve are known to IP block games (regardless of their legality) in a number of regions, with no discernible reason and will generally deny doing as such.

Sorry, I should have been clearer. I didn't necessarily mean banned by the government, just blocked on Steam for whatever reason. Thanks for the clarification though.

No worries. It's just a silly excuse that people tend to post on the Steam forums while obviously not having a clue. So it annoys me a bit. Sorry if I jumped down your throat, wasn't really my intention.

Ironically, it's less to do with the censorship in many cases and more to do with licensing issues on Steam. I've heard that most of Valve's own titles won't run outside of the continental region they were bought in (so I could by German-bought Portal 2 in the UK but not in the US) and some US-bought games published by 2K Games (XCOM, Civ 5 being confirmed cases) can also not be played outside of the US.

Dead Rising 2: Off the Record will plainly refuse to run in Germany. Apparently this did apply to the retail version, but seems to have been lifted. Still applies to the Steam version though.

Some games cannot be bought or activated within Germany, including the uncensored version of MW2, the uncensored version of Black Ops, and Inversion. However, if you activated these games while you were in the US, you shouldn't have a problem.

You make a very tempting argument! I wonder if any other countries are as open to new citizens with skills but no real paper trail? Anyone else want to chime in on their home as a great place to try and start again at 43? :)