Itch.io Follows Steam in Caving to Payment Processors

What a world we live in – where supporting NSFW video games has become a necessity if one wants to protest censorship and push back against the growing power payment processors hold over the video game industry.

Following Steam's decision last week to cave to the likes of Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal and implement a new rule that prohibits game developers from publishing games that violate the rules of those companies, another platform, Itch.io, has now bowed to big finance as well, effectively wiping all adult content from its storefront.

Over the past few hours, hundreds of users have flooded Itch.io's forums and Discord server in response to the platform shadowbanning thousands of games marked with spicy tags like "NSFW," "adult," "porn," etc., making them accessible only through direct links. Following the public outrage, the team released an official statement confirming that the purge took place in response to a campaign launched by the activist group Collective Shout against both them and Steam, which directed its demands at payment processors.

"Pages will remain deindexed as we complete our review," Itch.io writes. "Once this review is complete, we will introduce new compliance measures. For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account."

Unlike Steam, however, which targeted a relatively small number of adult games with tags that lean more toward the weird and, frankly, disgusting side – SA and Sweet Home Alabama, iykwim – Itch.io's ban was far less selective, hiding literally thousands of titles, as shown in the screenshots above. Some games, as noted by their developers, weren't just shadowbanned but banned outright, including titles with no sexual content whatsoever, suggesting that Itch.io may have acted in a panic and might be just as confused about the situation as the rest of us.

With the situation unfolding as we speak, it's too early to tell what will happen with NSFW games on Itch.io. As the panic settles, the platform will likely reinstate most of the hidden titles and unban those that were removed without reason, but for now, the marketplace remains pure enough to become a nun.

One thing is certain, though, no matter what Itch.io – or Steam, for that matter – do next, the grip of a powerful third party over the gaming industry has tightened today, raising a troubling concern that this kind of censorship could someday extend beyond adult content to anything else payment processors or activist groups decide they don't like.

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