Two of the biggest digital games stores have stopped selling thousands of titles following pressure from a coalition of anti-porn advocates and the world’s biggest payment processing companies. It’s happened before, will likely happen again, and is suppressing art, free expression, and marginalized creators.
Last week, the indie gaming storefront itch.io sent out a sudden notice to the creators that use the site to sell their games, books, art, and other media; it had “deindexed” all content with the NSFW (not safe for work) tag, meaning works with that tag would no longer turn up in itch.io searches, effectively making it impossible to discover or purchase them. Last week, Steam did similarly, removing a swath of games from its platform after implementing stricter policies related to adult content.
In its announcement, itch.io founder Leaf Corcoran explained that the reason for this drastic action was pressure applied to the company’s payment processors by Collective Shout — an Australian nonprofit organization that describes itself as “a grassroots campaigns movement against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls.”
“Due to a game titled No Mercy, which was temporarily available on itch.io before being banned back in April, the organization Collective Shout launched a campaign against Steam and itch.io, directing concerns to our payment processors about the nature of certain content found on both platforms,” Corcoran said. Released in March before being delisted by both Steam and itch.io in April, No Mercy was described by Collective Shout as a “rape simulator.” Its developer, Zerat Games, denied this, describing it as a “3D choice-driven adult visual novel with a huge focus on blackmail and male domination.”
As a result of Collective Shout’s actions, in tandem with the payment processors, over 20,000 games, books, comics, and other creative works — confirmed via the Internet Archive — functionally ceased to exist on the site (though purchased content remains in users’ libraries so long as it doesn’t violate itch.io’s new guidelines), imperiling the creators who depend on sales from itch.io. In addition to NSFW content, notable projects that didn’t have the tag were caught up in the purge as well.
There’s also concern that this deindexing event will have a disproportionate impact on queer creators, and in the immediate aftermath there has been confusion about the distinction between “NSFW” and “adult” content, with a lot of LGBTQ+ stories and games falling under the umbrella of the former. “My SFW sci-fi comic that’s no worse than a standard Marvel movie also got deindexed… but it had the LGBT tag,” wrote Yuki Clarke, a comic artist, on Bluesky.
Whenever a platform announces a blanket ban on adult content, LGBTQ+ creators are almost always disproportionately affected, harming queer artists and invariably queer people. In 2021, eBay’s removal of its “Adult Only” section eliminated a popular storefront for LGBTQ+ erotica artists and collectors. In 2022, Tumblr settled with the New York City Commission on Human Rights because its 2018 ban of “adult content” had a discriminatory impact on queer creators.
Several itch.io creators have said that their SFW content with the LGBT tag have been deindexed. Itch.io has responded to some of these claims on social media, saying, “The deindexing was determined by how creators classified their pages: specifically if the page was tagged as NSFW and as having adult content.”
However, there have also been reports that content with the LGBT tag but not the NSFW or Adult tags were still getting delisted, creating confusion about just what kind of works itch.io was pulling from its store and why. The Verge has reached out to itch.io for clarification. On Bluesky, in response to a creator claiming their LGBT books were delisted despite not having any adult or NSFW tags, the itch.io account answered, “We have a series of automated heuristics that can flag pages for review based on account behavior to help prevent abuse.” It further explained that the LGBT or queer tags wouldn’t affect that system.
Itch.io acknowledged that the blanket delisting of all its adult content wasn’t ideal and has created concern among its users. But the threat of losing its payment processors required emergency action. “The situation developed rapidly, and we had to act urgently to protect the platform’s core payment infrastructure,” Corcoran wrote. Typically, payment processors take actions like this to ensure their products aren’t being used to purchase illegal content. In Steam’s case, it updated its guidelines to include a rule that prohibits publishing material that “may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors.”
In an email, Casey Becker, spokesperson for Stripe, responded that it does not comment on users directly but, “generally speaking, we take action when we conclude that users violate our terms of service. We do not support adult content.” Payoneer, one of itch.io’s other payment processors, declined to comment. The Verge has also reached out to PayPal, the last of itch.io’s listed payment processors, for comment.
Payment processors have frequently been the reason behind content bans. Though Collective Shout was the inciting agent, it’s companies like Visa, Stripe, and others that are responsible for these kinds of acts of mass censorship. In 2014, PayPal threatened to remove all its services from Patreon because the site hosted adult content creators. (PayPal would reverse this decision two years later, but Patreon still makes it difficult for sex workers and porn creators to do business on the website.) In 2021, OnlyFans, a website synonymous with porn, announced that it would ban all sexually explicit content to “comply with the requests of [the platform’s] banking partners and payout provider.” Six days later, OnlyFans would reverse the decision, citing assurances from its banking partners. Scratch a porn ban, and you’ll find a PayPal.
These processors have enormous power over their clients, and that influence can be used to achieve goals that have nothing to do with consumer choice or safety. Itch.io is forced to comply with their demands or risk being unable to function entirely. “To ensure that we can continue to operate and provide a marketplace for all developers, we must prioritize our relationship with our payment partners and take immediate steps towards compliance,” Corcoran wrote in itch.io’s announcement.
Itch.io says that it is in the process of reviewing and removing NSFW and adult-tagged content that violates its terms of service, while also updating those terms. “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,” the announcement read. It has also updated its July 24th announcement to include answers to commonly asked questions that had been circulating social media, debunking rumors surrounding whether itch.io was withholding payments and addressing why such drastic action had to be taken so disruptively. The company also says it’s working on finding new payment processors.
Players and itch.io users are fighting back, flooding Visa and Mastercard customer service lines with complaints. A database has been created where creators can list their deindexed work for people to browse and purchase on alternative sites. Some creators are also removing their work from itch.io and are threatening to leave it altogether, as itch.io’s updated NSFW policy makes bans permanent and irreversible while explicitly threatening subversive art.
“Our policy is not an invitation to push the boundaries of what is acceptable. Violations that result in administrative action are permanent with no chance of appeal,” the creator FAQ reads. “Any funds on the account will not be eligible for payout. There is no second chance.”
Correction, July 29th: We originally reported that Consume Me was delisted as part of itch.io’s deindexing event, but Corcoran says the game was “never indexed since its 2018 publishing” and “was not affected by the NSFW audit.”
