all the games in the erotic and adult tags section gone all of a sudden what happened
Please read this for our update on /updates/update-on-nsfw-content
In addition to the post above I’m posting some more information here since there appears to be a incorrect community note on Twitter spreading misinformation that is referencing this page as source.
Maybe, but there are also claims that you refuse to payout creators who have been affected by these bans!
https://bsky.app/profile/daff.space/post/3luolkqglj22c
If this is true, then you may be looking at a class action lawsuit on your hands!
Then please check with someone higher up to confirm is these allegations are true or not, otherwise please communicate this information better to the creators and the community; many people are in a mass panic due to fear of loosing their revenue and could be spreading misinformation due to lack of communication.
/takedowns/655516 At this link, you specifically say "If you plan to collect money for your content, then you must adhere to the acceptable use policy of all respective payment processors that your account utilizes."
Any opinions of the specific game "Max the Elf" are irrelevant; Payment processors are currently saying that ALL nsfw products are not allowed, not just those fitting the guidelines you stated in there.
Therefore, doesn't that mean that a creator of an NSFW product will not be able to collect money for their content?
Are you saying that you are not following this policy, or that you are picking and choosing who is affected? This requires clarification.
Isn't this from your own website? /docs/creators/faq#is-adult-content-allowed
/docs/creators/faq#is-adult-content-allowed
>
If you've collected money while in violation of terms, we may be forced to refund or freeze all pending transactions, as accounts that are in violation of our terms are not eligible for payouts.
That rule was there for a very long time. If someone joins the site, blatantly violates our terms to try to sell goods before they get banned, then we will ban them and refund their payments. We will not honor any transactions while they were trying to operate before getting caught. There are some types of content that we have always had a zero tolerance policy for.
What’s happening now is a very special circumstance, we no have interest in withholding anyone’s earnings. To ensure we can continue to pay people without issue we need to not lose our relationship with our financial partners, hence the extreme measures we are taking right now.
Hope that makes sense
From what I've heard you guys are withholding people's earnings are not telling the full truth are not informing buyers and sellers what is going on clearly And not making it clear that the deindexed is badly hurting games all you have shown is that Mastercard means more than being honest with your own developers you have lost trust which means itch is going to suffer all while updating your rules and then stating that you don't know the extent of the rules which is super bad I don't know if itch can survive this
Are you guys considering alternate payment methods going forward or maybe a system where devs can choose which payment processors are allowed?
If the issue is that mastercard and visa don't like doing transactions for certain kinds of content, wouldn't giving devs the ability to disallow those specfic payment processors satisfy their new rules?
Is there any way to take legal action against Collective Shout for launching this campaign and damaging the livelihoods of indie devs? This seems like exact kind of situation we'd want a class action suit for.
Appreciate you actually going around and posting information about what's going on. A lot of people are rightfully pissed off at payment processors and activists deciding what we can and cant spend money on.
thats it: https://action.aclu.org/petition/mastercard-sex-work-work-end-your-unjust-policy anyone whos sick of this bow and bend bullshit give it a sign
You can try this petition instead: https://www.change.org/p/tell-mastercard-visa-activist-groups-stop-controlling-w...
I don't trust the ACLU. They've sued in defense of nazis before, and people got murdered because of it. Like what'd they expect, the nazis in Charlottesville be like "we'll just stand there and state our opinions of how we hate the jews, but we won't actually kill anyone, because don't worry, we respect different opinions!!1!" and ACLU actually believed them?! Come on, this is the nazis we're talking about! They can and did know better.
We ask for your patience and understanding as we navigate this challenging period. I’m sorry we can not share more at this time as we are still getting a full understanding of the situation ourselves. We will post a follow up on our blog if the situation changes.
This is key. Itch is right now fighting to make sure it can continue to operate as an entity as close to the version of it that existed before this mess. It's best for them to be cautious and avoid any legal trouble, and unfortunately that means we'll be kept in the dark on a lot of things while the dust settles. None of what's happening now is by choice, or permanent, and Itch is the reason why a bunch of these games and communities exist in the first place. What would be permanent is not addressing this and losing the platform as a whole.
I've worked at companies with smaller userbases and had it take months to make a minor change to a website, suddenly having to pivot on something as significant as payments is a herculean task, so nothing is going to be ideal. Major props and love to the Itch team for having to weather this storm. If y'all want to be mad, be mad at the people who put us in this situation, not the ones who have to deal with the consequences.The situation developed rapidly, and we had to act urgently to protect the platform’s core payment infrastructure. Unfortunately, this meant it was not realistic to provide creators with advance notice before making this change. We know this is not ideal, and we apologize for the abruptness of this change.
I think this is what bugs me the most here. Yes, things escalated quickly, but not as quickly as implied here. The letter, calling out Itch and Steam specifically, was posted July 10th or 11th. Steam acted to remove certain offending content by the 15th. By that point it would’ve been prudent to assume that if even Steam wasn’t immune to these sort of pressure campaigns, Itch certainly wouldn’t be. And yet, no public action was taken here for a full week after that.
You had to have known days before taking action that the action would be necessary. Even a simple 24-hour warning that NSFW content would be temporarily delisted and reviewed and that there was no need for immediate panic - even if, indeed, there was reason to panic - would’ve gone a long way towards cooling off the sparks before they erupted into a wildfire. Instead, no public statement was issued until hours after the fact.
Obviously, yes, the payment processors taking this excuse to apply pressure are the root cause of the issue, one that puts you in a difficult position for the future of the site no matter what direction you choose. But it’s unrealistic to say that this shitshow was completely unavoidable.
EDIT: To be clear, I’m basing my assumption that the deindexing is temporary on the phrasing from the update post:
Pages will remain deindexed as we complete our review.
The unwritten implication is that the remaining pages would be re-indexed after the review is complete. If this is not the plan, that’s something you’re going to need to clarify sooner rather than later.
Any idea how long this audit is approximately going to take? Are we talking about days, weeks or months? Many creators are struggling as itch.io was their way to distribute their games. I understand that itch.io is in a difficult spot and we all hope this situation can get resolved as soon as possible.
Since the games that are now in violation are deindexed, but not removed outright, we should be entitled to refunds considering we still have licenses to the games. Now we either have to buy the game on another platform with potentially insecure payment processors, or alternatively resort to piracy in order to receive updates on the games we already have a license to play.
Obviously, piracy is not a legal option.
"Obviously, piracy is not a legal option."
I say do it anyways, because breaking the law is the very definition of what it means to defy the fascists who are in power! ARRRRRRRR!!!! ❤️
Itch isn't the bad guy. The real blame goes to Collective Shout, a right wing Christian organization that pressured payment processors to ban all adult media.
Call Visa or Mastercard:
Mastercard (Aus): 1800-120-113
Mastercard (US): 1-800-307-7309
Mastercard (UK): 0800-96-4767
Mastercard (US): 1-800-627-8372
Mastercard (Int.): +1-636-722-7111
Visa (US + Can): 1 800 847 2911
Visa (AUS): 1 800 125 440
PayPal: +44-0203-901-7000
They do not care about anyone's opinion or belief, but their own. They are bigots. Easily confusable, no matter if right or left, conservative or liberal. Facts do not count, only screaming louder and doing harm to the unbelievers.
They are righteous, so they cannot violate any reading of scripture, since they have the monopoly of knowing what's right.
I wish reason would be valued more, by all sides of the political and idiological discussions. Too many bigots around in positions of power or cowed by bigots.
noun
One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.
A hypocrite; esp., a superstitious hypocrite.
Similar: hypocrite
A person who regards his own faith and views in matters of religion as unquestionably right, and any belief or opinion opposed to or differing from them as unreasonable or wicked. In an extended sense, a person who is intolerant of opinions which conflict with his own, as in politics or morals; one obstinately and blindly devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion.
The reason a lot of people think Collective Shout are feminist, is because ironically they get a lot of support and are boosted by pro LGBTQIA+ feminist groups. Part of the reason Collective Shout got enough power in the first place is exactly these kind feminist spaces, such as reddit groups that brigade and attempt to cancel anything they deem misogynistic.
A pro LGBTQIA+ feminist subreddit with over 14 million users in it, was even giving out detailed instructions on how to brigade for, and support Collective Shout. An example here: https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromosomes/comments/1jvjpsr/reporting_the_new_stea... This is also what eventually led to the Itch.io NSFW ban.
Which is ironic now that the pro LGBTQIA+ feminists, with their actions now led to banning of the thousands of LGBTQIA+ games on Itch.io. What a surprise, when you try to give power to those cancelling and censoring things, it will backfire, and even things that you believe in will eventually be hit. There is more overlap between conservative puritanical feminists, and pro LGBTQIA+ feminists, than you would initially think. As many LGBTQIA+ feminists prop them up when they think their goals align.
Also it is a perfect example, of why all censorship, brigading, and attempts to cancel are bad. Because it won't stop at things you agree with, it will eventually hit things you care about, such as thousands of LGBTQIA+ games now being banned here.
Your evidence that this is a far Left LGBTQIA+ feminist movement is linking a deeply conservative and anti-queer subreddit? People can claim to be anything, you have to look at what they actually support and do. Boosting their claim to be anything other than a hate group just helps them get away with crap like this.
Melinda Tankard Reist, founder of Collective Shout, is a self described pro-life "feminist" who has a lengthy history of writing journals for the The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly and while doing speeches at Christian churches in places like the Belconnen Baptist Church.
The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly is handed by National Catholic Bioethics Center, which is a conservative think tank. Therefore she is right-wing and Christian.
Margaret Atwood already pointed out that there is sometimes a surprising overlap between certain feminists and puritans. (It might still be a good question wether todays western feminism can be called far left because most prominent feminists who actually wield power do not want a communist revolution but are supporters of some kind of social liberalism in practice.)
Their pinned post of the subreddit is: "Trans Women are Women." and that any transphobia or TERFs will be met with immediate ban from the subreddit.
They literally pinned that post, to make it as easy as possible for people to do their due dilligence and not spread misinformation.
If you don't want to take their word for it, or mine, do actually look up other sources that would indicate anything about them being TERFs. And then please do share, I will take back my words. But to me it seems, like you are the one who failed to do the absolute bare minimum, you judged a book by its cover, and are now spreading blatant misinformation.
Reddit shouldn't have a login wall. And if it does for you, it is incredibily easy to get around it. It appears you don't want to do the most basic fact checking, and instead you just doubled down on judging a book by its cover. Even after I provided clear support for the opposite being true.
If you actually have a login wall, just put into wayback machine or a million other ways to bypass it. Here, I did the work for you, here is the pinned post in the subreddit:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250224051954/https://www.reddit.com/r/TwoXChromoso...
And I am still waiting for you to actually back up what you are saying with at least a single piece of supporting evidence. It is the biggest feminist subreddit on Reddit, with over 14 million users, if there was even a whiff of it allowing any TERF content, you could easily find at least some source to support your (what is currently still a completely baseless) claim.
Collective Shout is a group firmly known for its conservative and anti-pornography stance. While it attempts to present itself as a non-partisan organization, it is predominantly associated with conservative values and ideologies.
This organization is often justifiably labeled as puritanical due to its strong opposition to pornography and its claims of advocating for the protection of young people from its harmful influence. Numerous sources highlight Collective Shout's connections to conservative groups and its active participation in campaigns against adult content, reinforcing its alignment with right-wing principles.
In summary, Collective Shout is a determined organization that actively opposes pornography while asserting its mission to protect young people—though that assertion faces considerable skepticism. Its primary links to conservative ideologies and robust anti-pornography campaigns clearly define its agenda.
Here you go friend /games/nsfw that link is the only way I have found that can show nsfw for some reason idk why using the tag system won't work so this is a temp fix >:3 please spread this link (or not)
read my reply sorry for my oopsie doopsie
okay turns out after a tiny bit of research some activist groups are against +18 games on itch.io (going after steam too sadly) which they had to conform with because of money i'd assume (any creators have been shadowbanned or full on had games deleted without warning)
using this quote will help explain "itch.io is the latest storefront to curb the sale of adult and “NSFW” content on its platform due to pressure from payment processors like Visa and Mastercard. As of Thursday, the indie-focused platform has de-indexed adult content such that it is no longer visible or searchable on the site."
https://x.com/letsmaybeLP92/status/1948544883410829370
When you try clicking on the download button near the top of the page under "You Own This Page", what happens? You should reach either a 404 page or a page that SHOULD have download links. A game with removed files (mind you this was a creator who removed content themselves) would look like this:
so ive gotta try to remember the name of multiple games now to find em instead of having an easy filter and why they shadowbanned what are they doing if they cleaning up a bit and getting rid of games that arent finnished and arent being worked on i got no issues with that but the awakenings files arent there for example and thats a $5 game i belive so if that games getting removed itch best be paying me back
There's at least 2 in my library that have been removed; Max the Elf and Debauchery in Caelia Kingdoms. Here's the takedown notice for Max the Elf /takedowns/655516
Sorry, I haven't used itch io that much before, but even if the games are removed from the site, can you still download (older) versions from your library? I assume you won't be able to receive any updates either way, but I am wondering if they were nuked entirely or just taken from the itch io "storefront"
did you check your purchases page and click on those two games from there? /my-purchases If so, did you get a 404 page or something like this (after clicking on download under "You Own This Game"
I've been particularly mad about payment processors doing this shit for ages now and nobody really listened until it finally happened.
A while back, Toffer Team did a crowdfunding campaing for their Lip Lewd Idol visual novel series. They racked up 23k and PayPal froze the account and stole all their crowdfunding money.
I said even back then that this kind of behavior was an attempt to normalize censorship and now its happening. I'm just as furious about whats happening as you are, if not more so.
Visa and Mastercard are a duopoly that actively collude with eachother and I can't for the life of me understand why they havent been forcefully broken up by the government.
I'm not american, but if you are, contact your representatives. Theres a bill in the US right now being worked on specifically to make it illegal for Visa and Mastercard to decide what you do with your money.
The bills ErrorStack is referring to (actually two bills, H.R.987 and S.401) were introduced by two Republicans, the party you may notice control the government at the moment. So I would say it is potentially the right fuckin government, actually!
Payment processors overstepping their bounds is a bipartisan issue! Conservatives have been the target of it before! Making them politically neutral utilities is something we can all get behind, and you should contact your representatives in support of the "Fair Access to Banking Act" if you are a US citizen.
if you are a US citizen.
What that means for you personally is that your unproductive doomerism isn't even based on facts. Next time you make a post, ask yourself if it's indistinguishable from what a propagandist would say if they were trying to demoralize people into doing nothing. And if it is, don't say it.
That's simple. The government has always wanted to ban shit they don't control and doing so through the government is hard because of free speech laws. Furthermore, seeing how the government is likely involved with human trafficking and sex slavery, anything that has sex in it is likely an important target for them.
This might seem farfetched but in my experience sexual predators engage in projection to hide their guilt and seeing how the "feminist group" is completely fine with "Cuties" then I have my suspicions that they are just a manufactured excuse for credit card companies to ban shit.
Indeed; the feminist group follows many reactionary conservatives on their Twitter account, such as Liz Wheeler, Charlie Kirk and Elon Musk's political party, all people that have been incredibly misogynistic by the past. The only feminists they follow are people like JK Rowling, who are only feminists by a very charitable and liberal definition of the term. They are a feminist group in name only. They are reactionary conservative censorship advocates, presumably Christian.
I'm normally not a crypto shill, but it might be worth investing into a small amount of relatively stable crypto specifically to have some way to do transactions when Visa and Mastercard are doing this shit.
Theres not a hugr amount of card providers out there. Most of them use Visa or Mastercard infrastructure.
There is an option, but it is a pretty big step backwards, so I doubt people would go with it. Rather than using credit cards for everyday shopping, we can withdraw money directly in bank to pay in cash, and for online payments, devs could have bank account number disclosed, so we can make a direct bank transfers instead. Basicly cutting off the use of payment processors altogether, so they either backpedal on bans or go bankrupt and new, more lenient ones get created.
Visa and Mastercard's huge monopoly frustrates me so much. They just have the ability to screw over anybody they don't like, how is that fair? It's not just with gaming either, it's also been with websites like OnlyFans and Tumblr. This is a repeated thing spanning across more than a decade with zero major repercussion. God.
https://www.change.org/p/tell-mastercard-visa-activist-groups-stop-controlling-what-we-can-watch-read-or-play
Pass it around and don't forget to tell your representative
It's not completely unrelated. I can bet you that it's due to the pressure that's being put on by payment processors like Visa and Mastercard, they've been going after any and all forms of "controversial" nsfw material because they're not capable of differentiating between drawings and real life problems. Incest falls into that category so therefore it's related to this problem.
A link to a Petition on the subject https://www.change.org/p/tell-mastercard-visa-activist-groups-stop-controlling-w..
Don't bother with Change.org, the ACLU usually follows up stuff like this with legal action.
https://action.aclu.org/petition/mastercard-sex-work-work-end-your-unjust-policy
I'm a dev and I'm in touch with other folks in the same boat... Yup, we've all been shadowbanned, directly or indirectly. Whether it's just temporary or not, no one really knows yet. Yup, some games have been 'suspended', apparently the ones with incest themes. The most popular tags like ADULT, NSFW, EROGE and a bunch of others are useless now, barely showing any results. You can't even search for a game by name unless you already knew the links... If this isn't just something temporary, we're seriously screwed.
Dev here. Any adult game (if tagged appropriately and marked as adult on the edit, which we have to do) is currently blocked from showing up in search results. The sole communication we've had from itch.io as a community is Leafo posting a saluting emoji with no further context.
Needless to say, a lot of people are upset and worried right now.
It does seem that a number of games are currently being suspended, but so far - as much as we can tell - they're all games tagged with 'incest'. This heavily links the current actions to the same thing that happened to Steam last week.
It is unusual timing given the supposed 'activation' of the UK's Online Safety Bill requirements coming up on Friday, but that is likely unrelated given the above (and given that this is global).
Btw if you live in the UK sign this petition and contact your MP!
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903
So much for this site being for indie game devs.
Payment processors shouldnt be telling us adults what we can and can't buy with our damn money.
And who the hell knows if they'll start banning and taking down games that are'nt NSFW because they say it's inappropriate for whatever reason?
Theres a bill that's been introduced to Congress called the Fair Access to Banking Act that's meant to restric what payment processors can do, so please call your local senators about this.
It doesn't really matter what secret dark motivations may exist in the writer's head, because the actual words of the law will be interpreted by the courts and not the people who wrote it. The writers of the 14th Amendment of the USA Constitution probably weren't thinking about gay sex at the time, but that didn't prevent the outcome of Lawrence v. Texas.
Not to mention that changes to a bill can happen down the line as it's being voted on. Bills being voted on aren't written in stone and given the people cosponsoring the bill I would say that, if not watched closely, they may just add whatever exceptions they want into it. Just because a bill says something now doesn't mean it will stay that way. It can drastically change during the process of putting them out if it even gets out.
Not necessarily. There are two approaches courts take to interpretation: following “the letter of the law” and following the intent of the law.
When a law’s meaning is ambiguous, US judges tend to favor their understanding of what it should be. That means either the the judge’s opinion or a statement of legislators’ intent— like that expressed in the GOP’s horrendous Project 2025— is used for the ruling.
We can see examples of this in recent Supreme Court statements.
With what has happened to the judicial and executive branches of the federal governmemt and various parts of state governments, any Republican-led bill should not be accepted at face value.
The party’s motives matter for federal legislation.
There is nothing wrong with giving an air of caution when it comes to bills especially ones propped up by those that are anti-LGBT and are known for adding things later into bills as they are being passed down and voted on. Lest we forget when complete banning of all trans people transitioning was put into and then taken out of the BB Bill. A lot of the people sponsoring the bill are the same people that looked for that to happen.
I am asking to watch closely and not blindly follow. They may just add that adult content can be an exception or anything else down the line. They are politicians and they are certainly not fighting for us.
I said to be cautious and watch the bill. I'm not sure where you keep thinking I'm saying absolute no to this. Politics are tricky as we have seen many times before where bills in their infancy start out as one thing and get absolutely changed at the end either for better or worse.
Some people do not know or understand the workings of how bills are passed and changed and thus I am speaking out to say this to those who may not understand.
I will say again that the BB Bill did not originally have the banning of all trans adults transitioning, then it was added, and then it was taken out after backlash when people noticed it. You should watch, be cautious, and not blindly go into bills with all this given.
{Purpose:} ensure that persons involved in politically unpopular businesses but that are lawful under Federal law receive fair access to financial services under the law;
A person is defined in the bill as “any natural person; or any partnership, corporation, or other business or legal entity; and includes a customer.”
S. 401’s co-signers are all registered as Republicans. This is not a bipartisan bill. That’s apparently because it’s meant as protection for unpopular political funds and for politicians’ businesses, including The Trump Organization banned in New York (the country’s economic headquarters) because of felony fraud convinctions.
The plan is that payments to adult content creators not associated with these businesses or to everyone else targeted in by the GOP won’t be protected by this bill when made federally illegal as “pornographic” and “obscene”.
We need bipartisan legislation that specifically protects the banking services for creators.