Following a huge purge of adult games from the platform, itch.io is seeking new payment processors that are willing to sell NSFW titles.
As reported byRock Paper Shotgun, this whole ordeal began earlier this month when Steam updated its guidelines toprohibit “content that may violate the rules” set by credit card companiesand banks. It then immediately delisted a litany of controversial games that focused on topics like inc*st and slavery.
We are actively reaching out to other payment processors that are more willing to work with this kind of content. We have suspended the ability to pay with Stripe for 18+ content for the foreseeable future. Our immediate focus has been on content classification reviews and implementing stricter age-gating on the site.
Itch.io soon followed suit, updating its own guidelines while alsoconfirming that Collective Shout is to blamefor the sudden changes. This sparked major concerns about censorship, as the group has historically taken issue with games like Detroit: Become Human and GTA 5, indicating that its campaign may extend beyond adult releases.
A bill was recently proposedthat, if passed, could prevent credit card companies from blocking adult games on Steam and Itch.io.
Collective Shout initially reached out to Steam directly,but the group was ignored, so it decided to pressure the payment processors behind the storefront, who have since urged Valve to remove such content. If Itch.io were to find new partners to facilitate sales on its platform, it could circumvent Collective Shout and its campaign entirely. However, Steam has not given any indication that it will follow suit.
Why Itch.io Has Removed More Games Than Steam
Itch.io works a little differently from Steam. Whereas Valve’s platform is closed, meaning that every product is approved before it appears on the store, itch.io is an open, user-generated content platform, run by a much smaller team and company. As it stated inits FAQ, “We have limited ability to ‘push back.'”
If we lose our ability to accept payments from a partner like PayPal or Stripe, we impact the ability of all creators to do business. Losing PayPal, for instance, would prevent us from sending payouts to many people. Our actions were taken to protect our payment processing abilities.
However, itch.io issued a reminder that the platform has been DRM-free since day one, and urges players to “Download and backup your games and [not] let any corporation dictate what you can own”. For this reason, it has deindexed games, as opposed to delisting them, so that they are still accessible if you have already purchased them. This means they will still be present in your libraries and collections.
