Collective Shout, the anti-p*rnography pressure group behind the recent campaign against adult content in games, has responded to its critics. In a statement issued earlier today, the group denies calling on Itch todeindexallof its adult games, stating that it only targeted games with specific content.
The statement also defends Collective Shout’smethod of targeting payment processors, arguing that it adopted this strategy after being ignored bySteam. This all comes as Collective Shout faces backlash throughout the gaming community, with gamerscampaigning to get the banned games back on Steam and Itch.
Collective Shout Responds To Critics After Pressuring Steam And Itch To Remove Adult Games
“In response to false claims and misinformation about our campaign, we’re setting the record straight,” thestatementreads. “We raised our objection to rpe and incst games on Steam for months, and they ignored us for months. We approached payment processors because Steam did not respond to us.
“We called on Itch.io to remove rpe and incst games that we argued normalised violence and abuse of women. Itch.io made the decision to remove all NSFW content. Our objections were to content that involved sexualised violence and torture of women.”
Collective Shout says that 3463 emails were sent to Steam regarding games containing rpe and incst, all of which were apparently ignored.
In regard to Itch’s removal of adult games from its onsite search engine, it is likely that the site took this action because it could not guarantee what games contained material that Collective Action disapproved of. So, there is a chance that some titles will be restored once they have been assessed, but there is no telling how long this could take.
This campaign all started with the game No Mercy, in which the player was tasked with assaulting women. However, Collective Shout has previously indicated having a zero-tolerance policy regarding abuse being depicted in games, as it hascampaigned against Detroit: Become Human.
Regulations rolled out by Itchto meet payment processor demands are far-reaching and could see all kinds of games pulled from the platform. With that said, a counter movement against this quickly mobilised, and even appears to have some subtle support from the UK gaming industry body Ukie.
As reported byGamesIndustry.biz, Ukie has defended the “creative freedom” of game devs, while stating that “clear and consistent age ratings” can be used to ensure that no one plays a game containing material that they do not wish to see.
“That’s why Ukie strongly supports the use of robust classification systems like PEGI across all platforms, including those hosting adult or experimental content,” the statement reads. “We believe payment providers and platforms alike should have confidence in trusted age rating systems and the enforcement mechanisms behind them.”
