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Itch has shadowbanned NSFW games
3 months ago
NOTE: I have disabled download (and I believe purchase) of the game for the time-being. Itch is apparently refusing payouts on games deemed not in line with their new standards (luckily my regular one just cleared yesterday :P), so there's no reason to give money to "me" if I'll never see it. Super cool move on their part. Please do not buy either CS game until this situation is resolved, one way or the other.
I am still taking in what this means.
1. No communication went out to creators.
2. Some searches show some NSFW games, others have been completely cleared out. NSFW and Furry for example lists nothing now.
3. The games still appear in people's libraries, for now. They haven't nuked them entirely.
4. The game pages are still up, at least for now: https://bitshiftgames.itch.io/cruelserenade, https://bitshiftgames.itch.io/cruel.....de-guttertrash.
5. I can still access my dashboard and funds. Needless to say, I've requested a withdrawal of what's currently in their system.
This is...not good. Due to various health issues I don't like to talk about, it's become increasingly difficult/impossible for me to work a normal job. Itch and substar were a lifeline, a chance at putting together a future. Now that may be over.
Things are very bad.
Substar is still up. Feel free to sub there for a bit if you'd like: https://subscribestar.adult/bitshift. Itch was half the income the games made though. Will update with relevant info as I get it.
It seems like all NSFW expression and sexwork is going to be blackmailed off the internet by visa/mastercard the way things are going. Wouldn't be surprised if they even come for FA at this point.
Edit: There is no concrete evidence of this yet, but I would be very surprised if Collective Shout and you-know-who, the people behind the recent Steam purge and a bunch of other nonsense weren't involved with this, directly or indirectly.
Edit the second: They finally have an announcement: https://itch.io/updates/update-on-nsfw-content. And what a surprise I was right, collective shout. For context, these people are so wacko conservative they want to ban generically sexy AAA games, it isn't just niche stuff.
On the one hand, glad to have SOME word, and that itch isn't at least immediately dumping everything. On the other:
"We are currently conducting a comprehensive audit of content to ensure we can meet the requirements of our payment processors. Pages will remain deindexed as we complete our review. 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.
Part of this review will see some pages being permanently removed from itch.io. Affected accounts will be notified via their account’s email address from our support address. You can reply to that email if you have any follow up questions."
They're going to say furry = bestiality and hypno = rape and that will be the end of it. A handful of the most generic hand-holding porn games imaginable will survive, but everything else will be a smoking crater. Perfect Home? Gone. Roksim's stuff? SUPER gone. All the stuff the Grove people have been doing, and countless others, gone.
Ironically there's a bill in the house and senate right now about stopping exactly this nonsense, preventing card companies from denying service unless something is illegal, sponsored by REPUBLICANS because of Operation Chokepoint, a supposed attempt to hit illegal activity that ended up being used to harass card companies away from doing business with legitimate gun stores, among other things. But the bills will never pass because not a single dem is on board with them. And no one's going to stand up and lobby for fucking porn and sex workers because it would be political suicide.
Edit the third: Also I want to be crystal clear: I've rolled my eyes at a lot of the decisions Itch has made over the years, and this one is real, real bad, but let's be clear, this is a hostage situation. Their choices are: 1. ban NSFW 2. Refuse, lose all payment processing, and be forced to shut down the site. I don't love the Itch admin, but they basically have a gun to their head here. Don't get it twisted, the villains are MasterCard, Visa, and Collective Shout. Let's focus the energy where it belongs.
I am still taking in what this means.
1. No communication went out to creators.
2. Some searches show some NSFW games, others have been completely cleared out. NSFW and Furry for example lists nothing now.
3. The games still appear in people's libraries, for now. They haven't nuked them entirely.
4. The game pages are still up, at least for now: https://bitshiftgames.itch.io/cruelserenade, https://bitshiftgames.itch.io/cruel.....de-guttertrash.
5. I can still access my dashboard and funds. Needless to say, I've requested a withdrawal of what's currently in their system.
This is...not good. Due to various health issues I don't like to talk about, it's become increasingly difficult/impossible for me to work a normal job. Itch and substar were a lifeline, a chance at putting together a future. Now that may be over.
Things are very bad.
Substar is still up. Feel free to sub there for a bit if you'd like: https://subscribestar.adult/bitshift. Itch was half the income the games made though. Will update with relevant info as I get it.
It seems like all NSFW expression and sexwork is going to be blackmailed off the internet by visa/mastercard the way things are going. Wouldn't be surprised if they even come for FA at this point.
Edit: There is no concrete evidence of this yet, but I would be very surprised if Collective Shout and you-know-who, the people behind the recent Steam purge and a bunch of other nonsense weren't involved with this, directly or indirectly.
Edit the second: They finally have an announcement: https://itch.io/updates/update-on-nsfw-content. And what a surprise I was right, collective shout. For context, these people are so wacko conservative they want to ban generically sexy AAA games, it isn't just niche stuff.
On the one hand, glad to have SOME word, and that itch isn't at least immediately dumping everything. On the other:
"We are currently conducting a comprehensive audit of content to ensure we can meet the requirements of our payment processors. Pages will remain deindexed as we complete our review. 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.
Part of this review will see some pages being permanently removed from itch.io. Affected accounts will be notified via their account’s email address from our support address. You can reply to that email if you have any follow up questions."
They're going to say furry = bestiality and hypno = rape and that will be the end of it. A handful of the most generic hand-holding porn games imaginable will survive, but everything else will be a smoking crater. Perfect Home? Gone. Roksim's stuff? SUPER gone. All the stuff the Grove people have been doing, and countless others, gone.
Ironically there's a bill in the house and senate right now about stopping exactly this nonsense, preventing card companies from denying service unless something is illegal, sponsored by REPUBLICANS because of Operation Chokepoint, a supposed attempt to hit illegal activity that ended up being used to harass card companies away from doing business with legitimate gun stores, among other things. But the bills will never pass because not a single dem is on board with them. And no one's going to stand up and lobby for fucking porn and sex workers because it would be political suicide.
Edit the third: Also I want to be crystal clear: I've rolled my eyes at a lot of the decisions Itch has made over the years, and this one is real, real bad, but let's be clear, this is a hostage situation. Their choices are: 1. ban NSFW 2. Refuse, lose all payment processing, and be forced to shut down the site. I don't love the Itch admin, but they basically have a gun to their head here. Don't get it twisted, the villains are MasterCard, Visa, and Collective Shout. Let's focus the energy where it belongs.
We can only hope that this wont end up as bad in the end, but we'll have to see...
The Steam purge seems to have kept a large amount of furry games intact (cant say more that than, im in germany, they delisted all nsfw games here YEARS ago because Valve didnt want to block their screenshots from being viewed by minors. yes really, instead of just blocking screenshots, they just blocked all nsfw store pages here.), and the past few Patreon purges also turned out to have been less intense than expected...
We'll ultimately still have to watch the situation unfold, however.
I got these game titles off the mindcontrol.fun wiki, where they have a small database (fun fact, Cruel Serenade is also mentioned there)
https://www.change.org/p/tell-maste.....h-read-or-play
https://action.aclu.org/petition/ma.....-unjust-policy
https://bsky.app/profile/iantos.bsk...../3luondx46tk2v
It could still pass I should note, given that both the House and Senate are under GOP control.
EDIT: Concerns from Democratic lawmakers center around whether the bill limits regulatory tools needed to fight fraud, money laundering, or terrorism financing.
"(b) Prohibition.—No payment card network, including a subsidiary of a payment card network, may, directly or through any agent, processor, or licensed member of the network, by contract, requirement, condition, penalty, or otherwise, prohibit or inhibit the ability of any person who is in compliance with the law, including section 8 of this Act, to obtain access to services or products of the payment card network because of political or reputational risk considerations."
Doesn't get much more plain than that. They want it because legal guns, we want it because legal porn, but it's the same principle. If something's legal, I should be able to buy it. If you don't like that, you need to pass a law to stop me, not strong arm Visa via a social media campaign.
As said though, most likely it'll pass barring defections on the GOP side. Which is, admittedly, not impossible.