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Update from Itch on the ongoing situation
3 months ago
Apparently Itch updated their initial announcement on the ongoing situation yesterday. I was not aware of this, and only became aware because I decided to re-read/re-check the announcement today. For those like me that weren't aware, it's at the same address: https://itch.io/updates/update-on-nsfw-content. Scroll down to the addendum and take a look. My comments below:
1. They claim they mass-delisted because they have less direct info on games due to the laid-back nature of the site, and thus delisting was required pending manual review, unlike Steam.
Fine, whatever.
2. They're currently begging for the right to still exist as a company from payment processors:
"The situation is evolving as we await final determinations from our current payment processors, Stripe and PayPal. There are still unknowns that prevent us from providing a fixed timeline."
That explains what's currently ongoing at least.
3. But the begging is pointless, because it's already over:
"We have suspended the ability to pay with Stripe for 18+ content for the foreseeable future."
This basically means payment for +18 titles is dead on Itch. The only two options are Stripe and Paypal, and Paypal is FAR more skittish. If Stripe's gone, Paypal WILL follow.
4. They're trying to negotiate and set up 18+ friendly processors
"In the meantime, we are actively reaching out to other payment processors that are more willing to work with this kind of content."
Yeah, good luck with that.
Such processors DO exist, SubscribeStar proves as much. However:
1. This will now be credit card ONLY. Kiss any Paypal access goodbye.
2. The downside of "high risk" processors, high risk aquiring banks is that some other banks servicing people's cards just...refuse to do business with them because they're icky.
A lot of people don't realize this: it's not just Visa or Mastercard running things. If your bank doesn't want you to buy from a particular vendor, they can just say no. From experience, something like 5% of people with totally valid US cards just...can't do business with SubscribeStar. Likely, buying 18+ on Itch in the future will work the same way.
5. They claim they're not stealing games from people's libraries.
"Pages that are “deindexed” are still accessible if you own them. They have not been removed from your library or collections."
This is a very confusing and convoluted situation.
When No Mercy was first attacked, I bought in on Itch in protest. Its thumbnail is gone in my library, and of course the store page is gone. If I click "Download", there is nothing there to download. HOWEVER, if I do the same for another game that was banned and removed that I own, I can indeed still download the files. Likely, the No Mercy devs voluntarily removed their files after being banned, as they wanted to leave the site for good. This creates confusion however, because they're almost certainly not the only ones doing this. I'm sure a number of creators with banned games turned the downloads off, not considering that this would nuke people's libraries. I myself briefly disabled downloads on GT, because it was the only way to halt new sales. Users then see this and think Itch has removed the game.
The problem here is that the site is poorly designed. A creator shouldn't be able to disable downloads for games ALREADY PURCHASED. That should be a separate entity from the basket of digital goods someone gets when they purchase the game. There should be two separate bins: "The game stuff, as I purchased it" and "the game stuff, as it currently stands". Game creators should be able to ADD to "the game stuff, as I purchased it" as new files are added, but not subtract. But it was likely done this way for the sake of simplicity and to minimize the amount of hosting they would have to do.
6. They claim payouts will not be effected by this
IE, that they will still pay out money collected by creators regardless of whether their games are banned. The claim is that the mention of doing so in their adult policy is for the extreme circumstances of those aggressively abusing the TOS, uploading violating games and attempting to immediately cash out before being caught. They say this won't be applied to ordinary NSFW creators.
"The current situation is a special circumstance. We have no interest in withholding anyone’s earnings."
Great, hope that's true. Seems at least reasonably possible that it is. We'll see.
7. They may aspire to be the UK
"Our immediate focus has been on content classification reviews and implementing stricter age-gating on the site."
It is difficult to imagine any workable "stricter" age gating than what is currently on the site. You already have to be an adult to have a credit card. Itch already does "soft checks" requiring users to attest they're over 18, and requires 18+ games to be properly marked as such in their metadata. There is no "stricter age-gating" other than demanding photo id like every fucking other place on the internet decided to THIS YEAR. If that happens, I'm leaving Itch. I imagine a lot of other people will too.
Overall: When it comes to payment processor structure, I hope they have the balls to become SubscribeStar. Less than ideal, but workable. But probably they'll just become the UK, and then die, just like Tumblr died. This update is a weird mix of good news and complete hopelessness for the situation on Itch. But as before, all we can really do is wait and see. At least now I'm no longer dependent on Itch.
1. They claim they mass-delisted because they have less direct info on games due to the laid-back nature of the site, and thus delisting was required pending manual review, unlike Steam.
Fine, whatever.
2. They're currently begging for the right to still exist as a company from payment processors:
"The situation is evolving as we await final determinations from our current payment processors, Stripe and PayPal. There are still unknowns that prevent us from providing a fixed timeline."
That explains what's currently ongoing at least.
3. But the begging is pointless, because it's already over:
"We have suspended the ability to pay with Stripe for 18+ content for the foreseeable future."
This basically means payment for +18 titles is dead on Itch. The only two options are Stripe and Paypal, and Paypal is FAR more skittish. If Stripe's gone, Paypal WILL follow.
4. They're trying to negotiate and set up 18+ friendly processors
"In the meantime, we are actively reaching out to other payment processors that are more willing to work with this kind of content."
Yeah, good luck with that.
Such processors DO exist, SubscribeStar proves as much. However:
1. This will now be credit card ONLY. Kiss any Paypal access goodbye.
2. The downside of "high risk" processors, high risk aquiring banks is that some other banks servicing people's cards just...refuse to do business with them because they're icky.
A lot of people don't realize this: it's not just Visa or Mastercard running things. If your bank doesn't want you to buy from a particular vendor, they can just say no. From experience, something like 5% of people with totally valid US cards just...can't do business with SubscribeStar. Likely, buying 18+ on Itch in the future will work the same way.
5. They claim they're not stealing games from people's libraries.
"Pages that are “deindexed” are still accessible if you own them. They have not been removed from your library or collections."
This is a very confusing and convoluted situation.
When No Mercy was first attacked, I bought in on Itch in protest. Its thumbnail is gone in my library, and of course the store page is gone. If I click "Download", there is nothing there to download. HOWEVER, if I do the same for another game that was banned and removed that I own, I can indeed still download the files. Likely, the No Mercy devs voluntarily removed their files after being banned, as they wanted to leave the site for good. This creates confusion however, because they're almost certainly not the only ones doing this. I'm sure a number of creators with banned games turned the downloads off, not considering that this would nuke people's libraries. I myself briefly disabled downloads on GT, because it was the only way to halt new sales. Users then see this and think Itch has removed the game.
The problem here is that the site is poorly designed. A creator shouldn't be able to disable downloads for games ALREADY PURCHASED. That should be a separate entity from the basket of digital goods someone gets when they purchase the game. There should be two separate bins: "The game stuff, as I purchased it" and "the game stuff, as it currently stands". Game creators should be able to ADD to "the game stuff, as I purchased it" as new files are added, but not subtract. But it was likely done this way for the sake of simplicity and to minimize the amount of hosting they would have to do.
6. They claim payouts will not be effected by this
IE, that they will still pay out money collected by creators regardless of whether their games are banned. The claim is that the mention of doing so in their adult policy is for the extreme circumstances of those aggressively abusing the TOS, uploading violating games and attempting to immediately cash out before being caught. They say this won't be applied to ordinary NSFW creators.
"The current situation is a special circumstance. We have no interest in withholding anyone’s earnings."
Great, hope that's true. Seems at least reasonably possible that it is. We'll see.
7. They may aspire to be the UK
"Our immediate focus has been on content classification reviews and implementing stricter age-gating on the site."
It is difficult to imagine any workable "stricter" age gating than what is currently on the site. You already have to be an adult to have a credit card. Itch already does "soft checks" requiring users to attest they're over 18, and requires 18+ games to be properly marked as such in their metadata. There is no "stricter age-gating" other than demanding photo id like every fucking other place on the internet decided to THIS YEAR. If that happens, I'm leaving Itch. I imagine a lot of other people will too.
Overall: When it comes to payment processor structure, I hope they have the balls to become SubscribeStar. Less than ideal, but workable. But probably they'll just become the UK, and then die, just like Tumblr died. This update is a weird mix of good news and complete hopelessness for the situation on Itch. But as before, all we can really do is wait and see. At least now I'm no longer dependent on Itch.
Some US banks allow kids as young as 14 to have access to an account with a debit card (especially in hardship situations), and prepaid debit cards can be bought with cash at many stores. Having a card to pay for things online hasn't really been proof of age in the US for several years now.
honestly ive been thinking that Itchio might just not recover from this no mater what anyone does. it feels like any time someone makes a relatively safe and decently run hosting site that allows NSFW, something eventually happens to it.
this was without a doubt the most public and extreme example but ive seen other hosting sites degrade to the point of not wanting to click it for fears of viruses as the upkeep stops, or getting sold to a new host that's anti-NSFW and BAM, gone. (happened to the Wiki for a Modded Version of the original Corruption of Champions i play in the last couple years, the wiki site they used changed hosts and nuked the entire wiki for the modded version without warning)
or getting absolutely blasted with ads to the point where its frustrating to navigate (ESPECIALLY when they straight up refuse to let you access the site if they detect an adblocker, lookin at you Miniclip.com...) and i stop visiting in favor of the newest thing with less annoying ads and easier use.
it is a cycle ive seen before, but goddammit im tired of this bullshit. if i became supreme dictator of this country tomorrow i'd put protections for NSFW in the damn Constitution, with a permanent marker!!
(lol no i dont actually wanna run this crapshow unless i could literally become my lust demon sona and brainwash/transform everyone to make an unrealistic utopia of furries 🤣)
But we'll see.
And yes, wikis are a great example of internet rot. One of the most depressing things ever was seeing basically ever cool, heartfelt community wiki get devoured by fucking "Fandom" in the past few years.
That said it does doubtless have a substantially smaller userbase than before.
My experience of Tumblr was the exchange of fan-drawn art, much of it explicit. And just ordinary porn, chopped up neatly, maybe some artsy photography. Without that, what's the point? I'm not gonna hang out on Tumblr so I can have random convos with the handful of people that are still there. For me, it was always primarily an art delivery method, so when it stopped being good for that, I stopped caring. Censorship aside, the UI and ads also became absolutely unbearably awful the last few times I was there a few years ago.
That said, if people can enjoy it for whatever reason, by all means. But overall, Tumblr seems like an inverse First Mover effect. The first to market site or company often becomes like a black hole, their gravity well is so strong that no competitor can draw users away, because....they're already there, and it's good enough, and that's where everyone ELSE is. If you're where everyone else is, you don't bother moving. If there's a place where NONE of the "everyone else's" are, there's no gravity to pull you in to that site.
Most of the revenue is always going to be via CC, which means nothing else matters. There are wacky systems you could build to try to cope with all this. To some extent, Itch was ALREADY a wacky system, co-mingling SFW stuff with NSFW so the card companies were doing business with "Itch, the indie video game site" and not "Itch, the porn site". And that worked great! Until it didn't.
I've said a few times, THEORETICALLY long term there MIGHT be possibilities to start integrating stablecoins (crypto pegged to the dollar, so it doesn't bounce in value, and which just got a MASSIVE regulatory approval in the US via the GENIUS act) into various services, but crypto has a GENUINE "reputational" problem that will take time to overcome even as the tech itself matures and becomes more practical, legal, reliable and less obnoxious to use. Boy howdy though, sure would be nice to have "digital cash" that you could just HAVE and SPEND and that wasn't able to say "no no, you can't use me for THAT, that's a REPUTATIONAL RISK".
On the other hand, Visa seems to be real big on stablecoins too (just check their twitter/x), which...both excites and worries me.