All NSFW games on Itch are now hidden by default.

[Count Morado]

Sure I am being subjective, but this has EVERYTHING to do with what folks think is right. We have arrived at this point because other people are using all their power to put in place systems regarding what they think is right to the detriment of others.

you are being far too objective, far too nonchalant about thousands of devs games getting shadowbanned, about whole tags hidden away. It's a whole bunch of people who have lost one of the biggest platforms and you only seem to care about shrugging and saying "it's legal". Like I'm autistic and struggle with empathy, but even I think you come across as very cold and inhuman with the stringency that you place upon being legally correct without any regards for the actual people.

Like we get it, you're better than us because you can look at the "facts" and stay "objective" about what is "legal" and care about all the businesses bottom lines, while we're all getting turned inside out by the payment processors and folks are at risk of loosing their streams of income.

Okay. You think it is right. But are you the average person? No, you are not. The average person does NOT play adult video games with sexually graphic content in them. The average person is not going to agree with you that rape and incest content in video games is what they want available.

I am not being nonchalant. It's not about empathy.

It is about business and the law.

I am sorry if you cannot accept that - but business is not run on empathy. It is run on money and that money is highly regulated and in demand. And businesses make decisions which maximize profits while minimizing liabilities.

Believing you are on the right side of an issue (whether or not you are) doesn't change public perception. It doesn't change business decisions. It doesn't change laws.

Again, you are being hypocritical -- you keep talking about "folks are at risk" by this decision. They made their decision when they made their content and put it on itch when itch's rules said specifically to not put that content on the site.

Developers can put whatever they want in their games (that is legal). They have that right.
Funding Platforms can put whatever they want on their site (that is legal). They have that right.
Payment Processors can decide whatever services they will provide (that is legal). They have that right.

If the first 1 wants to do business with the second 1 --- they have to agree to the rules of that second 1.
If the second 1 wants to do business with the last 1 -- they have to agree to the rules of that last 1.

I agree with you on the practical reality of the matter. But I agree with you only because the Supreme Court's attitude to pornography as a speech to still kinda unknown at the moment, the recent age verification case has Supreme court ruled in favor of restriction, but the same court also acknowledges porn as speech. So who know about taboo subject porn as a matter of free speech.

I think things are only "political suicide" if you could be shamed. Since Trump won repeatedly, I would argue that liberals should start to learn to be shameless.

SCOTUS precedent about pornography is 50 years old (and 40 years old - depending up the cite). There are current justices who want to revisit that precedent (and others) like they did with Roe v. Wade in order to turn them over. That is not going to change for quite a few years (6 conservative, 3 liberal justices --- majority rules). Notice in the recent decision about age verification - it was the 6 conservatives (3 Trump appointed) who upheld the age verification - the 3 liberals opposed. So, no, it's not unknown. It's very known where the justices would fall. Especially with the "written/unwritten" policy platform for this administration that includes the sentiment to ban porn.

Porn is political suicide in this climate. 17 states have passed or in the process of passing those age verification requirements. Sex (preferences, identity, activities) have been highly weaponized in this political climate by conservatives to label opponents as pedophiles and predators and groomers and etc etc etc.

I do not disagree with your final sentence.

 

[agf02agf]

This is exactly it, its not a matter of legality anymore, its a matter of censorship and bullying by a monopoly held by two AMERICAN companies GLOBALLY, using american laws to shield themselves to influence the entirety of the world and enforcing said laws even on those not under the american jurisdiction, and the fucktard that you responded to is trying to use that to justify this, he is saying that he is right by logic while in fact he is not since the rest of the fucking world doesn't follow american stupid laws.

And I'm saying this that since they want to shield themselves with american laws they should just ban it in USA, not in Europe or anywhere else for the matter and to clarify I'm obviously against the banning of this content in USA too

 

[BrightNight77]

Will this make cryptocurrency payments more popular?

 

[sjokiler]

This is exactly it, its not a matter of legality anymore, its a matter of censorship and bullying by a monopoly held by two AMERICAN companies GLOBALLY, using american laws to shield themselves to influence the entirety of the world and enforcing said laws even on those not under the american jurisdiction, and the fucktard that you responded to is trying to use that to justify this, he is saying that he is right by logic while in fact he is not since the rest of the fucking world doesn't follow american stupid laws.

Exactly my thoughts. Two fucking duopolies from US dictating what should be seen, viewed, and played globally. Such a clown timeline.

 

[Aswiri]

Why are you guys still replying that functional illiterate? I blocked that thing because, once it's unable to address an argument, it pretends the argument doesn't exist, so it repeats the same shit over and over. And that's clearly what it's is doing here, based on the replies. Seriously, just ignore that thing and its idiocy and move on, it isn't like you'd be losing any serious point.

That said I think itch.io went for a "nuclear" option (delisting almost everything NSFW) in panic, to sort things out. The issue of those payment processors doesn't seem to be "porn", but rather "porn with non-con and/or incest content". So odds are that most games will be re-listed Soon®, but a few of them will be missing.

It's still extremely problematic that payment processors are able to dictate the content of a platform, regardless of the ideology motivating those payment processors; this needs to be addressed, otherwise it won't be just non-con+incest porn, it'll be soon porn in general. And then other things.

What do you think? Split the site into, for example: Itch.io and Itch.io.adult. The first site will have regular games and payment systems, the second will exclude visa and master card from payment methods.

 

[Aswiri]

Exactly my thoughts. Two fucking duopolies from US dictating what should be seen, viewed, and played globally. Such a clown timeline.

Cursed timeline.

 

[Zemax]

Looks like they're going to do what Steam did, but will incest be removed too?

 

[TAU9]

Will this make cryptocurrency payments more popular?

I'm not sure there's enough drive to purchase adult games to cause any sort of swing in crypto. The vast majority of people buying adult games on Steam or Itch are doing so because it's far more convenient than buying crypto through Coinbase or something, then transferring that either through a self-custodial wallet, or directly to a crypto payment processor, waiting 20 minutes for the transaction to settle, then finally getting their porn game on a different platform.

However I could possibly see it being a market opportunity if someone were to make a reliable, safe, well-lubed porn game store/launcher in the wake of these restrictions. Actual laws on non-con, incest, whatever-you-like fetishes are very lax relative to what payment processors are enforcing.

Edit - and the volume just isn't there. Porn games may drive millions of dollars in transactions per month, but non-porn games drive billions.

 

[Count Morado]

Looks like they're going to do what Steam did, but will incest be removed too?

incest for sexual gratification violates payment processor policies

 

[maverih345456]

Guys, here is an announcement from itch, explaining why they are doing this and they know our pain

You must be registered to see the links

 

[sjokiler]

Will this make cryptocurrency payments more popular?

I hope. US was already undermining some alternative payment method called Pix before all of this shit started.

I'm not sure there's enough drive to purchase adult games to cause any sort of swing in crypto. The vast majority of people buying adult games on Steam or Itch are doing so because it's far more convenient than buying crypto through Coinbase or something, then transferring that either through a self-custodial wallet, or directly to a crypto payment processor, waiting 20 minutes for the transaction to settle, then finally getting their porn game on a different platform.

However I could possibly see it being a market opportunity if someone were to make a reliable, safe, well-lubed porn game store/launcher in the wake of these restrictions. Actual laws on non-con, incest, whatever-you-like fetishes are very lax relative to what payment processors are enforcing.

Edit - and the volume just isn't there. Porn games may drive millions of dollars in transactions per month, but non-porn games drive billions.

All we need is having something like XRP (transactions are done in seconds) implemented on Steam and Itch, not an alternative platform imo.

 

[TAU9]

All we need is having something like XRP (transactions are done in seconds) implemented on Steam and Itch, not an alternative platform imo.

Payment processors refuse to deal with you if you use alternative payment processors that break their TOS.

 

[sjokiler]

Payment processors refuse to deal with you if you use alternative payment processors that break their TOS.

This shit is beyond fucked up wtf!?

I'm literally 1-2 week away from releasing my demo. First Steam, now Itch. Next day is Patreon and SubscribeStar I guess.

Just gonna drink myself to sleep at this point.

 

[Karmasaur]

Will this make cryptocurrency payments more popular?

cryptocurrency has an insanely low trust value for most people, outside of the main ones like bitcoin an ethereum, and i cant imagine any working dev wants to hedge their financial gains through cryptocurrency at this point in time

 

[Karmasaur]

This shit is beyond fucked up wtf!?

I'm literally 1-2 week away from releasing my demo. First Steam, now Itch. Next day is Patreon and SubscribeStar I guess.

Just gonna drink myself to sleep at this point.

Well if it's just a demo, you could release it here, gauge the interest, then use Ko-Fi/Patreon to get paid for the game?

 

[RPDL]

Will this make cryptocurrency payments more popular?

A little probably, but not enough to make a difference. For crypto to work, a lot of things need to change, this isn't easy because crypto is:

1. confusing
2. often has expensive gas fees
3. often is insanely volatile
4. is widely known as being riddled with scams and pump & dumps
5. and perhaps most importantly, the average user is lazy and doesn't care enough to jump through 5 hoops and wait an hour just to pay for something.

Until this changes it won't be anything but a vehicle for market speculation. In before, but TNX my favourite crypto is easy to use and has low gas fees!!! Don't care, same rules apply.
I'm not gloating by the way, I wish it wasn't like this but it is. Until individuals (yes, you reading this) take the time to learn and use it, then nothing will change.

 

[Zaroua]

Any time Visa tries to pull the "protecting the brand" act, remind every one in every discussion of the lawsuit against Visa and PornHub where Visa directly proliferated and profited cheese pizza playlists on PornHub. For years. Or how the feminist group behind this push praised and protected that Cuties movie. These animals promote cheese pizza with one hand while shouting "down with porn" from their soapboxes. It's similar to how the people most against homosexuality tend to get ousted as being gay themselves.
Except that in this situation, this is private companies risking millions of jobs worldwide. Sick fucks.

 

[Cybuster]

Will this make cryptocurrency payments more popular?

No, credit cards has cash back and free transaction.

 

[beerpig]

Will this make cryptocurrency payments more popular?

Problem with crypto is that the value of any coin varies wildly over time, and what you do with your wallet is not anonymous at all (it can be traced back to you). So while allowing payment in crypto might be sensible, I don't think it'll be adopted in such a scale to show the middle finger to the VISA/Mastercard duopoly, so platforms will still be doing its bidding.

What do you think? Split the site into, for example: Itch.io and Itch.io.adult. The first site will have regular games and payment systems, the second will exclude visa and master card from payment methods.

I don't know. Perhaps this could work? Or perhaps the duopoly would pressure itch through its regular site, because of the adult one.

 

[Casperer007]

Again, you are being hypocritical -- you keep talking about "folks are at risk" by this decision. They made their decision when they made their content and put it on itch when itch's rules said specifically to not put that content on the site.

When I speak about those at risk, I am speaking in reference to the thousands of other NSFW games that have been hidden away that do not break any of itch's rules.

If F95 is a good indicator,
22,389 games listed on F95
4,867 are tagged with "rape"
That's 22.17%, not 80%

By YOUR own estimate, there are THOUSANDS of games which have no violations in them that are currently hidden away. And with no real timeline for when or IF they ever will return to being normally listed, those creators are facing very real losses despite not having broken any laws, any of itch's rules, or any of the payment processors rules.

I am not being nonchalant. It's not about empathy.

It is about business and the law.

I am sorry if you cannot accept that - but business is not run on empathy. It is run on money and that money is highly regulated and in demand. And businesses make decisions which maximize profits while minimizing liabilities.

And the fact that you would even put those words to life and press send on that only showcases even more that I am right. You can't even wrap your head around the idea of actually caring, but you think we should give a fuck about "business and the law".

Look at me fellas, I'm Count Morado, I care about businesses and the law. Who cares about caring about the creators of the games I play when I could care about shareholders. Did I mention I love businesses? Here's an arbitrary fact that doesn't really mean anything. It's the law. I don't have empathy, empathy isn't the law. Business. I'm so objective, but totally not in a blind to everything but facts way. Regulation. It's a fact, so it must be right.

This is my impression of you. It's very accurate.

But anyways I'm not gonna argue with you anymore. You're nothing more than a soulless pariah who can't seem to actually acknowledge the problems of today or envision a better future. I hope that things actually change and that one day soulless business "people" like you are completely gotten rid of. You are a blight upon our society and being factually correct will never change that
.
.
.
So I'm gonna go anally rape my sister in Living with Sister: Monochrome Fantasy, a game I legally bought on Steam with my VISA card (support devs when you can folks), just to spite the payment processors and the puritans. That'll be time much better than whatever this is.