Itch.io Changes Policy for Adult Games

[chainedpanda]

Chances

I've mentioned it before, but devs should move to Onlyfans and Fansly.

Onlyfans isn't exactly secure either. They also tried to remove ALL pornographic content like a year ago but were kicked in the balls as a result. Should they really be trusted in that regard? Sure Patreon is restrictive, but at least they haven't attempted a 100% nuke like Onlyfans did.

Furthermore, seen a lot of blame being pushed towards Paypal and others, but the real culprits are likely Visa MasterCard who's pressuring companies like Paypal and other companies to do this. There's several examples of this already:

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related to Patreons "incest ban" back in 2017

If these are the three that I'm familiar with, just how many instances are there? Mastercard is one of, if not the largest payment processing companies in existence. If they tell Paypal to not accept adult content, naturally they would agree if it means not pissing off a megacorp.

 

[bobbot]

Chances


Onlyfans isn't exactly secure either. They also tried to remove ALL pornographic content like a year ago but were kicked in the balls as a result. Should they really be trusted in that regard? Sure Patreon is restrictive, but at least they haven't attempted a 100% nuke like Onlyfans did.

Furthermore, seen a lot of blame being pushed towards Paypal and others, but the real culprits are likely Visa MasterCard who's pressuring companies like Paypal and other companies to do this. There's several examples of this already:

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

related to Patreons "incest ban" back in 2017

If these are the three that I'm familiar with, just how many instances are there? Mastercard is one of, if not the largest payment processing companies in existence. If they tell Paypal to not accept adult content, naturally they would agree if it means not pissing off a megacorp.

then the only way to sidestep this is crypto or older money laundering tricks like gift cards... so no one really knows where the money came from. before you or anyone else cave my head in for mentioning cryptocurency let me at least finish, i'll start with the "easy" option of laundering funds thru giftcards. its practicly braindead almost, you get them to send you a giftcard then you flip it for cash using your methiod of choice some like giftcard granny if i remember the site name right take e cards too its dodgy but at least you can get something from it wont be the full value but you can route around that a bit by adjusting the minimum card value to get the goods.

now onto everyones favorate thing to bash for reasons some good others stupid, im going to start with the stupid this might actually be a use for nfts as long as they're not used like they normaly are which is a get rich quick scheme followed by a rugging. the idea being using them more like a currency exchange set up to where the operators get some usd in value per sale in order to keep the servers up but cheap enough to where its not too expensive to be feasable or a way to earn them like watching ads for a small amount per day the idea being the operator of the exchange getting paid via ad rev.

the other slightly less stupid way is using a crypto currency thats easyish to mine and can be traded on an exchange thats not kyc ive heard good things about monero in that regard but im no expert. im just trying to find any solution to this stranglehold thats come into being payment processors should not have this kinda power.

edit looks like gift card grannie doesnt do that anymore but they do mention other sites that do

 

[Hardstyle Gaming]

Interested to know, for your average dev, what % breakdown of itch donations vs. patreon income is. Im sure patreon is bigger but no idea how much people make from itch really.

This is fucked

 

[Hardstyle Gaming]

Thats a shame, even though I don't use ITCH I know a lot of devs relied on it as an alternative to Steam. I guess even more games will be moving away from HS and college theme if they want to actually properly sell a finished game.

That girl is only a 22 year old college student you SICK FUCK!

 

[jamdan]

Chances


Onlyfans isn't exactly secure either. They also tried to remove ALL pornographic content like a year ago but were kicked in the balls as a result. Should they really be trusted in that regard? Sure Patreon is restrictive, but at least they haven't attempted a 100% nuke like Onlyfans did.

Furthermore, seen a lot of blame being pushed towards Paypal and others, but the real culprits are likely Visa MasterCard who's pressuring companies like Paypal and other companies to do this. There's several examples of this already:

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

You must be registered to see the links

related to Patreons "incest ban" back in 2017

If these are the three that I'm familiar with, just how many instances are there? Mastercard is one of, if not the largest payment processing companies in existence. If they tell Paypal to not accept adult content, naturally they would agree if it means not pissing off a megacorp.

That's the point though. Onlyfans & Fansly can't ban adult content because their entire business is built around it whether they like it or not. Basically, adult game devs use the much larger and much more influential porn industry workers for defacto protection.

 

[redknight00]

That's the point though. Onlyfans & Fansly can't ban adult content because their entire business is built around it whether they like it or not. Basically, adult game devs use the much larger and much more influential porn industry workers for defacto protection.

Onlyfans thots are quite possibly the worst kind of people to hide behind, if anything they are more likely to cry about it until the platform bans CG stuff.

 

[Hardstyle Gaming]

That's the point though. Onlyfans & Fansly can't ban adult content because their entire business is built around it whether they like it or not. Basically, adult game devs use the much larger and much more influential porn industry workers for defacto protection.

Onlyfans would be perfect. Do they allow adult game devs on the platform though?

 

[chainedpanda]

then the only way to sidestep this is crypto or older money laundering tricks like gift cards... so no one really knows where the money came from. before you or anyone else cave my head in for mentioning cryptocurency let me at least finish, i'll start with the "easy" option of laundering funds thru giftcards. its practicly braindead almost, you get them to send you a giftcard then you flip it for cash using your methiod of choice some like giftcard granny if i remember the site name right take e cards too its dodgy but at least you can get something from it wont be the full value but you can route around that a bit by adjusting the minimum card value to get the goods.

now onto everyones favorate thing to bash for reasons some good others stupid, im going to start with the stupid this might actually be a use for nfts as long as they're not used like they normaly are which is a get rich quick scheme followed by a rugging. the idea being using them more like a currency exchange set up to where the operators get some usd in value per sale in order to keep the servers up but cheap enough to where its not too expensive to be feasable or a way to earn them like watching ads for a small amount per day the idea being the operator of the exchange getting paid via ad rev.

the other slightly less stupid way is using a crypto currency thats easyish to mine and can be traded on an exchange thats not kyc ive heard good things about monero in that regard but im no expert. im just trying to find any solution to this stranglehold thats come into being payment processors should not have this kinda power.

edit looks like gift card grannie doesnt do that anymore but they do mention other sites that do

While it's an interesting thought, I don't think it's viable. I will also state that my knowledge on crypto is pretty limited. The only thing I know about crypto mining and block chains are that they exist. Regardless, I'll state my opinion anyway.

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That's the point though. Onlyfans & Fansly can't ban adult content because their entire business is built around it whether they like it or not. Basically, adult game devs use the much larger and much more influential porn industry workers for defacto protection.

First of all, the fact that they already tried is a problem. It shows that major companies are already watching OF and the fact that OF is willing to cave under pressure (they literally did it twice).

Of course there is the problem of the OF community, but what about the Adult Game community? Many games deal with some pretty socially unacceptable things. I'm not just talking about rape or incest, but also mind control, blackmail and corruption alongside many more. Would OF be willing to support or host such content when they're already being monitored? In this regard, Patreon has actually been pretty soft in their censorship in general.

I do think that OF could be a solid alternative for some developers, but it's quite questionable what would be allowed and for how long.

 

[Hardstyle Gaming]

then the only way to sidestep this is crypto or older money laundering tricks like gift cards... so no one really knows where the money came from. before you or anyone else cave my head in for mentioning cryptocurency let me at least finish, i'll start with the "easy" option of laundering funds thru giftcards. its practicly braindead almost, you get them to send you a giftcard then you flip it for cash using your methiod of choice some like giftcard granny if i remember the site name right take e cards too its dodgy but at least you can get something from it wont be the full value but you can route around that a bit by adjusting the minimum card value to get the goods.

now onto everyones favorate thing to bash for reasons some good others stupid, im going to start with the stupid this might actually be a use for nfts as long as they're not used like they normaly are which is a get rich quick scheme followed by a rugging. the idea being using them more like a currency exchange set up to where the operators get some usd in value per sale in order to keep the servers up but cheap enough to where its not too expensive to be feasable or a way to earn them like watching ads for a small amount per day the idea being the operator of the exchange getting paid via ad rev.

the other slightly less stupid way is using a crypto currency thats easyish to mine and can be traded on an exchange thats not kyc ive heard good things about monero in that regard but im no expert. im just trying to find any solution to this stranglehold thats come into being payment processors should not have this kinda power.

edit looks like gift card grannie doesnt do that anymore but they do mention other sites that do

gift card thing and monero aren't really necessary. Just make a coinbase account and send bitcoin to a wallet. It doesnt have to be untraceable or anything. It just has to be unblockable by credit card processors. Let them sue coinbase if they want we don't care.

 

[c3p0]

Well, it amused me every time. The credit card payment processor are against porn, Paypal is against porn. And why then I can on a porn site pay with those?
I say, they simple want a bigger share of the money, nothing more.

For alternative, instead of crypto who only add pseudo anonymity, same with credit cards, it always exist wire transfer. Not that I think that would be something many are up for. Or even more debatable, just use an envelope and send the money or money equivalent with the post.

Last but not least, when do we get the Sam coin?

 

[hologram2000]

This sucks for developers. Another platform gone... and there weren't many for us to begin with.

 

[EDMANGO]

Adding my $0.02 to this, since I was on the discord trying to figure out *why* this was happening and get some answers, even after Leafo posted today

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Since according to his post and the linked email
> "As a reminder, per our

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, your account’s activity must comply with the Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policies of any third-party payment processors you utilize through your itch.io account. You can review those terms here:"

Which to me reads as: There Tos does not allow nsfw products to be sold, therefore nsfw products being sold are not allowed on itch.

Maybe the hidden message (since he keeps telling us to reread the email) is that yes, adult game dev shouldn't be allowed, but instead of removing it he's saying nothing so that some people can still keep posting their content, and that you just have to pray you don't get hit just like every other service who handles us arbitrarily.

 

[anne O'nymous]

Well, it amused me every time. The credit card payment processor are against porn, Paypal is against porn. And why then I can on a porn site pay with those?
I say, they simple want a bigger share of the money, nothing more.

It's even more simple than this. It's just that they don't want to loose money, either due to frauds, or due to the penalties because they would be caught not respecting the really strict regulations they have to follow.

The first problem is solved since decades, the security deposit.
Historically, the main problem with adult content is that it have the highest fraud rate. And of course, payment processors don't really want to pay for this. Therefore, a company which want to works with them, while dealing with adult content, have to make a deposit of few millions (generally starting at US$ 10 millions) that will be used, interest included, to cover the fraud cost.

The second is more recent since it appeared with internet.
It's a more complex problem, that goes from the fact that minors can have access to adult content, to the fact that the content being now created by users, it can be illegal. This issue is solved by a strong moderation, what was finally the choice made by Onlyfans.



It always amaze me when Patreon, and now also Onlyfans, are used to prove that payment processors are against porn. While the fact that those companies still continue to deal with adult content, and to have a partnership with Mastercard and Visa, are undeniable proof of the opposite...

Of course, there's also example of companies that have been crushed by the said payment processors. But who's fault is it ? There's rules and they are well known. It's just that they can't be followed by everyone. It's not all companies that can afford to put millions aside, knowing they'll never be able to use them. It's not all companies that can afford to have more than 50% of their staff working for the moderation, like it's the case for OnlyFans.
And yes, companies which can't afford this are crushed by payment processors. Because in the end of the chain, if Mastercard or Visa are caught dealing with p*d*shit, processing transaction for a minor buying adult content, or things like that, they can loose their right to operate. And this would be shit in a totally other level than the impossibility to find our daily dose of porn.

 

[Wankyudo]

It always amaze me when Patreon, and now also Onlyfans, are used to prove that payment processors are against porn. While the fact that those companies still continue to deal with adult content, and to have a partnership with Mastercard and Visa, are undeniable proof of the opposite...

Of course, there's also example of companies that have been crushed by the said payment processors. But who's fault is it ? There's rules and they are well known. It's just that they can't be followed by everyone. It's not all companies that can afford to put millions aside, knowing they'll never be able to use them. It's not all companies that can afford to have more than 50% of their staff working for the moderation, like it's the case for OnlyFans.
And yes, companies which can't afford this are crushed by payment processors. Because in the end of the chain, if Mastercard or Visa are caught dealing with p*d*shit, processing transaction for a minor buying adult content, or things like that, they can loose their right to operate. And this would be shit in a totally other level than the impossibility to find our daily dose of porn.

Not only that, but those same payment processors are still able to used in adult goods stores, porn sites, etc. Payment processors became the scapegoat for patreon/itch.io and painted as these bible-thumping puritanical prudes when really they're not afraid of sex. They're afraid of shittily moderated storefronts, which before patreon started cracking down was being used as exactly that.

 

[Icarus Media]

Onlyfans thots are quite possibly the worst kind of people to hide behind.

I dunno, I imagine hiding behind some of them is an amazing view!

 

[Hardstyle Gaming]

The anti-crypto people will still look you dead in the eye and say crypto has no good use and is a scam. lol lmao even

 

[Deleted member 440241]

Not only that, but those same payment processors are still able to used in adult goods stores, porn sites, etc. Payment processors became the scapegoat for patreon/itch.io and painted as these bible-thumping puritanical prudes when really they're not afraid of sex. They're afraid of shittily moderated storefronts, which before patreon started cracking down was being used as exactly that.

You must be registered to see the links

You may not use the PayPal service for activities that:
2. relate to transactions involving (c) cigarettes... (g) items that are considered obscene... (i) certain sexually oriented materials or services...
PayPal requires pre-approval to accept payments for certain services as detailed in the chart below.
10. Mature Audience Content: Any adult content delivered digitally including video on demand (VOD) and web-cam activities. PayPal may be restricted from processing payments in certain jurisdictions for adult DVD’s, magazines and other adult themed products or services.

Paypal's policy is pretty clear about it not being used for obscene/sexual materials and services.

 

[Icarus Media]

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You may not use the PayPal service for activities that:
2. relate to transactions involving (c) cigarettes..

Load of fags.

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[RPDL]

I'm from the UK

my condolences

 

[TheGrimLord69]

While it's an interesting thought, I don't think it's viable. I will also state that my knowledge on crypto is pretty limited. The only thing I know about crypto mining and block chains are that they exist. Regardless, I'll state my opinion anyway.

Spoiler

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First of all, the fact that they already tried is a problem. It shows that major companies are already watching OF and the fact that OF is willing to cave under pressure (they literally did it twice).

Of course there is the problem of the OF community, but what about the Adult Game community? Many games deal with some pretty socially unacceptable things. I'm not just talking about rape or incest, but also mind control, blackmail and corruption alongside many more. Would OF be willing to support or host such content when they're already being monitored? In this regard, Patreon has actually been pretty soft in their censorship in general.

I do think that OF could be a solid alternative for some developers, but it's quite questionable what would be allowed and for how long.

Oh God, no. They gave me hell for just playing an uncensored SiniSistar. Plus, those thots will lose their mind if CG or for the love of God "animated children" start taking all their revenue. GOG is an option though folks, they accepted a lot of adult games this month and are having a big NSFW sale untll March 1st, so that seems to show they are very open to hosting adult games. They even posted an interview with the developer of Lust Academy!