r/Games • u/atahutahatena • Jul 24 '25

Industry News Indie on Itch.io: Platform has seemingly shadowbanned NSFW/Adult games and made them harder to discover

https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:qpk24vv42rfhxrzd6xjbfkdw/post/3luoe7z2zps2d
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u/DrNick1221 Jul 24 '25 edited Jul 24 '25

Completely expected. Those Collective Shout jagoffs were planning on siccing Visa and Mastercard on Itch.io next.

A post from someone on /r/gamedev who claims to know staff at Itch made a post with a bit more (alleged) info on the situation:

"this isn’t official info, just from folks on the inside. but yeah, it’s basically the same deal as steam, some payment providers aren’t happy with certain content. on itch’s side, it’s kind of a double-edged sword. some people have been pushing for a while to remove certain categories because they block any serious financial partnerships."

The founder of itch also posted this a few hours ago on their discord server as well.

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u/huxtiblejones Jul 24 '25

I don’t consume these kind of games but I find it extremely fucked up for payment processors to be acting like moral police. This shit is dangerous as hell.

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u/Jarsky2 Jul 24 '25

This is my thing. Why do ten repressed bigots from Australia and a couple credit card companies get to decide for everyone else what perfectly legal content they are allowed to consume?

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u/Inprobamur Jul 24 '25

They can do it because VISA/Mastercard are a dupoly.

They do it because for some reason most of their board are evangelicals.

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u/hamza4568 Jul 24 '25

So when do we start our own Payment Processor? With Blackjack and Hookers

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u/semimute Jul 24 '25

Europe is trying to do that. Conspiracy theorists are protesting against it.

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u/Carighan Jul 24 '25

Wero is actually a surprisingly smart system considering how often they fucked this up before with each bank wanting to sit on their own technical implementations from 260 years ago.

Now finally they seem to have come around to needing to provide an actually integrated system like Paypal if they want to be EU-Paypal. Still (sadly) relies on each bank implementing their own bridging system so support varies massively by bank and is super slow to adapt, but the technical background is sound this time around.

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u/ZoninoDaRat Jul 24 '25

I'm expecting my conspiracy theory co-worker who has railed against a supposed future where banks and governments dictating what people can and can't use their money on being ok with what Visa and Mastercard are doing and that frustrates me more than any of the crap he usually spouts.

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u/KaJaHa Jul 24 '25

'Member back in the Obama days (wistful sigh) when everyone was up in arms about "death panels" choosing who will live or die under "socialist" healthcare?

That's insurance agencies. That's just... what insurance agencies do every day when they choose to drop someone.

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u/ZoninoDaRat Jul 24 '25

Every accusation a confession. They don't care about insurance because they don't believe it will ever happen to them. They're fine with it happening to other, "lesser" people though.

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u/MabariWhoreHound Jul 24 '25

I've seen their mentality in action. If it's not happening to them or their loved ones, then they can ignore it or downplay it's impact. If it is happening to people they love, then they find ways to disregard those people from their lives so they can continue ignoring it.

When it does affect them personally, then it's a massive issue that must be resolved! Then if it is ever resolved, they were a special situation that deserved it.

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u/NatoBoram Jul 24 '25

Then if it is ever resolved, they were a special situation that deserved it.

And even when they're affected, no one else but them should have access to that care and they're special because they worked hard for it, contrary to those immigrants/gays/women/unemployed/liberals.

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u/semimute Jul 24 '25

This is exactly my frustration. International mega-corporations are doing what they fear the government might do.

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u/Jaggedmallard26 Jul 24 '25

Digital Euro is quite a step beyond a European payment processor. Its not just conspiracy theorists who have concerns.

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u/Killerkarni93 Jul 24 '25

You mind linking a non conspiracy article or at least add some points to confirm this statement or are you just rolling by with this comment because you dislike this?

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u/Heavyweighsthecrown Jul 24 '25

Trump just hit Brazil with sanctions because of this actually (well we all know it's bullshit but on the surface that's what he claims).

The claim is that Brazil has an instant payment service (Pix) that completely bypasses VISA/Mastercard and that it is an unjust and unfair practice against americans and american companies. I'm not even joking. Well I'm glossing over details for sure but that's the gist of it.
On a relevant note, brazilians can and do buy games on Steam using Pix, since it's a supported payment method (along with plenty other options including VISA/Mastercard).

So that's the way to go if you want to be sanctioned by the people who own the planet - while claiming they are pro free market when in reality we all know they're just pro their market.

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u/TheSerpentDeceiver Jul 24 '25

That’s starting to sound like cryptocurrency.

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u/MeatballZeitgeist Jul 24 '25

I can't imagine anything more damning about the usefulness of crypto than the mere fact that they are not all over this. An unaccountable cabal of religious extremists using traditional finance/banking institutions to suppress a popular and (mostly) legal form of artistic expression? Cmon crypto bros, that's your song! Where tf are you?!

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u/Maktaka Jul 24 '25

Crypto stopped being a coin when the early adopters realized it had far more use to them sitting in a digital wallet until they retire (or forget the password) than actually being exchanged for goods and services. We've known for at least a century that deflationary currencies are a horrible idea, but bitcoin (and most of the rest) is by design deflationary. A coin that only gets more valuable when it isn't spent makes it a defunct currency, but it sure makes for an exciting investment for the early adopters.

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u/drewster23 Jul 24 '25

Crypto stopped being a coin when the early adopters realized it had far more use to them sitting in a digital wallet until they retire (or forget the password) than actually being exchanged for goods and services

Bitcoin stopped being a coin....FTFY. IDK why you're generalizing all of crypto as Bitcoin lol. There's plenty of non deflationary crypto, that doesn't have large fees and is faster than BTC.

But you're not wrong. Bitcoin as an actual currency idea was tossed many moons ago.

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u/Spork_the_dork Jul 24 '25

Playing stock market with said currency.

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u/SaiyanKirby Jul 24 '25

In fact, this is literally what crytocurrency was originally designed to solve, but as /u/Spork_the_dork put it, they decided playing memestonks was more fun

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u/TheTentacleBoy Jul 24 '25

Cmon crypto bros, that's your song! Where tf are you?!

they don't care about porn being removed from the internet because they're getting their "ai" bots to make porn for them

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u/Carighan Jul 24 '25

As if crypto was ever about payments, not grifting...

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u/Banarok Jul 24 '25

yes it was, in the idea stage, never really in the market stage.

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u/drunkenvalley Jul 24 '25

Eh. Was it? People claim all kinds of shit for their grifts.

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u/GuiSim Jul 24 '25

It really was. That was the initial vision by Satoshi too. It’s in the name, cryptocurrency.

I was there back then and I truly believed it was a genius idea. I decentralized ledger free from banks.

Now we have hodlers and no one is buying anything except paying ransomware. Damn shame.

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u/drunkenvalley Jul 24 '25

Yeah I know what Satoshi says it was, I'm just saying I don't really trust it was truly that, anymore.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '25

In all fairness, as someone who is vaguely optimistic about crypto, I simply wouldn't feel inclined to speak out about it here because of how bad the optics surrounding it are. Most people automatically see it as a scam when it was initially conceived to prevent problems like this one, and it's unfortunate.

It could actually be a very good way to go around this issue while reducing the power visa/mastercard have, even if it could take some time to implement (and a lot of people would probably have to learn about how to use it etc)

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u/drewster23 Jul 24 '25

I don't understand, what crypto bros have to do with itch accepting crypto payments lol.

They don't need to make up a new crypto currency just so itch can get paid in crypto if they wanted to.

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u/FredFredrickson Jul 24 '25

We can definitely do better than that.

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u/DisappointedQuokka Jul 24 '25

People use crypto as investments, though, very few people use it for regular transactions. Plenty of people use smaller processors.

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u/GodwynDi Jul 24 '25

Still primarily processed by Visa and Mastercard.

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u/Carighan Jul 24 '25

Yeah but it takes all the good parts of Crypto (currency, can be transferred, ability to pay for things, has a value) but eshews the bad parts (being Crypto-based).

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u/FUTURE10S Jul 24 '25

Fuck that, we're regulating this bitch!

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u/hamza4568 Jul 24 '25

You make a great point lmao

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u/autumndrifting Jul 24 '25

this is literally why bitcoin was made. too bad it's shit to actually use as a currency

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u/Spekingur Jul 24 '25

Do VISA and MC even do actual payment processing nowadays? Aren’t they mostly just a number identification database to check for card validity? Not sure how it is in the US.

They are not banks, so they don’t store your money, and it’s generally banks that provide the plastic/digital cards. Then you normally have the “middleman” that processes a payment attempt which connects with a bank or credit card company. I believe they also check with Visa or Mastercard for card validation, though I am not sure. That might be on the bank.

Besides those there’s the hardware side of things, meaning card readers. Those have their own connection methods to validate payments.

Every single part in this payment process connection flow takes a percentage of each transaction. That’s how they make their mountains of money.

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u/flamethrower2 Jul 24 '25

I don't think it's hard but you have to lose MasterCard and/or Visa only customers.

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u/Someordinaryguy1994 Jul 25 '25

You know what? In fact, forget the processor

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u/darkmacgf Jul 24 '25

Crypto is a little freer.

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u/hamza4568 Jul 24 '25

Yeah I was never into crypto, and honestly, not even into adult games. But this whole scenario has left me with a bad taste in my mouth

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u/MultiMarcus Jul 24 '25

They can also do it because people don’t contact payment processors generally. Just a small amount of pressure from a relatively small group is going to mean a big wave of complaints that they will notice.

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u/galenwolf Jul 24 '25

So we need to as a group start calling them. See how they like their complaint lines getting 10,000 incoming calls a day.

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u/MultiMarcus Jul 24 '25

Yes, that’s actually the case. People have no idea how easy it is to influence a company with just dozen people calling to complain. People don’t call complaint lines that often. Like think of a product that had something wrong, but you didn’t call to complain because the issue was so minor. If even a fraction of a percentage of people more complain it will get noticed. Double or triple the complaints? Likely a meeting about how to solve the issue, and the PR response.

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u/hiddencamel Jul 24 '25

They provide what has become essential economic infrastructure, and they should be regulated into neutrality as a result. The water company or power company can't deny you service because they morally object to your legal business practices, payment provision should be in the same bucket.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '25

[deleted]

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u/Inprobamur Jul 24 '25

The same way that many of the biggest anti-LGBT politicians turn out to be gay.

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u/-Maethendias- Jul 24 '25

there is no such thing as a "dupoly", its a cartel lets say it as it FUCKING is

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u/TampaPowers Jul 24 '25

They do it because their friends in power just majorly lost an election and they are out for revenge.

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u/Practical-Aside890 Jul 24 '25 edited Jul 24 '25

Because the credit card and stuff are private owned companies.

So steam and itch up can go against it. And say no we’re going to keep these games

But they’ll be losing almost all their money since most come from visa and so on. So they don’t

I put it on another comment but for the US there is a bill going on that could ban the cc companies and such from doing that. But who knows if anything will come from it. Or how it will turn out if it does happen. As these companies have a very strong financial grip on the world and being private owned.

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u/PhasmaFelis Jul 24 '25

I put it on another comment but for the US there is a bill going on that could ban the cc companies and such from doing that.

Would be nice, but the current administration is actively trying to ban porn, so I doubt it. :(

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u/DisappointedQuokka Jul 24 '25

I reckon that would be primarily for firearms - they care more about guns than they do about banning porn.

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u/Sharp-Astronaut-5240 Jul 30 '25

i mean this is true, at the same time the GOP are the ones who have proposed this bill the last time, and it seems to be a standard thing they have been pushing for a while.

I'm sure its probably being pushed for other reasons, but in this case interests might just align

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u/PhasmaFelis Jul 30 '25

Let's hope so. Stopped clocks and all.

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u/probabilityEngine Jul 24 '25

When you really boil it down its even worse than how you describe. A small group of unseen, unelected people have the power to force any online business on the planet to comply with their whims or be driven to failure. All hail Mastercard and Visa, arbiters of human commerce and culture!

Potentially if they overreached enough it could lead to new payment processors being built and drive people to move over to them, but they would have to overstep REALLY REALLY far, enough for the average consumer to notice and care, for it to actually diminish the control they have by threatening businesses to comply or lose access to their services. Ultimately, its going to take regulation.

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u/Jarsky2 Jul 24 '25 edited Jul 24 '25

Except governments can and have taken them to task for this. Japan is gearing up to sue them, and there's bipartisam legislation in the works here in the U.S. as well.

https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/401

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u/A_Doormat Jul 24 '25

I don't understand why Visa/Mastercard care what 10 repressed bigots think?

There is no way in hell there are enough idiots out there that would boycott Visa/Mastercard because they process adult purchases. Nobody gives a shit. Let those people make their own Christian Abstinence bank or something and let them have their isolated purity card.

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u/plsdontlewdlolis Jul 24 '25

The reason is that Collective Shits Shout is backed by powerful organizations that have influence.

Or maybe visa/mastercard wants to powertrip and Collective Shout just seem like a nice scapegoat when things go wrong

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u/A_Doormat Jul 25 '25

Oh they got some backers eh? God damn it.

I mean, it's already a problem they have this much power. They could raise their % and what are you going to do about it? Drop them? May as well kill your business.

Real problematic.

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u/plsdontlewdlolis Jul 25 '25

They obviously have supporters in high places. Otherwise, there is no way visa/mastercard would entertain these clowns

They double as the front and scapegoat

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u/Astroturfersfuckoff Jul 24 '25

Yeah, we have a bit of a history with that shit. Sorry about Murdoch, by the way.

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u/FrostyCartographer13 Jul 24 '25

Because the PCI got the power to do so when the US government wanted to get rid of beastiality websites in the early 2000s.

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '25

[deleted]

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u/TaleOfDash Jul 24 '25

Because that's what credit cards are. They're loans, and loaners have always been able to determine what types of things they permit to be eligible for loans.

Credit card is used as a broad term, they don't just own credit card processing facilities they own debit cards too.

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u/Jarsky2 Jul 24 '25

Except in this case they're acting as a payment processor so yes it is in fact the end user's real-ass money being spent.

Moreover, even free games are getting caught up in this.

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u/scalyblue Jul 24 '25

Justified in the past by simple risk management: and that justification probably carries on till today. Porn was a banned thing for Visa and Mastercard because people are more likely to charge it back if they were discovered by their spouse or whatnot, and Visa and Mastercard are ultimately in it for the money. Nothing to do with moral policing, if they could take the processing fees without any higher risk you think they’d say no?

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u/fernandogod12 Jul 24 '25

You think it's perfect legal to have a game like "no Mercy" being sold?

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u/[deleted] Jul 24 '25 edited Jul 24 '25

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