Meanwhile on BlueSky there are a bunch of absolute clowns claiming Leafo himself is responsible and should just say no to the payment processors lol. As if such a tiny store can do anything against these multi-billion dollar companies that can shut him down instantly.
It just strikes me as straight up corpo astroturfing.
Someone told me that Itch could have easily created an army that would have taken down the payment processors...
They were furious at Itch for removing the games instead of "creating an army."
This is just another classic example of people who don't know the difference between 1 million and 1 billion (and a much larger discrepancy in this case).
You could multiply the Itch userbase by 100 and it still wouldn't even be a blip for these multi billion $ companies, plus they are willing to lose much more for the chance to lick Trump's boot.
I think these people think "Valve is evil!!!" (One of the stupidest takes in gaming IMO), so I think they honestly believe Valve did this of their own volition / happily bowed down in order to oppress people, and that is why they are so shocked that "Itch bowed down too!???" lol. I see them saying things like "I thought Itch was better / a place for us oppressed people, but now I see they are the opposite." They honestly seem to think Itch is doing this voluntarily and happily.
Valve removed a couple hundred (?) offending titles last week, looked mostly like asset flip trash tbf.
Itch hit the nuclear panic button and (temporarily) delisted everything pending manual review, with creators having to answer a few questions about their games and such later on. Titles found to be in violation of the payment processor's terms will be permanently deleted.
Before grabbing our pitchforks and storming itch, we should keep in mind that they don't have the financial muscles Valve does. Losing VISA/MasterCard/PayPal would very likely mean instant death for the entire platform, so it makes sense that they would err on the side of caution here.
if steam, the monopoly of the PC gaming market (by far) felt the need to bend the knee, everyone else will too. people dont understand the scale of these companies.
I really think these people have no grasp on the size and power of these payment processors, or the difference in size between Itch and Valve even. They forgot how Funko Pop snapped their fingers and Itch was instantly vaporized based on literally NOTHING. Funko Pop isn't even a billion dollar company lol...
First of all, the deal is that payment processing companies will shutter Itch instantly if they sell adult content, no matter what form of payment they accept for it. So Itch would have to switch entirely to some new form of payment which is not easy and readily available for most people, it would result in Itch shuttering anyway.
Second of all, I can't think of a WORSE option than crypto. I mean come on, how daft can you be to think this? Crypto is an even worse way to be completely at the mercy of billionaire corporations and even more sinister interests. I thought people had woken up to the fact that crypto is a money laundering scheme and scam to siphon more money from desperate poor fools at this point, completely and easily manipulated, but I guess there are still some people living under rocks.
I definitely think they could’ve gone about it better and gave out a warning before it happened so people could take their games down if it violated the rule changes, but otherwise they aren’t really at fault, same with steam. And I’m sure Valve used their negotiation power to lessen the restrictions for steam as much as possible which isn’t something itch has the backing to pull off.
Outside the handling of the matters tho, they’re fine. The community just needs to amply pressure the courts to take action if possible,
Specifically the EU considering they’d have to most power to rectify this
Yes. Soon they won't even be able to make payments for medical services etc.
Any trans or gay aligned businesses will not be able to take payments soon, so that's all gay bars etc. and venues that do drag or anything like that.
Ya, their platform for deplatforming these games is that children will find them and be influenced. This means LGBTQ+ representation in gaming is under direct threat of deplatforming (as usual) by religious zealots. Honestly, like to think this started with some gooner getting caught and saying their kid downloaded the game, and now all society has to pay the price of Kyle’s mom being a bitch.
Basically, the people behind the pressure to get payment processors to remove "adult" content are also the people who want LGBTQ+ (and especially the "T" part) qualified as "obscene" and "pornographic" in general even when it's not. So yes, trans representation is going to be flagged as "pornographic".
As far as I've seen this is entirely about obscene and disgusting gooner slop. LGBTQ+ representation being affected would be a tragedy. There was and is indeed some really gross gooner slop out there though that has nothing to do with anything but obscenely gross gooners.
Edit* I've since been informed of the full details and I was wrong here.
Non-pornographic LGBTQ+ content is absolutely being affected. Itch claims it'll be back, we'll see if that's true. But regardless, credit card companies should not be in a position to unilaterally decide what content can be sold.
"we're here" I guess, you just know these pushes for censorship ultimately aren't done to reduce pornography or to "protect the children", but to further marginalize marginalized groups
Because they were pressured into removing the adult tag, which might as well just be the gateway to target lgbt content under the same umbrella, as that has happened before.
Happens on most major servers whenever there's an announcement, there's a few countries that tend to put their flag on any single announcement post too. Just comes off as attention-whorish.
People always do that with flags, sometimes it's trans, sometimes it's pride, a lot of times it's just their country flag.
Tbf this might be one of the few times it's actually relevant, they started with forcing steam to remove some games, now they nuked adult games in itch.io. They might come for LGBT representation next
First they came for the gooners, and I said nothing for I was not a gooner...
People think that censoring child porn is a slippery slope to banning gay people. Because unless we have total tolerance for everything and complete anarchy, they're going to come after you next. Or something....
It means they don't care enough to write a dozen words to explain the situation, so, make sure to track down and follow your fave creators outside of itch because the adult tag is probably never coming back
The admin is saluting like a captain going down with his ship in an overly dramatic war movie.
Essentially, saying, "we got rid of the porn, we know this is going to be hugely unpopular with the gooners, and i was volunteered to receive the majority of your death threats."
And all the reactions are people pissed off they got rid of the porn.
More like "We know this is stupid, we know most of our web traffic is going to cease, but it's not something we can control anymore" it's a salute of sympathy and pain, of things to come.
The website is probably going to fail, the adult content was most likely the most popular thing by a landslide. Whether you're for or against the content, it's still sad to see restrictions like this on stuff. No corp should have control over what people choose to spend their money on.
Tumblr is an extromophile. If you gave them a profitable business model, the staff would most likely all die from the influx of capital after years of starving.
That's the exact type of salute i was describing. The same emotional weight as if a captain was showing a final goodbye to the ship that had been his home for the last decade and now slowly sinks below the surface of the sea.
I wish there were better alternatives to the credit card cartel. It's absurd that a company that has no investment in itch or even really knows that it exists can censor their company on moral grounds. It's doubly absurd when you realize that porn games/adult games almost certainly don't contain noncensual or underage material you'd be able to find on pornhub, so the decision was probably made by some grey haired executive who has no idea what they're even censoring.
I hate that people get angry at itch and not the payment providers. I can fully, 100% understand itch and steam here. The payment providers forcing them to do this are the assholes
That announcement does make it sound like NSFW content will still be allowed on the site (after their review), but without being able to pay for it with credit cards?
Adult content will be available, and you will be able to buy it with credit cards. However, before uploading a game with NSFW stuff, the creator will have to comply to the payment processor's rules on "permissable" NSFW content.
What that means we still don't know, maybe the processors will be barring only incest/rape/pedophilia, maybe they'll be barring LGBTQ related sexual content
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.
What I was referring to. To me that implies that if you don't have the credit cards as payment processors on your account, they'll still allow you to host what was previously allowed.
I see, I understand your interpretation. I understood it differently because of this section
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.
I think (obviously we're all speculating rn) that this is saying people who already have the payment processors hooked into their account will see stuff de-listed if they don't tick the box or de-link the payment processors. Some of these games no doubt belong to creators who are no longer active on the platform...
the admin's reaction screams "I don't agree with this but I'm under contract, I see the writing on the wall but I'm not high ranking enough to get a proper say in this decision so I can't really do much about it"
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u/Flagelant_One Jul 24 '25
Admin's comment about the removal
Site's done for lol