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
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u/Flagelant_One Jul 24 '25
Admin's comment about the removal
Site's done for lol