Hello everyone.

The Itch situation

I'm sure a lot of you might know this by now but, in case you don't, there's been an awful situation going on with Itch.io: they have shadowbanned almost all the creations in their platform that were tagged NSFW or Adult, making it impossible to find through their search bar. To add to this, certain titles have been REMOVED altogether without any warning; like Ebihime's game, Sweeter Monster Refrain. 

I'm not completely sure how this shadowban is working, because I've also seen other games (like games from simpfordepress) that didn't have those tags and yet I couldn't find them through Itch's search bar either (unless I missed something.) 

That's not all... games that talk about stories of sexual trauma, abuse, and even eating disorders are ALSO being targeted; not just "pornographic games". 

Why has this happened?

 Basically, Itch has been pressured to do this by its payment processors, Visa and Mastercard, who were, in turn, pressured by an Australian based campaign of radical feminists called Collective Shout. 

Itch is not the first website that has been targeted to ban adult content; Steam was too. And even BEFORE Steam it was certain Japanese websites like DLSite.

If you'd like to understand more about this issue, Penguinz0 made a really good video explaining the situation concisely. I recommend you give it a watch, it's just around 15 minutes long:

While the main culprits here are very clearly Visa, Mastercard and Collective Shout, I have to say that the way Itch handled the situation was NOT good. 

This happened overnight, there was no warning whatsoever, and games that shouldn't have been targeted in the first place were still targeted nonetheless.

Why is this bad?

Regardless of whether you create and/or consume NSFW content or not, it is undeniable that censorship is NO BUENO. Today it starts with thing A, tomorrow is thing B and then, when you're not even finished being shocked about those two, it's thing C. 

CENSORSHIP IS BAD FOR EVERYONE.

First of all, why should a payment processor decide what an adult does with THEIR money? Unless it's something illegal, that's none of their fucking business and, frankly, them and these Collective Shout supposed "feminists" labelling ALL adult content as "inappropriate" is disgusting (especially considering Collective Shout's hypocrisy.)

Secondly, media that explores sexuality and sexual themes is REALLY important. It can educate, it can entertain, it can be a form of art. Adult content is not evil. NSFW creators should be allowed to express themselves without having the self-proclaimed moral police breathing down their necks. 

How was I affected by this?

I was fortunate that my games weren't targeted by itch.io, but I can't say I'm calm about the whole situation. As many of you know, I am someone on the ace spectrum and, in my personal case, not comfortable with tackling sexual themes in my stories nor having my characters be sexualized. 

However, pretty much ALL of my games have LGBTQIA+ themes and many even delve into more dark and/or mature themes (like abuse, physical violence and murder, to name a few); which is why I always recommend that games like Where Winter Crows Go & Killer Trait are only played by audiences of 17+ years.

Because of this, I have decided to start selling Where Winter Crows Go on my Ko-Fi shop as a digital build instead of the previous digital itch.io keys. This build contains, of course, all of the available platforms: Windows, Mac, Linux & Android.

I'm still not sure if I'll do the same with all of my other games (regardless of whether they're free or not), but it's a possibility. What I DO know with certainty is that, once it's completed, Killer Trait will also be available for purchase through Ko-Fi and, just like WWCG, it will be in its digital build format instead of a digital itch.io key.

Not going to lie, this whole situation has had me really bummed. A lot of my friends, acquaintances and also NSFW creators whose content I enjoy (Celianna, to put an example) were affected by this, and the uncertainty of what will happen in the future is very scary. As mentioned in the section above, if this censorship thing keeps up... it will not stop at only NSFW/Adult/Erotic tagged games. 

Is there something we can do?

Yes. First of all, we can help a lot by supporting the creators who were affected by this censorship. Devs like Rosario and Kaiju have been making lists that detail works from several NSFW creators who were targeted by this extremely unfair censorship. 

Please, check them out if you can!

Another way we can help is by calling/sending emails to Visa/Mastercard/PayPal/Stripe to make a complaint about this censorship going on and tell them to stop. From what I've been seeing online, it seems that calls are more effective than emails.

Here are a few documents that have been going around with a lot of information about how to help: 

Anti-Censorship Campaign

Protecting Queer Creators and Sex Workers

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I also encourage you to read the experience of other creators (Chattercap, Chimeriquement, Meiri, Concrete Parasite, Stealth, BigMamaFatCat, GB Patch Games) regarding this issue and their stance on it. 

Thank you for reading until the end and, as always, thank you very much for all the support!

-Pri