No. To be honest I kind of dread visiting their website in case they happen to be nutters.
Sure, I’m just saying the details are important - I’m not familiar with the Tumblr situation, but IIRC part of the OnlyFans kerfuffle involved “whistleblower” complaints to FinCEN, for example, which had the potential to involve federal investigators. It’d be helpful to gain a clearer understanding of the degree to which compliance vs reputational risk is driving these actions, and the mechanisms they’ve got set up to evaluate and respond to complaints.
1 Like
Here’s the Wikipedia article on Collective Shout.
4 Likes
I had read it already. Told me nothing much except they seem to come from the conservative side. It’s exactly what you would expect from such a Mothers-of-the-Nation type group. They are having a bit of a private war with the “my favourite violent game is not also sexist” brigade, sure. I still think reducing their pearl-clutching to sinister motives against minorities is going a bit far.
2 Likes
Actually, I’m realizing the thing I saw someone post was a letter to those companies asking them to take action, not from those companies - apologies, the perils of trying to catch up with a ton of stuff just upon waking up. This does make me think it’s business as usual, though I continue to think some digging here would be warranted.
5 Likes
Feel free to skip this entire post. I just need to let it out.
One of most vulnerable projects – trilogy of NeoTwiny 2024 entries, let the lights bleed, leave the lights on, and turn the lights off – have been delisted. The entire series is now available only through direct links or through going on my profile. I wasn’t hit as hard as those who had their games deleted straight up but you need to understand that most people who read through the Primary Lights trilogy aren’t people who regularly follow me. If it wasn’t for browsing the adult section on itch, they’d never come across it.
Why am I talking about it? Because this series is all about going through sexual trauma and complicated feelings that come with it. Because those strangers that weren’t following my work before came across it randomly on God’s green internet, and they found a place where their pain was understood. They found a place where they could admit that they’ve been hurt. They found a piece of art that they could point at and say “this is how I felt”. I’m not just saying that, this is what I was told in comments, reviews, DMs.
How many other projects which present the perspective of a victim/survivor were also hit? How many people who processed what happened to them in their art were struck as acceptable collateral damage? How many people who need to feel understood, who need to know they’re not alone in horrid things that happened to them, who need courage and words to tell the world yes, it happened to me – how many people will stay in silence that was enforced upon them to “protect them”?
I’m just angry and heartbroken.
26 Likes
The people behind this won’t have actually played your games or any of the games affected. This is coming from the perspective of people who believe that “video games glorify violence” and probably can’t conceive of games as an artform and a form of personal self-expression.
However the owners of Itch io do understand that I’m sure, and I’m hoping this is just a protective measure to ensure the whole site doesn’t get taken down. Hopefully they will come up with a better solution over the next few weeks. Fingers crossed.
5 Likes
There’s at least some developments in this regard. I just read a Discord excerpt from someone related to Itchio that read something like this:
i do not post in here for “pity”. i am simply trying my best to inform the community what is happening and let people know we are working on the situation and trying to mitigate further harm to our sellers from a fascist group manipulating the giant corporations that control all marketplaces’ ability to operate and serve their sellers.
At least, they know the stakes.
11 Likes
Agree with JJ and Kastel: the itch post don’t hide the fact that have done everything in haste and under pressure.
On what pressure. I can’t vouch all on the obvious one (a short-term ultimatum/blackmail centered on payments) because my gut feeling (of a trained historian and political scientist) is that there’s not only money into this pressuring.
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
A post was merged into an existing topic: Fascism - Off Topic
Not only is this not new, but its downright ancient as far as the Internet is concerned. Online communities dedicated to the erotic arts and erotic artists with their own personal websites that have relied on donations or selling of premium content to keep them online have struggled with payment processors being unfriendly towards erotic content since at least the days when I had to lie about my age to access the free content on such sites and wasn’t allowed to keep my money anywhere but in a custodial savings account jointly held with my father and thus couldn’t access the paid content had I wanted to… and I turn 39 in a little under 3 months, so this kind of thing has been going on for probably a quarter of a century or longer at this point.
Granted, 20 years ago, the internet was much less centralized, Facebook and Reddit were still new, Twitter and Tumblr didn’t exist yet, Discord and Itch were far off, Steam was around, but I don’t think it had established itself as the hub for PC gaming yet… In those days, erotic games on the Internet were mostly flash/JavaScript(Breakout clones where the blocks are some anime girl’s clothes and you get a nude version of the drawing for winning were a dime a dozen) games distributed on forums like this or small downloads from the personal websites of Japanese artists. When the anti-porn brigade got a win, it was usually against an individual site or artist and you’d only hear about it if you visited the affected site or it got brought up on another 18+ internet forum. Only case from back then where a mainstream site suddenly turned on users uploading adult content instead of it being officially banned from the get go I can think of is when Fanfiction.net got rid of their NC-17 rating, and even then, it just lead to erotic fanfic writers posting elsewhere or slipping their stories in under the R/M rating(No clue when FF.net shifted from a G/PG/PG-13/R system to a K/K+/T/M system for their ageist censorship, and its not like enforcement was ever that great).
4 posts were merged into an existing topic: Fascism - Off Topic
Let’s not go off-topic, please. This thread already has a perfectly good reason to blow up – let’s not turn it into an AI blowup thread too.
8 Likes
anyway, good (or neutral, depends on POV on bad english) news, hopefully morale-booster: I anticipate the release of the preview of Isekai from the 29th to tomorrow, 25th of July, 2025, late afternoon in Italy, that is, 24 hrs from now.
Will be uploaded first on the announcement thread, then on the IF archive, so will be here to stay. Forever, Till the End of Time ! 
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
2 Likes
itchio decided to ban my 2018 IF Comp game Bi Lines. That game is not erotic or kinky. It’s a serious depiction of trauma via sexual assault. After looking further, it might be because of the tags on the game, but still. What the fuck is this shit?
I’ve discussed the matter more on Twitter & Bluesky.
Also, ironically, none of the games on my ACTUAL NSFW account have been affected. Hope I don’t jinx things by saying that lmao!
15 Likes
What the fuck???!!! That series is amazing and tough and beautiful and it didn’t deserve that! FUCK!
4 Likes
I have found that you cannot search for my adult games by name on itch, and the “erotic” tag seems to be non functional. My games are still listed under my profile and I would assume can still be direct-linked to.
I get it a bit, there was a lot of trash porn on the site, but it was working where if you metadata that your work is NSFW it will never be listed in searches unless people are opted in - which also requires the author knows where to check the box and does it correctly. Perhaps they needed to scour all the entries and do this. I’d recommend that when you publish a game they poke a dialog at you ‘is this game 18+’ to make sure it gets marked. That would be the optimal outcome if they strengthen this tagging.
Testing links - robotsexpartymurder is adult and NSFW.
3 Likes
One of my games (that was not public at this point in time but accessible through a password) was given a warning because I have the NSFW box checked + the “adult” tag – I’ve since removed it from itchio and made a backup of game page and files. There is no sexual content in the game that was removed, I had tagged it as NSFW for certain subjects in the game and for gore/violence. Out of an overabundance of caution, I’ve also opted to remove all the lesbian and transgender tags from all of my games and keeping only the bare minimum of organizational tags/the no-ai tag.
I will not be releasing any games that contain potentially NSFW content from this point onward, and especially not on itchio.
5 Likes
I’m not exactly certain because I’m surfing on a phone but it seems both Ruin of OP and A Train to Piccadilly have been shadowbanned. If someone can check it out for me it would be cool.
Both had the “adult” tag (who forces people to testify they are at least 18 to d/l them), while A1RL0CK, which is visible, is tagged “adult-content”
Ofc there’s no hint of sex in any of those games… the underage girl in a skinny suit is in the visible game, if one wants to go around sharpening d**ks.
1 Like
With my tin-foil hat on;
I think it’s an attack on software as independent IP in general. They always start with the low hanging fruit that won’t cause too much push-back from the general public. The idea is to introduce regulation. The end game is a gatekeeper from whom you need permission make games (and software products in general). A licence, and to pay for it too.
The billionaires of the world can’t be having the little people making money without being controlled. And paying for it. Banning free stuff is just collateral damage.
I don’t think for a minute this really originates from radical pressure groups. Banks (and the finance industry) do not just bend over for small groups. It’s the other way around. These fake “pressure groups” are politically funded false flags. They’re being paid to follow an agenda, I’m sure.
For years, I’ve been wondering when the money elite will get so greedy, they can’t allow people to create stuff that doesn’t belong to them.
I think this is the start of it.
3 Likes