After payment service providers complained: itch.io also removes sex games
Following Steam, itch.io, now also bowed to pressure from payment service providers and removed sex games. The reason was a complaint from an organization.
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Sex games are also to be removed from itch.io: The gaming store specializing in indie games has removed numerous games with lewd content from its search index for now, writes platform founder Leaf “leafo” Corcoran in a blog post. This step was necessary due to a complaint from payment service providers.
The games removed from the search index will now be reviewed individually, Corcoran explains in the blog post. “As part of this review, some sites will be permanently removed from itch.io.” Valve had already removed numerous sex games from the Steam gaming platform last week in response to a complaint from payment service providers.
Women's rights organization initiates blocks
Behind this complaint is the Australian women's rights organization Collective Shout, which Corcoran mentions by name in his blog post. The organization recently published an open letter to payment service providers in which the undersigned activists denounce sex games on Steam and other gaming platforms. The open letter is addressed to the heads of companies such as PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard.
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“We have discovered hundreds of games with rape, incest, and child sexual abuse on Steam and Itch.io,” the signatories write in the letter. “We urge you to live up to your corporate social responsibility and immediately stop processing payments on Steam and Itch.io, as well as other platforms where similar games are offered.”
In a blog entry, Collective Shout is delighted with the results of the campaign: “This is a great success for women and girls.” Journalist Ana Valens recently reported on the sometimes misleading claims that the women's rights organization has made about video games in recent years for Vice magazine. However, according to Valens, Savage Ventures, Vice's parent company, had the report blocked shortly after publication due to the controversial subject matter.
Relationships with payment partners have “priority”
The expulsion of sex games from Steam and itch.io continues to cause a stir in the gaming community. The anger is particularly directed at the payment service providers: many users criticize the rights to control content that the payment providers ascribe to themselves.
Itch.io founder Corcoran writes that they were unable to resist the pressure from the companies: “Our ability to process payments is essential for every developer on our platform. To ensure that we can continue our operations and provide a marketplace for all developers, we must prioritize our relationships with our payment partners and take immediate action to comply.”
On itch.io you can pay via PayPal or Stripe. PayPal's policy excludes the purchase of sexually oriented content via digital media.
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