Adult games are forcing the game industry into a spiritual crisis

itch.io is the latest storefront to curb the sale of adult and “NSFW” content on its platform due to pressure from payment processors like Visa and Mastercard. As of Thursday, the indie-focused platform has de-indexed adult content such that it is no longer visible or searchable on the site. Some pages for adult games on will be “permanently removed from itch.io,” its owners say.

“The situation developed rapidly, and we had to act urgently to protect the platform’s core payment infrastructure,” wrote itch.io creator Leaf Corcoran in a blog post. “Unfortunately, this meant it was not realistic to provide creators with advance notice before making this change. We know this is not ideal, and we apologize for the abruptness of this change.”

itch.io’s move arrives after major PC gaming platform Steam also started a crackdown against sex games that resulted in the delisting of hundreds of titles. A Valve representative tells Polygon that Steam enacted these changes due to payment processors, and that the company complied because “loss of payment methods would prevent customers from being able to purchase other titles and game content on Steam.” itch.io similarly stated in its announcement that, while the decision to stop selling adult games feels sudden, it moved quickly to “protect the platform’s core payment infrastructure.”

Currently, itch.io is undergoing a comprehensive audit to examine potentially offending games to ensure that they meet the requirements set forth by payment processors. Neither Valve or itch.io shared any specifics on what exactly those requirements are — and the lack of clarity has proven contentious for game developers and fans alike. In the future, creators of NSFW games will need to confirm that their games follow the vaguely-defined payment processor compliance measures before they can sell games on the platform.

On social media, the adult games issue has become a caustic one as onlookers fear the potential long-term repercussions of allowing third-parties to dictate what is and isn’t acceptable on a platform. Outrage has also spilled over the knowledge that many of these game removals are happening due to a campaign levied by the conservative Australian group Collective Shout. Back in April, the collective wrote an open letter to payment processors claiming that platforms like Steam were “profiting from rape, incest + child abuse” games. The letter lists a number of executives at these companies by name and title.

Collective Shout’s main argument against the sale of games with adult themes is the existence of a game titled No Mercy, which allowed players to sexually assault women as they saw fit. However, No Mercy was pulled off of Steam the day before the open letter was penned. While some games do touch on topics listed in the open letter, a number of games do not — but the games have been impacted all the same.

For some, the sale of games with unsavory subjects does not seem like a hill worth dying on. In this case, the furor is driven by the knowledge that Collective Shout isn’t merely against games like No Mercy. It’s also waged a campaign against titles like Detroit: Become Human, Quantic Dream’s adventure game that is decidedly not an “adult” game, and titles like hentai puzzle/dating sim Huniepop. The worry is that, by bucking to pressure from groups like Collective Shout, platforms like Steam pave the way for more extreme censorship measures.

“It is a VERY fucking slippery slope and a very quick slope for the right wing religious group to go from ‘no sex games’ to ‘no games with any LGBTQ+ themes, either’,” reads one Reddit comment on the controversy. The slippery slope argument has caught traction because Collective Shout has already shown contempt for games like Grand Theft Auto 5, which, while controversial, is not comparable to a game designed solely for the purposes of simulating assault. Onlookers fear that the group will move on to other targets that merely contain sex in some form or other after it successfully lobbies against games primarily focused on sex.

Another aspect that’s added fuel to the fire is that platforms like Steam and itch.io delisting adult content has already had consequences outside of the realm of storefronts. Vice gaming vertical Waypoint covered the topic earlier this week, only to see its article on Collective Shout pulled by management. The author of the original article, alongside a handful of other freelancers, quit in revolt.

Elsewhere, gamers are starting to mobilize against Collective Shout. Attention is being called to a bill that proposes limiting the extent to which payment processors can interfere with business decisions on the basis of political or reputational concerns. Fans are urging others to contact their local government representatives to voice their concerns. A petition against payment processors has garnered 48,000 votes on Change.org, and there are errant discussions about starting a movement much like the one behind Stop Killing Games.

Whether or not these actions will make a difference in the sale of adult games is unclear, but the discussions around the topic have taken an existential turn. Platforms like itch.io were celebrated because of their willingness to sell games that couldn’t exist on other storefronts, and creators of adult games have been some of the platform’s biggest champions. The immediate yielding to parties with ill intentions has eroded goodwill toward these platforms, if not shattered the illusion that the PC is an emancipated space compared to more buttoned-up landscape of consoles. For others, pressure from payment processors are an affront to their very identities.

“My community has routinely been unjustly targeted by bigots, who often use porn bans as a means to justify the banning as non-pornographic content,“ reads one comment on the online petition. ”As a result, I am heavily [opposed] to any and all banning of sexual content, because banning sexual content never stops there, it always include non-sexual things. As such the fight to protect peoples’ right to sexual expression is vital for protecting my right to exist.

itch.io’s creator says that he will share more information on what’s allowed on the platform in the future. For now, though, he’s apologetic about this turn of events.

“I’m sorry we can not share more at this time as we are still getting a full understanding of the situation ourselves,” he wrote.