Trade organizations across the games industry and gamers are speaking out against censorship campaigns taking place across Steam and Itch.io in an effort to help developers who have been unfairly impacted. The push against adult content is being driven by Australian conservative group Collective Shout, whose pressuring of payment processors has forced platforms to mass deindex NSFW content. In the wake of these delistings, which remove games from search, developers are scrambling to understand if their games have been impacted and why.
On platforms like Bluesky, users are compiling lists of “censored artists” with NSFW pieces and unsearchable Itch pages, whether it’s games or comics, many of whom identify their work as LGBTQ+ or kink friendly. WIRED was able to find several of these pages via Google, all of which were tagged by their creators in that document as LGBT and NSFW, but not with Itch’s search tools.
According to the International Game Developers Association, a nonprofit that supports game developers, this kind of censorship disproportionately affects developers who are queer, trans and people of color, on top affecting a creator’s income and reputation.
In a statement given to WIRED, executive director Jakin Vela says that the IGDA is “seriously alarmed” by the delistings and payment disruptions of adult-themed games on Steam and Itch. “Globally and politically, we are at a crossroads for developer rights, creative freedom, and platform accountability,” he says. “The right to make mature games with legal adult content is a creative right, just like the right to tell stories about war, death, or love.”
Over the past few months, Collective Shout has been campaigning to get “rape and incest” games removed from online platforms. The group began applying pressure to payment processors such as Visa and Mastercard; Valve removed hundreds titles, some of which included incest.
Other developers, however, such as the creators of horror game Vile: Exhumed, say their games did not violate these standards. “Vile: Exhumed was not banned for its use of gore in storytelling, or violent themes,” wrote developer Cara Cadaver in an update. “It was banned for ‘sexual content with depictions of real people,’ which, if you played it, you know is all implied, making this all feel even worse. I refuse to censor or make changes to the game, I will not retell a story about these topics in a way to make people who don’t understand feel more comfortable.” Valve did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, Itch has deindexed all adult NSFW content. According to GameFile, that applies to over 20,000 games. “Our ability to process payments is critical for every creator on our platform,” founder Leaf Corcoran wrote at the time. “To ensure that we can continue to operate and provide a marketplace for all developers, we must prioritize our relationship with our payment partners and take immediate steps towards compliance.” Itch did not respond to a request for comment.
The company has suspended its Stripe payments on 18+ content “for the foreseeable future” and is “actively reaching out to other payment processors that are more willing to work with this kind of content.”
Reached for comment, Stripe spokesperson Casey Becker said that the company does not comment on users. “Generally speaking, we take action when we conclude that users violate our terms of service,” Becker says. “We do not support adult content.” The company has a longstanding policy of not working with adult content services.
