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Itch.io are seeking out new payment processors who are more comfortable with adult material
(www.rockpapershotgun.com)
this post was submitted on 30 Jul 2025
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I criticised how apologetic itch.io's statement was towards the payment mafia, but credits where it's due:
Going nuclear was the smart move. I seriously doubt this censorship wave would've gathered so much attention if itch.io only delisted games with the content the mafia is currently going against. It helps to avoid that slippery slope, where people turn a blind eye to small violations of their agency until it's on something that personally matters to them.
It's also sensible to look for alternatives, so it doesn't need to rely on the mafia on first place. A bit too late, but better late than never.
Did they even have the option not to go nuclear? From the sounds of their blog post, they would have spent the proper amount of time to do what they were being "asked" (threatened) to do, if they were even given time to do so. They said their preferred decision would have been to ask every NSFW dev if they complied with the payment processors they accept, but the time they were expected to implement all that was so short that they couldn't do that fairly.
Yes: hide only the games tagged "adult" (subset tag), instead of all games tagged "nsfw" (superset tag), to reduce the disruption. And then work swiftly to relist the adult games with content not being targeted by the payment mafia. Even if itch.io showed one or two false negatives, it would already be a clear sign of good will towards the mafia.
I'm glad the people working there did not do this though. I hope itch io lets the disruption stays on, for as long as possible; preferably affecting as many non-adult games as possible.