Steam, Itch.io Pressure Visa and Mastercard over Adult Game Restrictions

Angry gamers have launched a coordinated effort against the payment processors they blame for the crackdown after websites like Steam and itch.io banned the sale of adult games. Although the campaign is still in its infancy, people are organizing in hopes of clogging up Visa and Mastercard’s and other firms’ communication channels in a way that will make the issue unavoidable.

Following an open letter from the Australian anti-porn group Collective Shout, payment platforms demand that providers delete offensive material, leading to claims of censorship.

In response to a campaign by an Australian anti-porn lobby organization, payment companies like Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe are receiving criticism from the public, including billionaire Elon Musk, for forcing online gaming platforms to take hundreds of games down.

In an attempt to avoid blocking payments for games across its whole service, independent gaming portal Itch.io this week eliminated all adult or not-safe-for-work (NSFW) titles from its collection.

In order to ensure we can continue to operate and provide a marketplace for all developers,” Itch.io announced that it was caving in to pressure from payment providers.

Following an open letter organized by Collective Shout, an Australian organization that opposes the sexualization of women and girls, the action was taken. It demanded on July 14 that payment processors stop serving gaming sites Steam and Itch.io, alleging that hundreds of their games featured incest, rape, and sexual violence.

However, Itch.io’s quick compliance meant that all NSFW pornographic content was removed from browsing and search, at least temporarily, in addition to the content in Collective Shout’s claim. Additionally, several games were completely eliminated.

For itchy.io, this is an important moment. The company stated that the team had to take immediate action to safeguard the platform’s essential payment infrastructure because the situation quickly worsened.

Unfortunately, this meant that giving creators advance warning before implementing this modification was not feasible. The team apologize for the suddenness of this adjustment and acknowledge that it is not ideal.

Itch.io has refuted user reports that they were unable to play games that were taken from the market despite having already paid for them.

A small but vociferous advocacy organization called Collective Shout has long advocated for a mandatory internet filter that would bar all Australians from accessing adult content. Before Australia’s social media prohibition for children under 16 takes effect in December, its director, Melinda Tankard Reist, was recently named to the stakeholder advisory board for the government’s age assurance technology trial.

In Australia, Collective Shout frequently targets video games and underwear advertising in their ads campaigns. Although it has lately advocated for Elon Musk’s X to outlaw adult content, its recent campaign against gaming sites has drawn world-wide attention.

Video game marketplaces Itch.io and Steam have said they have changed their policies in the two weeks since they published the letters addressed to major payment providers like PayPal, Mastercard, and Visa.

Due to pressure from payment processors, Steam, which boasts an estimated 132 million monthly active players, banned hundreds of titles earlier this month.

Since the campaign’s introduction, Tankard Reist and her colleagues have been overwhelmed with “abuse, harassment, rape, and death threats,” which they were gathering to submit to the police and the eSafety commissioner, according to Reist.

More than 147,000 people had signed a Change.org petition by Monday, urging payment processors to “stop controlling what we can watch, read, or play.”

It stated, “No one is compelled to interact with content that they find objectionable, but they have no right to restrict what others can enjoy, particularly when it is within the law’s bounds.” 

A temporary decision by Itch.io’s to delete all NSFW content led to the removal of games with LGBTQ+ themes, whereas Collective Shout only targeted titles that it claimed broke payment platform standards.

A member of the LGBTQ+ community who signed the petition expressed fear that a ban on sexually explicit games would be the first step toward a crackdown on LGBTQ+ content.

“Prohibiting sexual content always includes non-sexual content as well. Therefore, defending the freedom to sexual expression is essential to defending my right to exist,” they stated.

Tankard Reist stated that the goal of the campaign was not to completely ban NSFW games, pointing out that Itch.io had stated that it would implement compliance procedures for NSFW pages to let games as long as they adhered to the rules of the payment processor associated with their account.

“After Itch.io’s review, it’s likely that a lot of games will be added back to the platform,” she stated. “Payment processors have the right to choose the services they offer based on their mission, values, and CSR [corporate social responsibility],” which is offered.

When asked if her group’s concerns would have been better addressed by the new Online Safety Act rules, which limit access to information that is rejected categorization in Australia and require age verification for adult content, Tankard Reist said that the problem is not unique to Australia.

“There are no boundaries to the internet. “We felt these games perpetuated misogyny in general and male violence against women, which affects women and girls everywhere,” she said. She stated that Collective Shout “could not afford to wait” to see if the age verification and codes would work.

Visa and Mastercard were contacted for their opinions. When asked for a comment, Steam did not reply.

A PayPal representative stated that the company was unable to comment on specific clients as PayPal is dedicated to keeping its users’ platforms safe. We will not tolerate any illegal action at all. They declared that any accounts linked to unlawful behaviour would be terminated.

Customers claim that customer support agents are moving from being perplexed to restating that their issues are being “heard” in another well-liked Reddit thread.

The original poster states, “I will be calling them again in a few days to see if there is any progress on changing the situation.”

The experience could be best summed up by another comment in that thread: “Hate campaigns and gooning are really the only two things that can bring gamers together.”