<
https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/31/credit-card-companies-fielding-a-ton-of-complaints-over-nsfw-games-disappearing-on-platforms/>
"A week or so ago, Karl Bode wrote about
Vice Media’s idiotic decision to
disappear several articles that had been written by its
Waypoint property
concerning Collective Shout. Collective Shout is an Australian group that
pretends to be a feminist organization, when, in reality, it operates much more
like any number of largely evangelical groups bent on censoring any content
that doesn’t align with their own viewpoints (which they insist become your
viewpoints as well). The point of Karl’s post was to correctly point out that
Collective Shout’s decision to go after the payment processors for the major
video game marketplaces over their offering NSFW games shouldn’t be hidden from
the public in the interest of clickbait non-journalism.
But that whole thing about Collective Shout putting on a pressure campaign on
payment processors is in and of itself a big deal, as is the response to it.
Both Steam and itch.io recently either removed or de-indexed a ton of games
they’re labeling NSFW, chiefly along guidelines clearly provided by the credit
card companies themselves. Now, Collective Shout will tell you that it is
mostly interested in going after games that depict vile actions in some ways,
such as rape, child abuse, and incest.
No Mercy. That’s the name of the incest-and-rape-focused game that was
geo-blocked in Australia this April, following a campaign by the local
pressure group Collective Shout. The group, which stands against “the
increasing pornification of culture”, then set its sights on a broader
target – hundreds of other games they identified as featuring rape, incest,
or child sexual abuse on Steam and itch.io. “We approached payment
processors because Steam did not respond to us,” said the group of its
latest campaign.
The move was effective. Steam began removing sex-related games it deemed to
violate the standards of its payment processors, presenting the choice as a
tradeoff in a statement to Rock Paper Shotgun: “We are retiring those
games from being sold on the Steam Store, because loss of payment methods
would prevent customers from being able to purchase other titles and game
content on Steam.”
Itch.io followed that up shortly afterwards with its de-indexing plan, but went
further and did this with all NSFW games offered on the platform. Unlike Steam,
itch.io was forthcoming as to their reasoning for its actions. And they were
remarkably simple.
“Our ability to process payments is critical for every creator on our
platform,” Corcoran said. “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.”
Digital marketplaces being unable to collect payment through trusted partners
would be, to put it tersely, the end of their business. Those same payment
processors can get predictably itchy about partnering with platforms that host
content that someone out there, or many someones as part of a coordinated
campaign, may not like for fear that will sully their reputation. And because
these are private companies we’re talking about, their fear along with any of
their own sense of morality are at play here. The end result is a digital world
filled with digital marketplaces that all exist under an umbrella of god-like
payment processors that can pretty much dictate to those other private entities
what can be on offer and what cannot."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
