this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2025
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"We approached payment processors because Steam did not respond" - Australian pressure group Collective Shout claims responsibility for Steam and Itch.io NSFW game removal (www.eurogamer.net)
submitted 6 days ago by moe90@feddit.nl to c/games@lemmy.world
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tldr: Australian pressure group Collective Shout has claimed responsibility for the recent Itch.io and Steam developments that have seen the platforms change how they deal with - and in some cases remove - NSFW games and content from their respective platforms.

The group had already been closely linked with the situation, which has seen Itch.io and Steam scramble to appease payment providers like Visa as they suddenly took an interest in the kind of games available on the platforms, especially those which contravened rules and "standards" the payment providers apparently had. It led to Itch.io deindexing all NSFW content from its browse and search pages, and Steam introducing vague new rules about adult content, while removing a slew of games.

"In response to false claims and misinformation about our campaign, we're setting the record straight," wrote Collective Shout in a Facebook update. "Some have asked why we involved payment processors, and others have claimed we are responsible for Itch.io removing all NSFW content.

"We raised our objection to r*pe and incest games on Steam for months, and they ignored us for months. We approached payment processors because Steam did not respond to us.

"We called on Itch.io to remove rpe and incest games that we argued normalised violence and abuse of women. Itch.io made the decision to remove all NSFW content. Our objections were to content that involved sxualised violence and torture of women."

Collective Shout shared a timeline of the campaign on its website, noting how it began with No Mercy, a game which involves extreme sexual violence, being brought to its in March. The group's actions - a mixture of petitioning, emailing, and lobbying - began in early April and led to the game being removed from sale later that month.

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[–] Senal@programming.dev 14 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I do not believe “what they define as NSFW will expand!”

And that's the core of your problem, puritan activists don't generally have the capacity to think "actually, the thing i wanted other people to not be able to see is gone, i think I'll leave it there" because the censorship isn't the goal, the goal is control.

It's even worse with organised puritans , because even if a few hang it up you'll always find a few willing to just go a little further or have differing opinions on what is "acceptable".

I would lay good money on this not actually being as far as they originally wanted, it was just what they could get for now.

I don’t understand why people are bitching that the companies that they choose to use have so much power over their purchasing decisions. “First this, next sex toys! Then contraceptives!” Like Jesus fuck bro have you not heard of cash?

Firstly, it's the payment processors, you know the monopoly of companies that you need to take payments from regular people.

Secondly, payment processors can and will stop providing payment services for shops that carry physical goods they deem unacceptable.

(yes crypto exists, no it's not equivalent yet) (yes steam cards exist, no it's not equivalent and unless i've missed something itch.io doesn't have an card system)

As far as cash goes, is there a new slot where you can put the cash monies directly in to the pc/console and it credits your account ?

Or do you mean, go to the store and buy a physical copy of the hundreds of thousands of games that don't have physical editions ?

[–] Vytle@lemmy.world 0 points 5 days ago (1 children)

First off, I appreciate the response.

Yes, I understand that if these people could have it their way, any kind of mature content would be completely illegal. The reason I don't feel strongly about this is strictly because this isn't a legal threat, and I don't think it has that capacity to become one. Lobbying is expensive, and I don't believe that an Australian organization has the capacity to seriously affect global/western culture more than this. Quite frankly, its impressive they were able to pull this much off, and I fully expect ts to blow over in 3 years tops.

Don't get me wrong- its not that I don't care about censorship, its that I don't really view this as censorship because the consumption and purchasing of the "censored" product is still completely possible. Contrarily, if this were signed into law I would have a big fucking problem with it.

With regards to the "companies they choose to use" point I made, I was in fact referring to payment processors, hence why I proposed crypto, cash and giftcards; as in purchasing a steam giftcard with cash from a store. Obviously I don't expect people to not have credit cards, but the anonymity and security cash provides is almost never used because people find it less convenient.

The reason I brought this up is because I have seen it proposed that this issue will expand beyond the scope of digital marketplaces, which I find downright laughable. People WILL stop using visa cards if you can't use it to buy condoms and there's an ATM in the gas station.

I firmly believe that if this issue is pressed further, at the very least Valve will js stop accepting payment directly through payment processors.

[–] Senal@programming.dev 2 points 5 days ago

Fair enough, came in a bit hot there, my bad.

I'd argue that it not being a legal threat doesn't matter too much in this case because they aren't looking for legal control, so much as "effective" control.

If they can stop you without needing for it to be signed in to law, then they'll take that, if they can get a law as well, then I'm sure they'll take that too.

Don’t get me wrong- its not that I don’t care about censorship, its that I don’t really view this as censorship because the consumption and purchasing of the “censored” product is still completely possible. Contrarily, if this were signed into law I would have a big fucking problem with it.

Censorship isn't a binary, but we can agree to disagree on that one i suppose.

To this part though

purchasing of the “censored” product is still completely possible

Not really, there are numerous titles available exclusively on itch.io and steam, those are effectively censored by your rationale as you can no longer purchase them at all.

Honestly steam gift cards don't work at all here because it's not a ban on buying the games using a card, it's a ban on steam listing the titles at all, on threat of losing the payment services.

Crypto cash and gift-cards are great if you have effective access to them.

  • Crypto is out for most people for obvious reasons (technical knowledge, dearth of places that actually accept crypto)
  • Cash works until it doesn't and governments and big tech are trying their hardest to make it as difficult as possible, there is a big push to go cashless.

It's not that people find cash less convenient because they are lazy (some are i suppose), it's because it's being purposely deprecated as much as possible, or just straight up doesn't apply to the paradigm, such as online purchases.

The reason I brought this up is because I have seen it proposed that this issue will expand beyond the scope of digital marketplaces, which I find downright laughable.

As i said, this already happens, it's weird in how it's applied tbh, but that's neither here nor there.

https://www.adyen.com/legal/list-restricted-prohibited

Mastercard just says : "brand-damaging Transactions" and doesn't elaborate, at a quick glance.

A good example of this is casino's and other gambling related physical locations, there are a lot of hoops to jump through to get a payment processor to work with gambling, assuming they even give you the time of day.

People WILL stop using visa cards if you can’t use it to buy condoms and there’s an ATM in the gas station.

Sure for that specific thing, hard to pay cash at amazon or other online only retailers.

I firmly believe that if this issue is pressed further, at the very least Valve will js stop accepting payment directly through payment processors.

That i'd be interested to see tbh, because as i said there isn't an equally available alternative to card payment processors (and it's not even close).

If they did go crypto only for instance, there'd be a big move to crypto for some, but that'd be a significant loss to take on principle alone.