The situation with itch.io, Mastercard, and Visa
Here we go with another "itch.io situation is insane" post. As I'm sure many of you know, itch has recently been under pressure to censor their NSFW content and undego a complete audit in order to filter out anything that goes against their payment processor's new rules.
You can read about it here: https://itch.io/updates/update-on-nsfw-content
At the moment, Hooked should still be available through direct links. As far as I'm aware, any of my itch content should still be available through direct links, so any of my existing links should still work. If I understand them correctly, my game should be fine after the audit, and we just have to wait it out. We'll just see what happens though, I'm sure this isn't the end.
Regardless, you'll always find my content here. If I'm not able to host any games on itch, I'll find a different solution.
Comments (11)
I'm 43 years old and because of the UK's new law I can no longer view your game on Itch (which I paid for because it's excellent!). I'm not 100% against online safety because I've seen first hand what it can do, especially with children, but I don't think this is the way to go about it.
I appreciate the support! I think regardless what happens we’ll find some way to function still. So long as they don’t delete my Patreon lol
This suck dude. Hopefully nothing happens
Remember that this was not a decision that really Itch.io had a choice in, as the petition from the lobby to the credit card companies was broad and essentially targeted anything involving adult content, not actual "child exploitation". Does that make it better? No, but they did this rather than risk having a metaphorical shotgun pointed at their head. Utter nonsense and censorship by the conservative lobbyists COLLECTIVE SHOUT (that's right, I'm naming names, you arseholes) disguised as "protecting children". Petitions are going to reverse this crap.
As much as I'd like to share your optimism, I don't think a petition will do fuck all, sadly. But, fingers crossed 🤞
Many say its only certain select few games that are being banned but this is just the start. Soon it will be anything they won’t like. You patsys like collective shout doing witch hunts to studios that arent even releasing porn games.
This is bogus!
Yeah that's why I asked on the discord
It's fucking insane. I've emailed both companies today. And I think there's some petitions in play.
It's so dumb how itch is handling it. The campaign was against specific games, which incorporated elements of child sexual abuse, incrst and rape. Most of the nsfw content on itch (that actually is good quality) does not incorporate those elements, Hooked certainly doesnt, so why is their solution to blanket-ban every nsfw game?
afaik the way mastercard phrases things already made Fansly delete (or at least threaten to delete) a lot of Cosplay and Furry-Adjacent content as that can be seen as "bestiality" and usually those big companies don't care about the individual users at all