Indie game clearinghouse itch.io is the latest online gaming storefront to take action to remove or limit the availability of some adult content, bowing to pressure from payment processors spurred by an Australian grassroots group's campaign against certain sexualized content.
Wednesday night, itch.io creators and users began noticing that many adult-oriented games and content were no longer appearing in search results on the platform. Other creators reported that their adult-focused titles had been removed from the platform entirely, without any advance warning.
By early Thursday morning, itch.io had confirmed in a blog post that it had "'deindexed' all adult NSFW content from our browser and search pages." Itch said the move—which it admitted was "sudden and disruptive"—came in response to a pressure campaign from Collective Shout, an Australian nonprofit that describes itself as "a grassroots movement challenging the objectification of women and sexualization of girls in media, advertising, and popular culture."
In an open letter to payment processors earlier this month, Collective Shout called out Steam and Itch.io specifically for briefly hosting controversial "sexual assault simulator" No Mercy as well as currently hosting "hundreds of other games featuring rape, incest, and child sexual abuse." The group claims to have "documented content including violent sexual torture of women and children, including incest related abuse involving family members" on both platforms, and took companies like Visa, MasterCard, and PayPal to task for "facilitating payment transactions and deriving financial benefit from these violent and unethical games" through those stores.
What’s not allowed?
In response to concerns passed on by those payment processors, itch.io said it is conducting a "comprehensive audit" of all its content. Following that audit, creators of NSFW content on the platform will be required to "confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account."
The early results of that audit can already be seen on the now-deleted pages for many itch.io games, which have been replaced with a simple message that "this game's files have been suspended by an itch.io administrator." Those games can no longer be purchased on the platform, and users report on social media that their previous purchases of those games can't even be redownloaded via the platform.
Linked takedown notices on some of those pages outline the specific types of content that are being targeted in itch.io's new crackdown:
We don't allow hosting content that includes sexualized images or videos of real-life humans. Fictional, illustrated, and rendered content is generally fine, assuming it's legal. AI-generated imagery that is designed to resemble photographic content of real people is not allowed. Content glorifying sexual violence is not permitted. Depictions of minors, minor-presenting, or suggested minors in a sexual context are not allowed and will result in account suspension.
Those notices also link to applicable "Acceptable Use Policies" from PayPal, Stripe, and Payoneer that itch.io says must be followed "if you plan to collect money for your content."
On its creator FAQ page, itch.io adds that "it’s almost impossible to come up with an exhaustive list of unacceptable products to sell, so often we have to take content reviews one at a time." The platform also notes that "violations that result in administrative action are permanent with no chance of appeal. Any funds on the account will not be eligible for payout. There is no second chance."
What it means to be “deindexed”
As the audit continues, tens of thousands of adult games that are technically available on the platform (for now) exist in the limited visibility limbo of "deindexing." While these games can still be accessed, purchased, and downloaded by those who follow a direct link to their itch.io pages, they will no longer appear in searches or individual user recommendations on the platform, vastly limiting their reach.
That deindexing effect can be seen by simply browsing through many once-popular adult content tags on itch.io. Browsing the "Adult" tag that included nearly 17,000 games last week, for instance, now shows just 48 titles as of this writing (extremely NSFW links, obviously). Other itch.io tags that have seen their previously robust browsable content severely limited include "Erotic," "Hentai," "Incest," "NSFW," "Porn," "Rape," "Sex," and "Sexy."
It isn't just sexualized games that have been caught up in this deindexing dragnet, though. Indie developer Robert Boyd notes on Bluesky that Consume Me—an award-winning game about eating disorders—will no longer show up in search results on itch.io, even if you seek it out by name directly (it can still be found using this direct URL or outside search engines like Google).
Itch.io's adult game crackdown comes just weeks after Steam similarly updated its rules and guidelines to prohibit "content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors." Steam's rules update came alongside the removal of dozens of sexualized Steam games that make reference to incest as well as slave or prison imagery.
But the larger crackdown is potentially of more concern for creators on itch.io, which has long been considered a relatively safe haven (NSFW) for creators of adult gaming content that might not be welcome on other major platforms. During the Epic v. Apple lawsuit, Apple lawyers even cited itch.io as the kind of adult-friendly gaming platform that it wouldn't be comfortable allowing via its more family-friendly App Store.
"Needless to say, I am incredibly disappointed and heartbroken by this recent development," developer Bowser Puma wrote in a development update for their visual novel Chord Progressions last night. "This gravely impacts the visibility of Chord Progressions and your other favorite furry visual novels."
"Praise itch.io as we may, the platform is only as friendly to queer smut peddlers as its payment processors allow us to keep using it," journalist and adult content creator Ana Valens wrote in a prescient 2021 piece. "Because itch.io is a company seeking longevity, don’t expect itch.io to go down with the pornographers it seemingly holds dear, no matter how many funny tweets its Twitter account makes."
In its post announcing the new crackdown, itch.io explained that it needed to "act urgently" to maintain "critical" access to its payment processors as the "situation developed rapidly." That speed "meant it was not realistic to provide creators with advance notice before making this change," they wrote. "We know this is not ideal, and we apologize for the abruptness of this change."
"We are truly sorry for the frustration and confusion caused by this change," itch.io added. "We ask for your patience and understanding as we navigate this challenging period. I’m sorry we can not share more at this time as we are still getting a full understanding of the situation ourselves."
Trump: ‘We Could Argue All Day About Who Is Or Isn’t A Child Rapist’