In the late hours of July 23, indie developers on the itch.io storefront found their games vanishing, some deleted outright and others quietly buried from search, a pattern that echoed Steam's removal of adult titles only a week earlier. The storefront traces the upheaval to payment processors who were pressed by the activist group Collective Shout after a single banned title, and in that narrow channel the old story of money deciding what art may be seen has found a new and sprawling form. It is a reminder that the gate through which creative work reaches its audience is often not guarded by
Itch.io's Adult Game Purge Shows Payment Processors, Not Platforms, Now Decide What Games Players Can Access
Developers of adult and LGBTQ games lose sales access, and purchased games stay unavailable for players who already paid for them.
Led not by the Senate, but by credit card companies.
Mark
Start me off simply. Who actually made the call here?
Mimi
On paper, itch.io. In practice, its payment processors. The site says they scrutinized its content after Collective Shout lobbied them over a game called No Mercy.
Luke
Careful with that chain. Itch.io's statement supports it, but the processors haven't spoken in this reporting, and the terms they set aren't published.
Mark
So we don't know what the rules actually are?
Mimi
Right. Developers are told to meet the processors' requirements or be removed, but the statement doesn't spell them out. That's part of why non-sexual games got hit.
Mark
Like Consume Me.
Mimi
Yes. It won the IGF Grand Prize, and it was labeled adult for depicting eating disorders. Its developer, Jenny Jiao Hsia, called the irony plain.
Luke
Worth separating what's confirmed. Consume Me's case is documented. The claim that LGBTQ work was removed comes from some developers, and no count is given.
Mark
And the withheld payments?
Mimi
That's reported by The Transfeminine Review. Itch.io hasn't responded, so treat it as reported, not confirmed.
Luke
Same with Steam. Collective Shout claimed credit, per Ana Valens, but Valve hasn't confirmed anything.
Mark
So what's the real stake for someone who never plays adult games?
Mimi
That a payment processor can reshape a catalog overnight, and purchased games can vanish even for people who already paid.
Il Polso
- Itch.io deleted and hid large numbers of games overnight after payment processors threatened its ability to take payments at all.
- Non-sexual work, including the award-winning Consume Me, was swept up alongside explicit titles, leaving developers stunned at how wide the net fell.
- Purchased games remain locked away from players who already paid, turning finished purchases into sudden absences.
- Developers are racing to pressure Visa and Mastercard, suggesting zeroed revenue shares and immediate payouts, while an ACLU petition gathers thousands of signatures.
- The storefront's promised audit has no published rules, so creators are watching whether the purge stops at adult content or keeps spreading to LGBTQ and other work.
In the late hours of July 23, indie developers on the itch.io storefront found their games vanishing, some deleted outright and others quietly buried from search, a pattern that echoed Steam's removal of adult titles only a week earlier. The storefront traces the upheaval to payment processors who were pressed by the activist group Collective Shout after a single banned title, and in that narrow channel the old story of money deciding what art may be seen has found a new and sprawling form. It is a reminder that the gate through which creative work reaches its audience is often not guarded by the makers or the players, but by the institutions that handle the transactions beneath them.
Late on July 23, developers on itch.io began noticing their games disappearing. Some were deleted outright, while others remained on the site but no longer appeared in search, reachable only by someone holding the direct link. Creators spread the word on social media within hours, and by the next morning the pattern was clear.
The purge arrived a week after Steam removed a large number of adult games, and it appears broader. Games tagged for incest were deleted, and those tagged NSFW or related adult labels were removed or hidden. Players who had already bought these games lost access to them, and the restrictions reach comics and novels hosted on the site too. Itch.io has said that payment processors pressed it over hosted content, tracing the pressure to a single game banned in April and to a campaign by Collective Shout against both Steam and itch.io. The storefront is now running an audit to meet unspecified processor requirements.
The net also caught work with no sexual content. Consume Me, an IGF Grand Prize winner about a teenage girl facing pressure around eating disorders, was labeled adult and deindexed. Its developer, Jenny Jiao Hsia, noted the irony that a game about society's pressures on girls was removed in the name of protecting women and children. Some LGBTQ developers say their work has also been removed without any adult tag.
Developers and players are pushing back. Many are urging people to demand that Visa and Mastercard stop censoring adult content, and an ACLU petition has resurfaced with fresh signatures. Others suggest setting itch.io's revenue share to zero and requesting immediate payouts so that earned money is not lost. The larger worry is that if payment processors can decide what is sold, the same leverage could reach queerness, reproductive health, or any subject a conservative group objects to. What comes next depends on whether the audit stays narrow or keeps widening.
Late on July 23, developers on itch.io began noticing that their games were disappearing. Some were deleted outright. Others were still on the site but no longer showed up in search, reachable only by someone who already had the direct link. Affected creators spread word of it on social media within hours, and by the time the storefront issued a formal statement the next morning, the pattern was plain.
It came a week after Steam removed a large number of adult games from sale. Itch.io's purge appears to be bigger. Games tagged "incest" were deleted, as with Steam. Those tagged "NSFW" and related adult tags were either deleted or hidden from search. Removed games stay unavailable even to players who bought them earlier, and the rules extend beyond games to other content hosted on the site, such as comics and novels. The Transfeminine Review reports that itch.io is also withholding payment from developers of the newly banned games. Itch.io did not immediately respond to Inverse's request for comment.
The net also caught work with no sexual content. IGF Grand Prize winner Consume Me was labeled "adult" because of its potentially triggering depiction of eating disorders, and it has been deindexed. Its developer, Jenny Jiao Hsia, told Inverse she found it ironic that a game about a teenage girl facing society's pressures was being removed by a group aiming to "protect women and children." She added that the damage extends to adult content creators who have few other places to release and sell their work. Some developers also say LGBTQ work has been removed even without an adult tag.
Itch.io's own statement points to the cause. The site said it came under scrutiny from its payment processors over some of its hosted content. It traced that to a game called No Mercy, which was briefly available on the site before being banned in April. After that, it said, the organization Collective Shout launched a campaign against both Steam and itch.io, taking its concerns to the payment processors. Itch.io is now conducting what it calls a comprehensive audit to meet the processors' requirements. Developers are expected to comply with those terms, which the statement does not spell out, or be removed. The implication is that the choice was between purging content and losing the ability to take payments at all.
Steam has issued no statement. Ana Valens, a former Waypoint journalist, reported that Collective Shout also claimed credit for Steam's removals, though Valve has not responded to requests to confirm that. Collective Shout is described as a far-right activist group, and its leaders have previously released transphobic and homophobic statements.
Despite Steam's far larger size, itch.io's move is drawing more anger. The site was never explicitly an adult marketplace, but it has long been seen as a haven for porn games and other NSFW work, with looser rules and a much more generous revenue share than Steam's. It is also an important home for LGBTQ creators, who fear they are next. Laws that claim to protect children often sweep in any discussion of LGBTQ identities, which makes that fear reasonable. The fact that itch.io's letter named the parties involved may have helped focus the response.
Players and developers are pushing back. Developers are urging people to demand that Visa and Mastercard stop trying to censor adult content. An ACLU petition making the same demand has resurfaced and gained thousands of signatures overnight. Others suggest developers set itch.io's adjustable cut of their sales to zero in protest and request immediate payouts so they don't lose money already earned.
Inverse's argument is that this matters beyond adult games. If payment processors can dictate what is sold, the same leverage could be applied to queerness, reproductive health, or anything else a conservative group objects to. What to watch is whether the audit stays within adult content, or keeps widening to the kinds of games that were already caught in it.
Citazioni salienti
I find it ironic that Consume Me, a game about being a teenage girl dealing with the pressures from society, is literally getting deindexed by a group that is aiming to protect women and children.— Jenny Jiao Hsia, Consume Me developer, to Inverse
Itch.io said it is conducting a comprehensive audit of content to ensure it can meet its payment processors' requirements.— itch.io statement
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Politics & Governance