So according to Valve, after they half-heartedly and sloppily attempted to remove a bunch of indie games that happened to contain nudity before being absolutely buried in the backlash (which would have never happened if say, they targeted all the games that don’t even contain games) they’ve decided to say “all bets are off.”
Does that mean the earlier agreement with COG is null or can at least be renegotiated? Because while this is a terrible day for everyone who wants to attempt to search through Steam, maybe it means the catalogue will move onto the platform that much quicker?
They’re saying they’ll allow games. But I’m mostly wondering if this means things like an arbitrary limit of submissions for one particular company while other companies churn out dozens of games a month will continue to be a thing. Now that Valve has basically said anything goes, why bother with quantity control if there is no quality control?
There used to be, but now I think they’re going for “let the market sort it out.”
I think CoG is okay; the new policy is likely to just unsplit the indie adult games that traditionally get split into a Steam version and an 18+ patch. We’ve never had any significant visual content, so we’re prolly okay. Valve isn’t Apple.
I have read that Steam’s policy involving NSFW content is changing/has changed to appease payment processors, though the details seem vague.
Does anybody know if this is purely about ‘porn games’ or is it possible some CoG, Heart’s Choice and HG titles might be affected due to steamier scenes?
I think itch was responding proactively in case the payment processors (spurred on by an Austrialian company that I feel is a hate group, aka Collective Shout [wiki page for founder here]) turned their bigoted gaze on it, a much smaller company with fewer resources to battle what are essentially monopolies. This reminds me of preemptive compliance, which can be seen in fascist regimes as people attempt to avoid getting beaten by authorities as their neighbors are dragged away.
All that to say: Why the fuck are we doing anything to appease such hateful people?
I saw someone propose starting a Titch.io, which I thought was hilarious (and, as far as I know, is not a real project yet). From what I’ve read, the major issue with the payment processors pushing this is the blanket reaction to any NSFW content being offered on the same site as non-NSFW content; they threatened to drop providers regardless of if their cards are only used to process payments for non-NSFW work. I also read that there are a few NSFW payment processors, but the fees to use them are exorbitant in comparison to companies like Visa and Mastercard. Titch.io could go full NSFW and use those payment processors, but expenses would go up across the board, which I’m sure will be another dividing debate. (Though it’d be worth it in my eyes).
If they’re coming for sex games (“The Anti-Porn Crusade That Censored Steam and Itch.io Started 30 Years Ago”), they’re coming for queer games; They’re coming for anything they don’t think is “family friendly,” and they specifically mean friendly to their family. The Christian Right is obsessed with fetishizing queer ppl, arguing their existence is inherently sexual and deviant.
This is straight up artistic censorship to please bigots. It’s disgusting and will continue to have a chilling effect until someone with enough resources does something to slap back.
This is not a confusing development out of the blue. It is a clearly BAD and DANGEROUS development, purposefully coupled with the rise of the Evangelical Right and its invasive tunneling (reference to parasitical) into government offices, ethical standards and regulations, and public positions with long-lasting power and wide-reaching consequences, such as those in the US Supreme Court.
The website Itch.io linked, Collective Shout, says it is about games with immoral practices, deeply immoral, involving incest, underage and abuse, torture-porn and stuff like this.
I’m sure, if this is actually the case and only these games are being targeted, then it is not an issue.
EDIT: Noted, you do not have faith in these people. I haven’t heard of them before.
Are games being targeted which do not do these things? Do we know any games targeted for having same-sex couplings? (Or BG3 and Mass Effect interspecies couplings!)
I suppose I need to see what happens to find out.
@jasonstevanhill Seems to have been a buzz about it today. It might not concern CoG as it seems to be, afaik, targeting very extreme stuff.
The problem is, as I understand it, that itch has pulled all NSFW content.
There are a number of our games, such as All World Pro Wrestling, which could be considered NSFW.
If we were on itch, we very well might have been yanked.
In short, I find this enraging. In particular, besides being a threat to my business, it can also easily be turned into an anti-queer crusade. Many people consider medical intervention for under-18 year olds for trans purposes child abuse. I don’t consider trans medical care for under-18s to be child abuse. But who gets to define what’s medical care and what’s child abuse? And, as you’ll note in that letter,
Most of the content found within the games, including the graphics and the developers descriptions, are too distressing for us to make public.
They’re deciding what’s too graphic to be made public. This is an open letter on a website; they could use spoiler tags. In addition, this material is already public, by definition, because it’s published on itch!
The whole thing smacks of sanctimonious bullshit to me.
Why aren’t the going after streaming services that have movies that contain rape?
Right there, with Amazon Prime, you can watch Last Tango in Paris, where not only is a woman raped in the movie, but Marlon Brando is actually raping her in that scene. Why isn’t this organization going after something like that?
The group doesn’t just target games; It targets anything that doesn’t align with Christian values. They attempted to block a musician from performing in Australia because the group claimed the lyrics were misogynistic (even if they were, so’s the bible??? Like calm down???), they tried to get Detroit: Become Human and GTA5 banned, they’re against porn and advocated for pornhub to be classified as a hate group, they’re against reproductive rights, they proselytize “conservative values” under the guise of feminism. Some articles about the recent development of Collective Shout successfully advocating for artistic censorship in games have been censored.
I mean, you can’t target everything at once, whatever axe someone grinds. We know, at different times, books, music and games have been brought to the fore. Today, it is the games’ turn. As always, the argument made will be participatory interactivity when applied to games, rather than merely passively receiving something happening, like in movies and music.
So, going by what you said, it could lead to having a greater effect as stores take precautions?
Hmm. I don’t know enough about them, and you are right, much depends on what their definitions of said things will be.
@Clover667
So these folks do try and get music banned, too!
But yes, your examples show an organisation which does want to apply censorship far and wide.
Well, the group’s definitions, missions, and community actions show it is dedicated to, honestly, being a piece of shit. Nothing good comes out of censoring art, especially when that censorship stems from a bigot’s blessed heart.
Incidentally it’s already affecting other media, as itch hosts comics, artbooks, short stories, zines, and novels/novellas as well. Several queer artists and writers creating nsfw work have had their works delisted already, and no one is sure how much is going to come back up when the review is over.
Any money I’ve paid the creators through itch in the past 24~ hours is supposedly being held for the duration of this review (and possibly withheld entirely if a work was designated for removal due to retroactively applied restrictions). It just… really sucks to watch these hardworking artists and creators staring down the loss of some or all of their livelihoods.
I’ll make the disclaimer to take what I say with a grain of salt, on this point, at least; a little information and lot of uncertainty have been circulating since yesterday (and I didn’t sleep great), so I may be incorrect here.
I wish I could say. I don’t think that orgs like Collective Shout are the type to just stop and go home; there will probably always be a crusade. They’re gunning for Paypal next, it sounds like.
And even if content restrictions lift a bit, or end up lighter than anticipated, there will no doubt be a lingering chilling effect in creative spaces, as smaller, previously freer spaces like itch, who have limited means to defend themselves, have the most incentive to continue to play it safe. But this is all meaningless speculation until we see how things shake out. In the meantime, I’m making phonecalls.
Itch is a cultural cornerstone for many; lots of free expression. Maybe the intention is to have companies overreact by using the most ungenerous, inflammatory definitions of something?
Do you think it will blow over, after the panic, or will it stick around?
EDIT: Withhold earnings- those made before the ‘ban’? Is that legal?
Too many questions. I don’t know anything about this so I am just supposing everyone knows more thats why it all sounds like a question with a question mark.
Yep. Here’s their statement on it (guys, as a trained journalist, take every company statement with a grain of salt. They’re trying to keep the company alive regardless of human costs).
I wish I could upload screenshots of the entire article (limited to 5 per comment), instead, here is the evidence they cited for it:
They will come for porn first because porn is easy and think of the children.
Then they will go after stuff with transwomen in it ,bcause in their eyes tranwomen are sex pest.
Then they will go after bl, bara, and yaoi. Because these guys are obsessed with how men do it
Then they will go after the rest ofthe queer stuff. And then theg will try to aim for the stuff women like. Starting with ya, going to erotica and then romance.
They will never suceed in banning the last one, because the industry is too big, but they will damage it.
And to be cleae it is not jusr itcio and steam. Visa and mastercards are the one to blame. They bend the knee first and happily so and then used their near monopoly to threathen steam and itcho.io. it is disgusting by all involved.
Yeah, I think it is all a confusing mess! Just heard rumours about it this morning, wasn’t sure if it affected CoG stuff, just heard it was an ‘NSFW’ ban, but that, in itself, means little.
Anyway, hope you can catch up on those flying sheep!
Good to remember, yes. And if a bunch of old radfem terfs and swerfs can force these guys to bend with just a thousand phonecalls, then we can always remind them that they aren’t the consumers to be worried about. We can always call, too.
