It’s been weeks of anger and confusion for fans and game developers ensnared in the debacle between gaming storefronts — like Valve and itch.io — and the payment processors that service them. Who, exactly, is responsible for the recent crackdown on adult games? The answer changes depending on who you ask. That vagueness has been accompanied by an avalanche of actions from fans, developers, and even storefronts as folks unite against the possibility of video game censorship.
At first, when storefronts like Steam and itch.io delisted adult games, or made them harder to find, it seemed that the culprits were Visa and Mastercard. Both platforms said that their decision to pull or de-index certain games was motivated by the fear of losing access to the major payment infrastructure that their storefronts rely on. Itch.io went one step further and stated that the responsible party was an activist group known as Collective Shout, which has spent years waging campaigns against games depicting violence against women. Collective Shout later confirmed that it had influenced actions taken by Valve and itch.io after writing an open letter to Visa and Mastercard, but that it did not necessarily ask itch.io to de-index all NSFW games.
“We raised our objection to rape and incest games on Steam for months, and they ignored us for months,” Collective Shout said in a statement in July. “We approached payment processors because Steam did not respond to us. We called on Itch.io to remove rape 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 sexualised violence and torture of women.”
itch.io’s move saw unrelated games like Mouthwashing seemingly disappear from the storefront, but itch.io has since gone on to relist free adult games. The indie platform also clarified that Mouthwashing hadn’t been indexed on itch.io since October 2024, because the developer failed to meet the storefront’s standards by redirecting fans to the game’s Steam page.
Meanwhile, gamers have mobilized en masse to deluge Visa and Mastercard by any means necessary, including clogging their phone lines, sending emails, and calling in to investor meetings.
Somehow, all of that has merely been the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the ongoing adult game crisis. Since the fire started spreading, both Visa and Mastercard have said that they have not pressured storefronts like Steam to do anything specific regarding adult games. “Put simply, we allow all lawful purchases on our network,” Mastercard said in a statement. “At the same time, we require merchants to have appropriate controls to ensure Mastercard cards cannot be used for unlawful purchases, including illegal adult content.”
So if Visa and Mastercard didn’t ask storefronts to censor their games, what in the world is going on, then? The answer is unclear because Valve insists that while Mastercard did not discuss anything with the maker of Steam directly; other payment processors (like banks) communicated the issue to them in their stead. Valve said in a statement to Kotaku that it cited to payment processors its 2018 policy to distribute games that are legal for distribution.
Payment processors allegedly rejected that policy, citing a Mastercard rule a spokesperson said, in reference to the payment processor’s regulations around the sale of illegal material or goods that threatened to damage the brand’s image.
In light of the continued upheaval, a number of organizations have since voiced support against potential payment processor-led censorship. For a couple of days, retro games platform and storefront GOG made a bundle of 13 adult titles available free of charge. Over a million people downloaded the collection of games, GOG said.
“Some games vanish,” reads the website GOG dedicated to the effort. “Not because they broke the law but because someone decided they shouldn’t exist.”
Raising awareness via free products has proven effective, and at least one individual game creator has embraced the tactic. Game developer Cara Cadaver took to social media to say she wouldn’t sit idly by as storefronts pulled down her game, Vile: Exhumed. The game, which primarily takes place through a computer interface, challenges players with finding out what happened to an adult film actress. The player solves the mystery by examining files, pictures, and social media sites. The developer made a website dedicated to the game, which is now free to download. It is also a perfect example of a game caught in the crossfire of the anti-adult crusade: Vile: Exhumed may deal with difficult subjects and contain graphic imagery, but it is not necessarily a porn game like the ones purportedly being targeted right now.
“Fuck anyone who tries to control storytelling and expression,” Cadaver wrote on social media.
The potential for unintended repercussions from mass removal becomes evident through games like Vile: Exhumed, but some would argue that these are not mere casualties. Collective Shout has voiced disdain for major games like Detroit: Become Human in the past, and has had a hand in the removal of games like Grand Theft Auto 5 from major retailers in Australia. As such, recent remarks from niche storefront Zoom have started making the rounds, in part because the platform is saying the quiet part out loud. The storefront won’t be pulling any games, and its proprietors are looking into alternative options for payment processors. But a spokesperson for Zoom has gone on record saying the abolition of games depicting any type of uncomfortable subject matter threatens to spread if major players like Steam capitulate. Zoom listed franchises like Grand Theft Auto, Duke Nukem, and Saints Row as possible marks for Collective Shout, which seems like an educated guess based on the group’s previous actions.
If one thing has come of all of this, it’s that alternative storefronts like Nutaku have entered the spotlight as they reiterate their commitment to adult games, or to finding other solutions for payment processing. “Lewd gaming matters,” the storefront announced on social media in a post encouraging developers who’d had games delisted to reach out.
GOG encapsulates the steadfast belief against censorship bandied by gamers at large perfectly in its tagline for the now-defunct adult games bundle: “If a game is legal, you should be free to buy it.”
