logo
#

Latest news with #CollectiveShout

Gamers Are Furious About the Censorship of NSFW Games—and They're Fighting Back
Gamers Are Furious About the Censorship of NSFW Games—and They're Fighting Back

WIRED

time12 hours ago

  • Entertainment
  • WIRED

Gamers Are Furious About the Censorship of NSFW Games—and They're Fighting Back

Jul 30, 2025 2:51 PM As industry groups decry censorship, players are flooding Visa and Mastercard with complaints and sharing the titles of delisted NSFW games to support developers. The logo of Steam, a video game digital distribution service and storefront developed by Valve Corporation, shown on a smartphone. Photograph:Trade organizations across the games industry and gamers are speaking out against censorship campaigns taking place across Steam and in an effort to help developers who have been unfairly impacted. The push against adult content is being driven by Australian conservative group Collective Shout, whose pressuring of payment processors has forced platforms to mass deindex NSFW content. In the wake of these delistings, which remove games from search, developers are scrambling to understand if their games have been impacted and why. On platforms like Bluesky, users are compiling lists of 'censored artists' with NSFW pieces and unsearchable Itch pages, whether it's games or comics, many of whom identify their work as LGBTQ+ or kink friendly. WIRED was able to find several of these pages via Google, all of which were tagged by their creators in that document as LGBT and NSFW, but not with Itch's search tools. According to the International Game Developers Association, a nonprofit that supports game developers, this kind of censorship disproportionately affects developers who are queer, trans and people of color, on top affecting a creator's income and reputation. 'The right to make mature games with legal adult content is a creative right, just like the right to tell stories about war, death, or love.' In a statement given to WIRED, executive director Jakin Vela says that the IGDA is 'seriously alarmed' by the delistings and payment disruptions of adult-themed games on Steam and Itch. 'Globally and politically, we are at a crossroads for developer rights, creative freedom, and platform accountability,' he says. 'The right to make mature games with legal adult content is a creative right, just like the right to tell stories about war, death, or love.' Over the past few months, Collective Shout has been campaigning to get 'rape and incest' games removed from online platforms. The group began applying pressure to payment processors such as Visa and Mastercard; Valve removed hundreds titles, some of which included incest. Other developers, however, such as the creators of horror game Vile: Exhumed , say their games did not violate these standards. ' Vile: Exhumed was not banned for its use of gore in storytelling, or violent themes,' wrote developer Cara Cadaver in an update. 'It was banned for 'sexual content with depictions of real people,' which, if you played it, you know is all implied, making this all feel even worse. I refuse to censor or make changes to the game, I will not retell a story about these topics in a way to make people who don't understand feel more comfortable.' Valve did not respond to a request for comment. Meanwhile, Itch has deindexed all adult NSFW content. According to GameFile, that applies to over 20,000 games. 'Our ability to process payments is critical for every creator on our platform,' founder Leaf Corcoran wrote at the time. 'To ensure that we can continue to operate and provide a marketplace for all developers, we must prioritize our relationship with our payment partners and take immediate steps towards compliance.' Itch did not respond to a request for comment. The company has suspended its Stripe payments on 18+ content 'for the foreseeable future' and is 'actively reaching out to other payment processors that are more willing to work with this kind of content.' Reached for comment, Stripe spokesperson Casey Becker said that the company does not comment on users. 'Generally speaking, we take action when we conclude that users violate our terms of service,' Becker says. 'We do not support adult content." The company has a longstanding policy of not working with adult content services. In a previous statement to WIRED, Collective Shout campaigns manager Caitlin Roper said the organization had had 'no communication with payment processors' outside of an open letter. In a blog posted July 28, however, Collective Shout says it 'approached payment processors because Steam did not respond to us.' According to experts, this is a powerful tactic known as financial censorship that weaponizes financial institutions' aversion to anything controversial. It essentially sidesteps a platform's own rules for what it will allow and puts that decision directly in the hands of payment processors, which impacts what companies are allowed to sell. 'Platforms have long had terms of service restricting content such as non-consensual acts, rape, incest, and material that violates payment processor guidelines,' says Vela. 'The concern today is not the existence of these rules, but rather that their enforcement is adversely impacting games that do not actually violate these restrictions, often without warning or explanation.' In response to one developer on Bluesky, Corcoran said the team is considering 'adding an update to the dashboard to more explicitly show indexing status when the dust settles.' Corcoran did not respond to a request for comment. The German games industry association, game, has called developers' artistic freedom 'fundamental to games as a cultural medium.' Managing director Felix Falk said in a statement that restrictions from payment service providers and gaming platforms should not override what's legally allowed, and that service providers like Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal's terms and conditions should not conflict with free expression. 'Creative forms of expression or certain themes as games, such as diversity, must not be targeted by individual interests or campaigns from particularly vocal groups, as is currently being observed on Steam or Falk said. The Entertainment Software Association, which represents the game industry in the US, declined to comment. The UK's trade organization for games and interactive entertainment, Ukie, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In response to the Collective Shout's campaign and the subsequent fallout, the IGDA is gathering information from affected developers, which it says will guide its future actions. 'Games that feature consensual adult content, including queer, kink-positive, or romantic narratives, are easily targeted under vague or overly cautious enforcement, often forcing developers into silence or self-censorship because platforms fear perceived risks associated with hosting legal adult content,' says Vela. The IGDA is advocating for concerned parties to contact financial institutions like Mastercard and Visa directly, as well as support online petitions that ask these companies to stop interfering with entertainment and sex work. 'Mastercard and Visa have increasingly used their financial control to pressure platforms into censoring legal fictional content,' reads the campaign for a petition with over 185,000 signatures. 'Entire genres of books, games, films, and artwork are being demonetized or deplatformed—not because they're illegal, but because they offend the personal values of executives or activist groups' Mastercard and Visa did not respond to requests for comment. Since the delistings, gamers have been organizing on Bluesky, X, and Reddit, encouraging people to call companies like Visa, Mastercard, and Stripe to protest. One artist who makes adult content, who asked to remain unnamed out of fear of their financial accounts being affected, tells WIRED that they were 'hung up on twice by Visa' on Tuesday. 'The first time I was left on hold for about 10 minutes only to have the call suddenly disconnect. The second time I was told by a clearly frustrated rep that he would not connect me to a supervisor, and that Visa is no longer answering questions about policy.' The artist says that while they're approaching these calls as a consumer, because they sell comics on Itch, they're also directly impacted by the new policies. 'My audience, my friends, and my colleagues are all LGBTQ+, and are being overwhelmingly affected by this kind of censorship, where merely existing as a queer person is seen as inherently pornographic and fetishistic,' they say. 'I also want to stress that all of us are working and creating art well within the bounds of the law." The artist describes Collective Shout and Morality in Media as 'puritanical groups using the very real and legitimate fears of child exploitation to push through their right-wing policies.' In the adult entertainment industry, platforms have faced similar pressures involving anti-porn groups claiming to fight sexual exploitation by using payment processors to get content banned. Visa and Mastercard previously cut off payments to Pornhub; OnlyFans briefly banned, and then reversed a stance on sexually explicit content due to bank influence. Just this week, new child online safety laws in the UK kicked in that now require millions of adults to submit to ID document uploads, face scans, credit card checks, and more to access pornography; similar age-verification laws have been implemented in over 20 states. Critics say although these measures are aimed at protecting kids, they open the door for a mountain of privacy and surveillance problems. On its website, Itch has added an additional FAQ to address complaints, including addressing the difference between Itch and Valve's responses. Because Itch is not a closed platform like Steam, the post reads, it has minimal barriers to platform users publishing content. 'We could not rely on user-provided tagging to be accurate enough for a targeted approach, so a broader review was necessary to be thorough' the post reads. '…If we lose our ability to accept payments from a partner like PayPal or Stripe, we impact the ability of all creators to do business. Losing PayPal, for instance, would prevent us from sending payouts to many people.' The company says it is still waiting for final determinations from its payment processors.

The chaos and confusion of Itch and Steam's abrupt adult game ban
The chaos and confusion of Itch and Steam's abrupt adult game ban

The Verge

timea day ago

  • Entertainment
  • The Verge

The chaos and confusion of Itch and Steam's abrupt adult game ban

Two of the biggest digital games stores have stopped selling thousands of titles following pressure from a coalition of anti-porn advocates and the world's biggest payment processing companies. It's happened before, will likely happen again, and is suppressing art, free expression, and marginalized creators. Last week, the indie gaming storefront sent out a sudden notice to the creators that use the site to sell their games, books, art, and other media; it had 'deindexed' all content with the NSFW (not safe for work) tag, meaning works with that tag would no longer turn up in searches, effectively making it impossible to discover or purchase them. Last week, Steam did similarly, removing a swath of games from its platform after implementing stricter policies related to adult content. In its announcement, founder Leaf Corcoran explained that the reason for this drastic action was pressure applied to the company's payment processors by Collective Shout — an Australian nonprofit organization that describes itself as 'a grassroots campaigns movement against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls.' 'Due to a game titled No Mercy, which was temporarily available on before being banned back in April, the organization Collective Shout launched a campaign against Steam and directing concerns to our payment processors about the nature of certain content found on both platforms,' Corcoran said. Released in March before being delisted by both Steam and in April, No Mercy was described by Collective Shout as a 'rape simulator.' Its developer, Zerat Games, denied this, describing it as a '3D choice-driven adult visual novel with a huge focus on blackmail and male domination.' As a result of Collective Shout's actions, in tandem with the payment processors, over 20,000 games, books, comics, and other creative works — confirmed via the Internet Archive — functionally ceased to exist on the site (though purchased content remains in users' libraries so long as it doesn't violate new guidelines), imperiling the creators who depend on sales from In addition to NSFW content, notable projects that didn't have the tag were caught up in the purge as well. One example is Consume Me, a game about disordered eating and the recent recipient of the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the 2025 Independent Games Festival, which was delisted. There's also concern that this deindexing event will have a disproportionate impact on queer creators, and in the immediate aftermath there has been confusion about the distinction between 'NSFW' and 'adult' content, with a lot of LGBTQ+ stories and games falling under the umbrella of the former. 'My SFW sci-fi comic that's no worse than a standard Marvel movie also got deindexed... but it had the LGBT tag,' wrote Yuki Clarke, a comic artist, on Bluesky. Whenever a platform announces a blanket ban on adult content, LGBTQ+ creators are almost always disproportionately affected, harming queer artists and invariably queer people. In 2021, eBay's removal of its 'Adult Only' section eliminated a popular storefront for LGBTQ+ erotica artists and collectors. In 2022, Tumblr settled with the New York City Commission on Human Rights because its 2018 ban of 'adult content' had a discriminatory impact on queer creators. Several creators have said that their SFW content with the LGBT tag have been deindexed. has responded to some of these claims on social media, saying, 'The deindexing was determined by how creators classified their pages: specifically if the page was tagged as NSFW and as having adult content.' However, there have also been reports that content with the LGBT tag but not the NSFW or Adult tags were still getting delisted, creating confusion about just what kind of works was pulling from its store and why. The Verge has reached out to for clarification. On Bluesky, in response to a creator claiming their LGBT books were delisted despite not having any adult or NSFW tags, the account answered, 'We have a series of automated heuristics that can flag pages for review based on account behavior to help prevent abuse.' It further explained that the LGBT or queer tags wouldn't affect that system. acknowledged that the blanket delisting of all its adult content wasn't ideal and has created concern among its users. But the threat of losing its payment processors required emergency action. 'The situation developed rapidly, and we had to act urgently to protect the platform's core payment infrastructure,' Corcoran wrote. Typically, payment processors take actions like this to ensure their products aren't being used to purchase illegal content. In Steam's case, it updated its guidelines to include a rule that prohibits publishing material that 'may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam's payment processors.' In an email, Casey Becker, spokesperson for Stripe, responded that it does not comment on users directly but, 'generally speaking, we take action when we conclude that users violate our terms of service. We do not support adult content.' Payoneer, one of other payment processors, declined to comment. The Verge has also reached out to PayPal, the last of listed payment processors, for comment. Payment processors have frequently been the reason behind content bans. Though Collective Shout was the inciting agent, it's companies like Visa, Stripe, and others that are responsible for these kinds of acts of mass censorship. In 2014, PayPal threatened to remove all its services from Patreon because the site hosted adult content creators. (PayPal would reverse this decision two years later, but Patreon still makes it difficult for sex workers and porn creators to do business on the website.) In 2021, OnlyFans, a website synonymous with porn, announced that it would ban all sexually explicit content to 'comply with the requests of [the platform's] banking partners and payout provider.' Six days later, OnlyFans would reverse the decision, citing assurances from its banking partners. Scratch a porn ban, and you'll find a PayPal. These processors have enormous power over their clients, and that influence can be used to achieve goals that have nothing to do with consumer choice or safety. is forced to comply with their demands or risk being unable to function entirely. 'To ensure that we can continue to operate and provide a marketplace for all developers, we must prioritize our relationship with our payment partners and take immediate steps towards compliance,' Corcoran wrote in announcement. says that it is in the process of reviewing and removing NSFW and adult-tagged content that violates its terms of service, while also updating those terms. 'For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account,' the announcement read. It has also updated its July 24th announcement to include answers to commonly asked questions that had been circulating social media, debunking rumors surrounding whether was withholding payments and addressing why such drastic action had to be taken so disruptively. The company also says it's working on finding new payment processors. Players and users are fighting back, flooding Visa and Mastercard customer service lines with complaints. A database has been created where creators can list their deindexed work for people to browse and purchase on alternative sites. Some creators are also removing their work from and are threatening to leave it altogether, as updated NSFW policy makes bans permanent and irreversible while explicitly threatening subversive art. 'Our policy is not an invitation to push the boundaries of what is acceptable. Violations that result in administrative action are permanent with no chance of appeal,' the creator FAQ reads. 'Any funds on the account will not be eligible for payout. There is no second chance.' Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Ash Parrish Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Analysis Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Creators Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Entertainment Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Features Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Gaming Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Tech

Why did thousands of adult titles just disappear from the biggest PC gaming marketplaces?
Why did thousands of adult titles just disappear from the biggest PC gaming marketplaces?

The Guardian

time2 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • The Guardian

Why did thousands of adult titles just disappear from the biggest PC gaming marketplaces?

In the last two weeks, thousands of 'adult only' and 'not safe for work' games have disappeared from Steam and – two of the most prominent distribution platforms for PC video games – as they scrambled to comply with stricter rules mandated by payment processors such as MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal. These rules were established after a campaign by the organisation Collective Shout, which urged payment processors to stop facilitating payments to platforms hosting 'rape, incest and child sexual abuse-themed games'. But the new rules have affected a far broader range of games – including some award-winning titles. On 16 July, Valve, the developer of Steam, updated its rules and guidelines regarding the games and software that can be distributed on the platform. The rules, which already prohibited 'nude or sexually explicit images of real people' and 'adult content that isn't appropriately labelled or age gated' were expanded to include 'content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam's payment processors' including 'certain kinds of adult content'. In a statement to PC Gamer on 18 July, Valve confirmed it was 'retiring' several games from the Steam store due to these new rules. It did not clarify which games were being removed, nor what 'kinds of adult content' are now deemed unsuitable. A week later, issued a statement explaining it had also come under 'scrutiny' from payment processors, and as such was 'deindexing' (removing from search results) all games labelled 'NFSW' as it undertook a 'comprehensive audit of content to ensure we can meet the requirements of our payment processors.' Unlike Valve, specifically referenced Collective Shout as the cause of the renewed scrutiny. Collective Shout is an Australian organisation that describes itself as 'a grassroots campaigns movement against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls'. In April, it successfully petitioned to have the game No Mercy – which featured depictions of 'incest', 'blackmail' and 'unavoidable non-consensual sex' – removed from Steam and After this, the group published an open letter to payment processors claiming to have 'discovered hundreds of other games featuring rape, incest and child sexual abuse on both Steam and and requesting payment processors 'demonstrate corporate social responsibility and immediately cease processing payments on Steam and After Steam altered its rules, Collective Shout claimed credit for the change, stating that more than 1,000 of its supporters had called or emailed payment processors to demand they 'stop facilitating payments and profiting from these games'. Like many online retailers, Steam and rely on payment processors to enable users to make purchases on their platforms. As such, these companies hold considerable power and can influence what products – regardless of their legality – are bought, sold or published. In recent years, payment processors have become increasingly strict about transactions relating to adult content. In 2021, the subscription-based video platform OnlyFans, widely used by adult content creators, announced it would ban adult material from the site after pressure from payment processors – though this plan was subsequently abandoned. Later that year, Mastercard imposed a new policy regulating adult content sellers – one criticised by the American Civil Liberties Union as being restrictive to free speech and potentially harmful to sex workers – and an example of what is known as financial censorship. It isn't clear how many games have been 'retired' from Steam due to the new rules, but multiple games that depicted incest fantasies have been removed. as mentioned, has deindexed most games labelled NSFW. According to the games industry newsletter Game File, more than 20,000 games have been removed from NSFW category since 16 July. But these include games that explore queer identity and sexuality, such as Radiator 2 by Robert Yang, a former teacher at New York University's Game Center. And the rules have also hit games that do not depict sex in any way at all. These include Last Call, a game about surviving domestic violence by award-winning game designer Nina Freeman, and Consume Me, a game about disordered eating which has also won numerous industry awards. Many developers have decried the power that payment processors wield over what games are bought and sold, and how that power can be exerted indirectly by campaign groups such as Collective Shout. In a Bluesky post, Yang described Collective Shout and payment processors as 'waging culture war against LGBTQ people and sexual expression', while Consume Me's developers told Wired that it is 'completely unacceptable that payment processors are conducting censorship-by-fiat and systematically locking adult content creators out of platforms'. A petition calling for payment processors and activist groups to 'stop controlling what we can watch, read, or play' was launched on 17 July. The petition claims 'MasterCard and Visa are interfering with legal entertainment', and demands 'the right to choose the stories we enjoy without moral policing'. So far it has accrued more than 150,000 signatures. Meanwhile, gamers and developers are sharing the phone numbers of major payment companies and encouraging people to call and complain. It is hard to know for sure. With sustained consumer pressure, payment processors may reconsider their position, but it may also be challenging for anti-censorship voices to muster political support due to prevailing legislative winds surrounding online adult content. The UK this month enacted stricter regulations regarding age verification for internet users wanting to access adult content, while the EU has drafted guidelines for similar systems. Consequently, it is likely that the new rules will remain in place at Steam and at least for the immediate future. But the fallout has drawn attention to the power that payment processors wield, and the lack of clarity surrounding their rules. Because of this, they may tread more cautiously when responding to pressure from advocacy groups in the future.

Mastercard and Visa face backlash after hundreds of adult games removed from online stores Steam and Itch.io
Mastercard and Visa face backlash after hundreds of adult games removed from online stores Steam and Itch.io

The Guardian

time3 days ago

  • Business
  • The Guardian

Mastercard and Visa face backlash after hundreds of adult games removed from online stores Steam and Itch.io

Payment companies such as Visa, Mastercard and Stripe are facing public backlash, including from billionaire Elon Musk, for pressuring online gaming platforms to remove hundreds of games in response to a campaign from an Australian anti-porn lobby group. an independent gaming platform, last week removed all adult or not-safe-for-work (NSFW) games from appearing in its library in a hasty move to prevent payments for games being blocked across its entire service. said that it was bowing to demands from payment providers 'to ensure we can continue to operate and provide a marketplace for all developers'. The move came after an open letter organised by Collective Shout, an Australian-based group that fights the sexualisation of woman and girls. On 14 July, it called on payment providers to cease providing services to gaming platforms Steam and claiming that hundreds of their games contained content including rape, sexual violence and incest. swift compliance, however, meant removing not just the content in Collective Shout's claim but all NSFW adult content from browsing and search – at least temporarily. Some games were also removed entirely. 'This is a time critical moment for The situation developed rapidly, and we had to act urgently to protect the platform's core payment infrastructure,' they said. 'Unfortunately, this meant it was not realistic to provide creators with advance notice before making this change. We know this is not ideal, and we apologise for the abruptness of this change.' Some users reported they were unable to play games removed from sale that they had already paid for, which has denied. Collective Shout, a small but vocal lobby group, has long called for a mandatory internet filter that would prevent access to adult content for everyone in Australia. Its director, Melinda Tankard Reist, was recently appointed to the stakeholder advisory board for the government's age assurance technology trial before the under-16s social media ban comes into effect in Australia in December. Collective Shout routinely focuses its campaigns on underwear advertising and video games in Australia. It has recently campaigned for Elon Musk's X to ban adult content, but the success of its recent campaign against gaming platforms has brought them the most international attention. In the two weeks since announcing the letters sent to major payment providers including PayPal, Mastercard and Visa, video game marketplaces and Steam have announced policy changes. Steam, which has an estimated 132 million active monthly users, earlier this month removed an estimated hundreds of titles in response to pressure from payments processors. Tankard Reist said she and her team had been bombarded with 'abuse, harassment, rape and death threats' since the campaign launch, which the team was compiling to report to the eSafety commissioner and the police. By Monday, a petition calling for payment processors to 'stop controlling what we can watch, read, or play' has garnered more than 147,000 signatures. 'Nobody is forced to engage with content they find offensive – but they have no right to dictate what others are allowed to enjoy, especially when it's within the bounds of the law,' it said. Elon Musk posted 'bravo' in response to an X user's post about the petition, and – in another reply to criticism of a payments processor forcing the removal of content – said he wanted to get his own X payments platform 'going soon'. While Collective Shout solely targeted games it said violated policies held by payment platforms, move to temporarily remove all NSFW videos resulted in games with LGBTQ+ content being removed. One petition signer who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community said they were concerned that banning sexual-based games would be the start of cracking down on LGBTQ+ content. 'Banning sexual content never stops there, it always include non-sexual things. As such the fight to protect peoples' right to sexual expression is vital for protecting my right to exist,' they wrote. Tankard Reist said the blanket removal of NSFW games was not the objective of the campaign, noting that has said it would introduce compliance measures for NSFW pages to allow games as long as they abided by the policies of the payment processor linked to their account. 'It is likely many games will be restored to the platform after review,' she said. 'Payment processors have a right to determine what services they will provide … according to their CSR [corporate social responsibility], mission and values.' Asked whether the incoming Online Safety Act codes, which restrict access to content refused classification in Australia and bring in age verification for adult content, would have been a better place for the concerns raised by her group, Tankard Reist said the issue did not affect Australia alone. 'The internet has no borders. Women and girls everywhere are impacted by male violence against women and misogyny in general which we believed these games perpetuated,' she said. Collective Shout could not afford to wait to see if the codes and age verification would be effective, she added. Mastercard and Visa were contacted for comment. Steam did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson for PayPal said it could not comment on individual customers. 'PayPal is committed to maintaining a safe platform for its customers. We have a zero-tolerance policy towards any illegal activity. Any accounts found to be associated with illegal activity will be closed.'

Itch.io is the latest marketplace to crack down on adult games
Itch.io is the latest marketplace to crack down on adult games

Yahoo

time3 days ago

  • Entertainment
  • Yahoo

Itch.io is the latest marketplace to crack down on adult games

Indie video game marketplace announced this week that it has 'deindexed' adult and not-safe-for-work games, removing them from its browse and search pages. The move, the company said, was in response to a campaign by Collective Shout (an advocacy group that has previously criticized video games, rap music, and lingerie commercials) targeting both and Steam for selling 'No Mercy,' a game that depicts rape and incest. In an open letter addressed to executives at PayPal, Mastercard, Visa, and other payment processors, Collective Shout said that games 'endorsing men's sexualised abuse and torture of women and girls fly in the face of efforts to address violence against women.' 'We do not see how facilitating payment transactions and deriving financial benefit from these violent and unethical games, is consistent with your corporate values and mission statements,' the organization added. The campaign appears to have worked, with Steam saying earlier this month that it would ban games that 'may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam's payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers.' Similarly, said, 'To ensure that we can continue to operate and provide a marketplace for all developers, we must prioritize our relationship with our payment partners and take immediate steps towards compliance.' It also said that 'No Mercy' had been 'temporarily available on before being banned back in April,' and that 'the situation developed rapidly,' forcing the company to 'act urgently to protect the platform's core payment infrastructure,' without providing advanced notice to creators. The company said it's now conducting a 'comprehensive audit' to ensure that games available on the marketplace meet 'the requirements of our payment processors,' with adult content remaining deindexed until the audit is complete. After the audit, said NSFW game creators will be required to confirm that their content is allowed under the policies of their payment processors linked to their account. On social media, users criticizing decision noted that its current terms declare that adult content violations are 'permanent with no chance of appeal' and that any funds in an offending account 'will not be eligible for payout' — or as one developer put it, 'If you violate the rules, we take all your money. Not just the money from that work, ALL your money from EVERYTHING you've ever made.' This is far from the first time that payment companies appear to have pressured online platforms over adult content — for example, last year Gumroad pointed to restrictions from payment processors when it implemented stricter rules around NSFW art, and OnlyFans also blamed 'banking partners and payment providers' when it banned explicit content (a decision that it subsequently reversed). A petition with more than 137,000 verified signatures criticizes Mastercard and Visa for their role in these types of decisions. Among other things, the petition demands that the payment companies 'stop censoring legal fictional content that complies with the law and platform standards' and 'reject influence from activist groups that promote moral panic or misrepresent fiction as harm.' Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store