do you have the same energy towards steam, who capitulated earlier, harder, and hasn’t seemed to be interested in negotiating, despite being much much more powerful and influent than itch?
Steam’s bans were (as far as I’ve seen) far more targeted at content that is a lot tougher to defend. It’s a lot tougher to defend rape and incest content than just all porn and nsfw. Obviously it’s all fantasy and fiction, but it’s still more difficult.
Itch.io went full into banning everything labeled nsfw, LGBTQ, violent, etc. The fact that Steam had a much more targeting impact implies to me that they used their stronger position to negotiate prior to the ban rather than itch.io that banned first and is now trying to walk that back.
I can’t help but wonder if Itch is intentionally going for a malicious compliance route. As you say, it’s tougher to defend rape and incest content, so if they’d opened with that they likely wouldn’t have gotten nearly as much media attention. But by doing it this way, half the internet is talking about payment processors forcing itch to delist NSFW games, even giving juicy headlines like LGBTQ games being disproportionately affected. Then Collective Shout of all groups was forced onto the back foot and forced to say “wait no we just wanted the rape and incest games gone” but now that the story is out there it has a life of its own.
Even if they didn’t do it on purpose, it seems like it’s created a much more effective movement than if they had done it “properly”, regardless of the reason for why it worked out this way.
This is one of the big use cases I could see for a crypto like Monero. If someone made a Patreon-style site that used XMR, I’d be all over it.
It’s one of those network effect catch-22s though. There’s probably not enough people using Monero to justify creating a site like that - but we’ll never hit a “critical mass” of Monero users if there aren’t ecosystems that encourage its use.
I have the impression that the American government is doing all it can to delegitimize the American Dollar. Between that and the cultural impetus of sexuality, there is going to be a huge opening for Monero and friends to establish themselves as genuine currency.
This is becoming the norm. Don’t think there can be some new payment processor based off traditional finance and banking that can get around this. Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Square, SEPA, FedNow, etc will all rather block transactions to companies that deal in NSFW or whatever is considered dangerous content than try and be some neutral payment rail.
Any in terms of cryptocurrency, any stablecoin will end up subject to the same problems where the issued stablecoin is backed by a governments currency or bonds or even like corporate bonds which are regulated by countries and those are all clear ways to regulate what is appropriate for spending money on. Stablecoins have freeze and clawback mechanisms, at least the ones that are legally compliant. Really to me the only solution is for non-stablecoin/gold/etc backed cryptocurrencies to become popular for payments
It’s gonna be a hard push for a lot of these companies to stop accepting transactions for NSFW stuff unless they can prove it’s harmful or they get legal repercussions because it’s a big part of business. In an economy where “year over year growth” is such a big deal, neutering transactions that account for (guessing generously) 7% of your revenue is a hard pill to swallow without serious force.
We already have the example of now itch and steam getting hit by payment processor restricted on content. YouTube and advertisers wanting to not be shown on categories of content and demonetized channels. I remember headlines about Pixiv and payment processors some time ago
Lose access to the major payment processors and they’ll lose far more than 7%. Until there’s a means of payment thats popular enough to replace centralized authority payment processing, it’s an easy choice for businesses to sacrifice their sex related sales to not sacrifice the larger portion of their sales that they’d lose without support of major payment processors.
The way things are going, there’s going to be the need for popular NSFW specific stores that don’t use Visa/Mastercard, private bank transfers, or national bank transfers. There’s a split in internet video where porn sites are separate from stuff like YouTube. This payment processor content moderation is in the same vein as advertisers on YouTube and other social media networks
Oh for sure, the sites are getting in trouble. But that’s because advertisers don’t want to be associated with those things.
But the payment processors, that’s literally how they make money. Can’t make money off the top if there are no transactions. Banks will still let you deposit your money if you get it from a drug deal, bit of a don’t ask don’t tell there, but it’s the government that has problems with how you got it. (hyperbole but you get my point)
I still think separating from credit card co.'s is a good idea regardless. But its pretty rare for them to turn down transactions unless they have to.
Hell Cashapp is jokingly called the “drug dealer financing app” but you don’t see them getting shut down any time soon.
It looks like there are a few games I was slightly interested in trying at some point, but not enough to buy them, but having so many together as a single purchase, I couldn’t resist. I even paid the default price of $20 instead of $10.
I just check a place that I have bought adult games from and they have not had this issue. But fhey use paypal to take payments, so maybe they will be fine. At least I hope so.
From what I read, the policy of removing domains when the county stops existing was directly based on what happened with .su so that never happens again.
I wish people would stop saying this. That was a political decision from decades ago back when the internet was far smaller. It has no bearing on today where the political situation here is completely different and not only that but the internet is far larger and the ICANN are far more powerful.
Back in the 1980s they didn’t have the political clout to really be able to enforce anything. They just have to basically accept it as a fader complete, not so anymore
You can filter games by what was in previous bundles so you can see what purely new games you are getting and what are dupes.
But seriously, don’t be afraid to dive in and try the many, MANY games made by small indie devs. This is a great way to discover hidden gems that otherwise might not ever get a chance, and other small projects which might not be your typical game but an interesting experience regardless.
Guys hi, just looking for some support share, a Fantasy Adventure Story, for all ages and just some entertain with some storyes: www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mVIvQ1wsgg - maybe you are curious
Since our launch in 2010, we have achieved many wins: billboards objectifying women pulled down, sexualised childrens clothing withdrawn from sale, sexually violent games banned, Andrew Tate’s pimping courses removed from Spotify, and an age verification trial underway to help protect kids from exposure to porn. Last year saw a record 34 wins.
On one hand, they help tighten the grip of economic fascism, on the other hand they also piss off Tate… #confusedboner
How’s this confusing? They’re a Puritanical group. They do Puritanical things. They want people to live a Puritanical life. Literally nothing deep about it.
They are a dangerous cult fueled by a ton of repressed feelings. But so is Tate! If they wanted to fight each other for a while that would be pretty sweet.
These are the sort of people who actually ban Christmas. And that’s what scares me. They can’t tell the difference between cheeky yet harmless fun, basic human variation, and evil, and they will make that your problem it they get enough power
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