Posted July 24, 2025 by TheArcadean
#News
Just a quick notice for people who have - or have not - heard about the sudden changes occurring on Itch. In short, Collective Shout (https://www.collectiveshout.org/) - a group who are absolutely as annoying as their name would suggest - have made themselves unpleasant to MasterCard and Visa and they, in turn, have put pressure on Itch.
The long and the short of it is that all adult games (and this includes games that involve adult themes such as psychological trauma, suicidal ideation and abuse) have been delisted, meaning that unless you know the name and/or URL of the game, you *cannot* find it in the Itch store any more. (This lack of discoverability obviously cripples developer income.)
As well as that, a number of games have been suspended or terminated by Itch already, with their pages no longer accessible and the files no longer able to be downloaded. Itch is using a combine harvester here instead of a scalpel.
What does this mean for Corrupted Kingdoms? The Itch announcement states that "creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account". Given that Patreon already booted Corrupted Kingdoms (despite it being in the top 30 adult games and top 300 of *all* Patreon pages) because of payment processor demands, the future of CK on Itch is... not bright. I'll update everyone as and when I have more information on that.
I might hold an informal Discord stream tomorrow if people want to ask me questions about the changes, the reasons and the ramifications. If you'd like that, ping me in #general-chat chat to let me know.
Good luck to all the devs affected, and my heart goes out to each and every one of you! And to the players, who have had their games ripped away from them!
And finally, I'd like to issue a very rare, but well-deserved Fuck You to Collective Shout. You people need to find a better hobby.
I love you all (not you, Collective Shout).
-- Arc.
Edit: Oh, and if you're a US citizen, *please* sign this! https://action.aclu.org/petition/mastercard-sex-work-work-end-your-unjust-policy
Edit #2: How to contact EU politicians to make your voices heard on this issue: https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/1m8t8ci/heres_how_to_contact_european_...