I think it would be more prudent to tell the credit card companies your opinion and threaten them with boycott. After all, it was them that listened to activist groups and now they are blackmailing platforms to obey.
Payment processors are supposed to be neutral. It is my money that I spend, not theirs. They have no say in this. And they should not listen to any bigot activist group.
True, but also—itch.io has failed to do even the smallest hint of protest over this. There is nothing to suggesting they aren't going along with this willingly.
They could have published their letter from VISA/MasterCard. They didn't. They could have put a big protest banner on the front page. They didn't. They could have spoken out about payment processors acting as de-facto global censorship. They didn't.
In fact, the wording in their https://itch.io/updates/update-on-nsfw-content goes out of it way to downplay it, with corporate passive language like:
prioritize our relationship with our payment partners and take immediate steps towards compliance.
also note that, when they talk about that they skim the site for games to remove, they talk about the removal by an extremely stealthy litotes:
We are currently conducting a comprehensive audit of content to ensure we can meet the requirements of our payment processors.
Of course, this is so cleverly hidden that they have to later point out what they're actually saying:
Part of this review will see some pages being permanently removed from itch.io.
(but note the use passive voice, avoiding saying who will perform said removal, namely themselves)
I think this sites blatant compliance should be criticized, too.
Itch is indie itself. They act very unprofessional about a lot of things. I doubt they have a large legal department or any means to fight back. They are "weak". And there might be non disclosure agreements that they cannot breach. Pissing on their payment processors by leaking documents is not a smart move, if you want to keep your little indie game platform running.
From my perspective this is all so very unnecesary. Be it those bigot activists scaring facebook mums or the credit card companies being virtue signallers abusing their defacto monopoly. It is so pointless, because they stirr up this nonsense about fictional content. Especially the credit card companies should be ashamed, because they profit from actual real porn big time.
They are not fighting any evils or doing any good, making the world better or anything.
But bashing on indie adult video games is easy. The easy fight. It is a smallish subculture, unlikely to fight back effectively. Easy win for the activists, easy virtue signal for the credit card companies.
I like the way Wikipedia raised awareness of the attacks on them in Italy from Berlusconi. They put a giant banner on top of the site.
I wish Itch would have let people search for and access the pages of affected games, but instead of the usual page with screenshots, comments and a purchase button, an overlay should read “Due to demands from our payment processors [and list them], we have delisted this game.” And preferably give the specific terms of service it violates.
