Post by CharonX in The Anger is justified, but please direct it in a useful direction

Viewing post in The Anger is justified, but please direct it in a useful direction

While itch.io is not the anti-trans, anti-porn pseudo-facist group that pressured the payment provider, they decided the throw all NSFW content creators under the bus without as much as a moments notice.

"Our ability to process payments is critical for every creator on our platform. 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.

This is a time critical moment for itch.io. The situation developed rapidly, and we had to act urgently to protect the platform’s core payment infrastructure. 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 apologize for the abruptness of this change."

We know this is not ideal, and we apologize for the abruptness of this change

Oh, you "apologize for the abruptness" - well all is good and fi.... Nope, this is still utter BULLSHIT - you just threw all NSFW under the bus, PERIOD.

Hope it was worth it, Itch.io - I considered you a good alternative to Steam, especially for all the niche, smaller games that would be hard pressed to find traction on Steam, but you managed to burn away all the goodwill in one big swoop. Good job - but look at the upsides, your payment provider will have sooo much less work to do now, since many people will no longer buy from you (including me)

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CurioShade160 days ago(+5)

Itch.io isn't the first target, before they have been many more like Steam or certain japanese sites like DLSite. Saying that itch.io should somehow be even better than Steam, that despite being thousand times larger had to also comply, is quite unfair, especially considering they are way smaller and with way less people on board (and they sure don't have system to verify games that don't comply with processors in the first place, which they now have to install). So hey, moving to another site won't solve the issue, because any site will meet the same fate unless we act and do something about those payment processors. They will always have to cater because you can't fight over someone that literally decides if you are able to earn money or not, where Visa and Mastercard responds for most transactions in the entire world. Many more NSFW creators will be treated like that if we don't do something tangible instead of complain on each service that has to comply and pray that does something.

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CharonX160 days ago(+10)

Yes, they targeted other sites before, however
1) Itch.io's handing of "Oh, we shadowbanned everything NSFW without a moment's notice, sorry (lulz)" is just terrible and 2) Steam is bigger - but has far more "mainstream" games. Steam can easily shrug off losing the handful of NSFW games in favor of keeping the mainstream ones - Itch.io has many more smaller developers and many more NSFW games, so the stakes are different for them: NSFW content likely is a much bigger share than e.g. on Steam, so they should try to fight for that bigger piece, or at least not act in a way that will NOT burn all goodwill towards them (instead of how they did act)

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CurioShade160 days ago(+6)

Yea, they definitely should be more professional in terms of the first point and that was always a thing before albeit we don't know how it looked on their end. Maybe they got an actual legal letter and they had to act fast? Some people already have been thinking if they didn't have something serious as a bonus that made them act faster: https://bsky.app/profile/torrent-empress.bsky.social/post/3luowy64rcl2y

Worth remembering that itch.io staff is small. They didn't have ways to check if games are breaking the rules or not and it was put on the users to potentially report those. Now that itch.io has been forced to get rid of certain NSFW games and they can't check it easily, the only thing they could do to comply and not lose a major way of paying developers on the site was to nuke everything and then try to potentially hire people to actually check that stuff or try to somehow do it on their own.

Responding to second point, I don't think they wanted to lose that pie either. For them it's way more of a big deal than Steam because they have been hosting NSFW games for so long but it's really difficult do to much if your own payment processors are literally against what you host and give you an ultimatum, which they shouldn't be able to do in the first place. That is the true problem that needs to be resolved, because otherwise it will keep happening and they will start leverage their power to censor something more than just controversial porn.

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queenmoany158 days ago(+2)

Moving to another site won't solve the issue, but it will provide a deterrent to other companies doing the same.

And it will protect devs and customers from the risks involved with working with such an unreliable platform which instates blanket bans (and which removes much more than the bans, even) with no prior warning and even with the delisting of purchased titles.

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CurioShade158 days ago(+2)

Provide a deterrent? I am sorry but I cannot agree. Companies will always choose survival over going bankrupt and closing down and that's basically what happens when you can't pay people. Users moving out to other platform will just make that one be next target in the future once it gets big enough, that's buying time more than anything. If payment processors and card companies mandated what can be sold with their services before, next will fall in the line because hosting content isn't a charity. Itch.io saved their asses first like any company would do, because NSFW content ain't the only thing they have to worry about.

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Andy (Tiggs) K160 days ago(+11)

They made the wrong choice, IMO.

They are going to haemorrhage users because of this. Players go where the games are. They're not going to stick around.

I get that they're between a rock and a hard place, the problem is I don't think they quite understand that yet. Or, at least, they're hoping (uselessly) to avoid it.
Without payment processors, they can't charge customers or pay devs. This is true. But without customers there's nothing to pay with.

And they will lose customers over this. And lose word-of-mouth goodwill. This is going to hurt them.

People will just move to whatever the next big thing is. Eventually the payment processors will get jumpy when things get too popular but it takes time to get up to critical mass.

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Deleted post158 days ago

Deleted 158 days ago

DuskTheUmbreon158 days ago(+2)

It was throw one group under the bus or throw them all under it, because Itch has literally zero power here.

We cannot rely on companies or capitalism to fix this. This is something the people need to fix.

Billionaires should not get to decide our lives.

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AbusedEve153 days ago(+1)

You are a child that understand nothing. Think for a bit before you attack itch.io. I dare you to make company like Steam and Itch.io and try to stand up and get all your money blocked and go bankrupt in few months. Cause you were dumb to not comply. What you should instead do is cave in and then try to find way to fix it cause standing up will not help you at all since this will do the same exact thing that happened now. (cause they said they will block them so that would not change anything but make it worse for Itch.io)

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CharonX153 days ago(+4)

"You are a child that understand nothing"

Thank you for demonstrating on how to lose any argument in 7 words.

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