Post by FireswordDragon in SALA'S ESCAPE/PRINCESS RESCUE LEAVING ITCH.IO FOREVER comments

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Also, for the record, Itch.io isn't the villain here; it's the hidden monopoly that is payment processors who can singlehandedly cut off all financial activity anywhere they want, be it random websites or entire continents, if they so much as get a wrong look from the wrong person, hence why this is being fought over on the Steam situation. Itch.io can't exist without some financial activity, and if the processors pull access to their utility entirely, not even just suspending purchasing content directly, like what happened with DLSite last year, then you can't use a website point/currency system like DLSite did to completely counter the problem they faced.

And Itch.io is not Japan, they can't fight back because they aren't 60% of the payment processors' incomes nor 70% of the world's digital consumable and interactive products, so they can't threaten to drop the payment processors like Japan did. Most of the adult content on Itch.io is free, so because they're getting targeted, the pay to buy and own non-adult games would get punished if Itch.io fought back right now.

Good news, not only is america fighting this, Collective Shout has singlehandedly caused more of a shitshow with this than anything else I know in recent history, and what would really ignite this even further is if there's a connection to these bullying tactics by them and Video Game Europe, aka all the AAA corpos that are opposing Stop Killing Games, who have succeeded in getting to a point where the EU has to review their requests. Which means if they get exposed with a connection, Collective Shout will be exposed as being used as a bullying tactic to directly force competition to submit with blackmail (refusing payment and thus cutting off income would be classified as blackmail and thus illegal), by corporations who are trying to fight a legal battle, which would lead to them being linked to said blackmail and thus be on grounds to getting sued, and thus losing the battle against SKG.

So right now? Yeah, it's really bad because of the precedent it's setting, but this actually has a high chance of being fixed in less than a month's time I'd wager. It's just a matter of will the platforms revert once they're no longer being blackmailed, and which ones will have permanent damage done to them by effectively terror groups?

Quakehoof Games124 days ago(+1)

That seems pretty optimistic, but until these payment processors are brought before the supreme court, don't count on anything being done.

and frankly I don't really give a shit. Itch.io showed that it will fold like a cheap lawn chair given the first sign of trouble, and have stated that they will only bring things back with "compliance measures." Those two words are the mark of the beast in my eyes. This platform is beyond salvation.

FireswordDragon124 days ago(+1)

Yeah, cause this fight ain't over until it's over. That's important.

I'll give itch the benefit of the doubt on this, this time, since they really do not have any alternative, this isn't like Steam where Gaben can just if he wanted make his own payment processor. It's good you're taking this elsewhere, because having games like this everywhere you can extends who can find it, and worst case scenario other sites can be used as preservation options. Itch.io basically had a gun to its head whilst strapped into a car going 100 km/h towards a cliff and told you either drive off the cliff or get shot, they've got no other play for now, they'll have to rely on us to fix this.

This isn't like Discord where they chose to screw you over and then looked at every company that went public got screwed over and decided to do so themselves, itch.io basically had no alternative option. We'll see in the future if they do crap, but I won't judge itch.io by themselves until then.

Collective Shout would love for you to attack Itch.io for it since they could white knight saying people hate adult content on itch.io because some people are outraged. That group is exactly the type of people that love to use every ounce of fuel and firepower they can, no matter the consequences. Giving them ammo is not the play, since we've already seen journalists take things out of context. Heck, CS literally got confronted directly by hundreds of people on Hour 1 of Steam getting attacked by this about how this sets a precedent for video game censorship going forward, and they read them all as "these incels are upset their adult games are getting banned", even though not a single person mentioned adult games, so likely they're the type to confuse "people being outraged about losing their livelihoods" as "the people have spoken, itch.io is saving them from the adultery!", or whatever their insane minds come up with.

Quakehoof Games124 days ago

Ok yeah, you make a decent point. Fuck creative shout for trying to weaponize my emotions.

FireswordDragon124 days ago(+1)

yeah. We gotta stay calm and collected on this. Collective Shout wants us to lash out with anger, because they've bragged about this. Their responses to people talking about their actions setting a precedent that means that a group can call a payment processor 1000 times to make them ban a genre of games, was basically universally this; "we love hearing about the tears of incels crying about being unable to goon about their adult games". No mention of how we're worried about the precedent, only focusing on the parts we never brought up. So clearly they love engagement and backlash.

So the only way to combat them properly is directly and through legal methods, like emailing and calling up the payment processors and voicing concerns and issues, and that if things don't get better regarding it, that your full business with them shall be taken elsewhere permanently. If enough people globally did this, the payment processors would be forced to respond because of a perceived financial threat that comes from a perspective of general content, not just adult games, and thus would require them to face their actions of potentially causing finance and reputation damage to them.

Because if it became big public news that payment processors were making up laws that decided what content is allowed to exist, they'd face scrutiny from financial groups like the FTC, who don't very much like it when a company with lots of reach and influence tries to get more. People have tried that on Steam, trying to say that Steam is a monopoly, and their counter was how every one of their competitors were not providing better services and were making themselves worse, thus establishing that they are a market leader. And given Disney,s gotten in trouble with groups like that for trying to become a monopoly, a small Australian activism group forcing American payment processors to enforce new rulings that forbid the use of injecting money into an economy outright through blackmail tactics would be very much frowned upon.