This new policy demonstrates that itch.io is weak and cowardly and does not support neither devs nor gamers. I thought I had found a great place to find new indie games and games still in development but this policy will effectively destroy the platform. Allowing payment processors to dictate what content is allowed is madness, I can't believe you would let it happen so easily. Hopefully you will come to your senses and rollback this policy and censorship, if not you deserve to disappear.
Just out of curiosity. What actual choice did itch.io have? Online payment processors are what allow the site to receive money and operate in the first place. If itch.io went against PayPal, Mastercard, and Visa, the whole website would more than likely be forced to shut down. Do you actually think itch.io has the resources to go up against megacorporations? Easy to be on your high horse until someone threatens your entire livelihood. If you want to vent your anger and disappointment, direct it towards the payment processors, not the victim.
YES. They absolutely do have the resources to fight back: they are a company, which means they have their own legal team and they do make a considerable amount of profit based on everyone who purchases games and game creating resources from this site. They can easily fight back, launch suits, switch payment processors-- there are many outlets that a company such as this one can take. Especially considering how many game developers who have suddenly basically been defamed and seriously harmed by having their games shadowbanned.
Yes, itch.io is a company, but does that automatically give them a huge amount of leverage against a megacorporation, especially when said megacorporations are payment processors, no, not really. I'm shocked at the amount of people on here who are underestimating just how much power payment processors have of not only over itch.io but our lives as well. Think about it, if even STEAM, with as much money, resources, and backing that THEY have, are bending the knee, what possible chance did Itch.io have? When payment processors refuse to work, that throws a monkey wrench in everything, and they have no way to make money at all. And even if Itch.io did launch a lawsuit, unlikely they would win against the endless resources of legal teams that these payment processors have, which the payment processors don't even have to win, they can just drag it out and out until Itch.io runs out of money and has to declare bankruptcy. Switching payment processors ain't that simple either. Shout targeted all of the most widely used and most secured ones. What's Itch.io going to use? Crypto? A payment that fluctuates more in a day than the standard 3.5% CC processing fee. Imagine selling something for 100$ and only getting 80$ by the end of the day, hard to run a business like that. And finally, call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, but I can't help but think Itch.io was threatened behind the scenes to act fast and now or get cut permanently by the payment processors. Because there is no possible way itch.io benefits from this, it only hurts them. Don't you think that if they could have given a heads-up, they would have? What possible benefit is there to abruptly shadow-banning your most profitable genre on your platform abruptly without warning, knowing it would piss off the entire community? None, unless there is the payment processor mafia breathing down their necks to act now.
The thing about Steam is: they're huge. It doesn't really hurt them if they decide to yeet even a few hundred titles into the void. Corporations are like hydras: they can sever one of their heads and still survive, despite the backlash they get for what they've done.
There are well over fifty payment processors out there, including Dwolla, that Itch could use, rather than going through PayPal, PaySafe and Stripe. (Visa, Mastercard, AMEX and Discover are different entities.) Many payment processors like them utilize direct bank-to-bank transfers. There are payment processors out there that accept adult content-- and they are not shifty, nor are they cryptocurrency (which is an extremely bad idea to use in the first place.)
Nope, I do not think they would have given anyone a heads' up, if they could have. Many companies have pulled fast-and-dirty changes in the past and they will continue to do so in the future (Companies as a whole will continue to make fast-and-dirty changes with little to no notification. It's what they seem to do more often than not.)
Other people have made it known that this has been going on since at least April. Two months is more than enough time to let everyone know that shit was about to roll downhill.'
They could have easily posted ways that developers and game purchasers could take action. They could have made their own petitions. They could have posted advance warnings. There are many things they should have (and could have) done.
Until and unless Itch makes a statement that they have been fighting back, have been attempting to fight back, or are trying to mount a defense against what's going on, I am firmly of the belief that they are no more innocent of wrongdoing than their overlords and the pile of shit censorship group.
People can vent their anger out on itch.io and ALSO the payment processors because how the site is handling this sucks. They had the choice of how to handle the situation and they did not do this the right way at all.
They could of warned everyone ahead of time of a policy change, gave people time and put their team together to figure out steps to protect their usebase and creators instead of just straight up delisting/hiding things/removing content from buyers and sellers. They didn't even know if they were going to refund us until recently if they decided to continue to remove things from our libraries.
"Easy to be on your high horse until someone threatens your entire livelihood"
This is an absurd statement to make considering that what has happened here has threatened the livelihood of a bunch of developers who make NSFW content.
Itch is a victim sure, but itch is not guilt free. Itch's job was to provide these small developers without resources a platform to host their creations, and as part of that job, Itch was expected to provide a degree of safety and stability. Itch suddenly deciding to capitulate without giving any warning or time for these developers to react has absolutely obliterated their livelihood. Itch took no steps to actually try to protect the interests of the people who make the product that they sell. They are complicit in the havoc done to hundreds of developers livelihoods.
