I have a question for the Itch management.

As far as I can see the payment systems' demand was either unofficial, or the notification protocol was violated. In both cases, the actions of the payment systems should be regarded as pressure from a monopolist in matters that are not within their competence (+ many other violations).

I assume that a tactical decision to urgently deindex makes sense, but only if you want to buy time and turn the situation in your favor. But I see the removal of games, from which I draw a very sad conclusion.

In addition, Itch has always positioned itself not as a store, but as a community. Maybe these are just beautiful words and marketing populism to lure the audience. So tell me, if we are a community, then maybe it's worth it for the Itch management to go for an international court with сollective appeal? We as a community, with our religious and cultural preferences, do not want to be interfered with and forced to give up our identity. This is a matter of our survival as a community. And, by the way, a very tolerant community, where individuals, creators and ppls fantasies are respected. This is our religion. And we are free people who have the right to do so. And we also have the right to be protected.

I want to see a transparent answer from Itch: Is this just a store, or are we a community after all? And if it's about community, then provide a link to sign a сollective appeal to the court. I think we are ready to defend our ideals.

Trust has definitely been undermined, and it will take years to justify today's mockery of creators. And fighting in court will be difficult, but it's worth it. Because this will define what Itch is for.

I want to add a few more emotional words. I was truly shocked by these events. I consider myself a progressive person, and these activists with incomprehensible and alien morality from the country of far away past years want to turn the sexual revolution back. Where is their tolerance for other people's work, for other people's feelings and even fantasies. FANTASY! Damn, these people are simply at the level of monkeys in terms of understanding the line between reality and fantasy. What can we talk about next? Ban entry to itch from Australia if such untolerant people live there. No Australian = no problem, mb? 

I also want to talk about the consequences. Maybe someone has heard of social psychology and the like.. Well, it took more than 15 years to bring the gaming porn industry out of the darknet and pirate sites. People just began to believe that they can not be ashamed of their sexual desires. To have comfort in selling and buying like all normal ppl do. Just gave up pirate sites who simply steal developers content, hack into the code, make changes to  intellectual property at their discretion, and distribute it (and sometimes even profit from it by selling or collecting donations for publication). And returning to these conditions again is terrible. Developers will be unprotected again. Itch, you gave us hope with your sermons about the community, and now we have this...

I really want to be heard and properly explained whether my hopes were not in vain.

wait whappen tag hentai and nsfw and eroge to how i cant find the game

Itch.io isn't obligated to offer anyone a platform; no one has any inherent right to upload whatever content they want onto itch.io. I interpret the intended message to refer to ability, I just tend to be easily irritated when ideas of "rights" and "censorship" are mentioned erroneously.

This isn't so much the fault of itch.io as much as it is payment processors and the lobbyists pressuring them to punish entities for transacting in a "problematic" manner. If anything, this is where rights and censorship should be a concern. If an artist is commissioned by a customer to draw pornographic content, and the two exchange product and payment and respect each other throughout the transaction, there is no issue and it's not the intermediaries' business so long as it isn't actively breaking any moral or legal boundary.
The difference between itch.io deciding something is not acceptable to host, and a payment processor blocking transactions they deem unacceptable, is the fact that unlike itch.io, said payment processors have effectively monopolized all ability to digitally exchange value, whereas you have many other options for distributing your art besides itch.io; when they dictate what transactions are considered acceptable, they in essence can make any transactions they don't like "illegal" despite not technically having the authority to enforce any law.
Capitalism fucking sucks, reason #99999...

And no, cryptocurrency is not a solution and anyone attempting to entertain the idea of using it should be laughed out of the room.

Update: https://itch.io/docs/creators/faq#is-adult-content-allowed

Well.. 🤔 hm.. it's total *******😒

____________________________

The following is a non-exhaustive list of prohibited themes present in card processing networks. We are unable to support the sale of any works containing these topics:

• Non-consensual content (real or implied)
• Underage or “barely legal” themes
• Incest or pseudo-incest content
• Bestiality or animal-related
• Rape, coercion, or force-related
• Sex trafficking implications
• Revenge porn / voyeur / hidden cam
• Fetish involving bodily waste or extreme harm (e.g., “scat,” “vomit”)

____________________________

... we have.. what we have 😔

Farewell furries, horse dildos and sexy stepmothers..  RIP

While the delisting of adult games doesn’t directly affect any of my current itch.io projects, it sets a disastrous and worrying precedent. If games can be removed from itch.io without warning because a far-right puritan group and a couple of payment processors applied pressure, then every game is in potential danger. This is censorship of art and is an attack on the livelihoods of itch.io’s creators. And there’s no reason to think that the far-right group would stop here. Games with LGBT themes, or swear words, or political satire, could easily be the next targets.

I urge itch.io to relist the games and to not cave to the pressure of far-right groups and payment processors. Payment processors should not be in the business of censorship; their purpose is to process payments.

If you have the time, contact the payment processors and let them know your opinion on their censorship. If you’re in America, contact Mastercard with this link and contact Visa with this link.

– Mt. Penguin Monster

To be quite honest even if the current state of affairs is rectified I'll be skeptical of using Itch as a platform going forward. The lack of transparency with the people who make the website worth using and the willingness to hold their livelihoods in limbo for imagined violations invented to suit payment processors shows which side Itch is on. Even if their hands were fully tied, there's a certain  degree of dignity they could have afforded people, and they haven't put in the work.