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(+6)

I'm a UKbased hobby developer, and this approach worries me.

While I don't make NSFW games, I have noticed it is one of the easiest ways to go from being unpaid to paid.  A lot of digital artists and animators also use this as a route to support themselves.

With this approach from itch, at present, I could make a NSFW game, but likely not be able to test it, or even worse access my own Dashboard to monitor it's reception.

The UK legislation doesn't outright ban this material, but does require extra checks and accountability for hosting this material for UK consumption.

Would someone be able to explain if this approach is a permanent move, or a temporary measure until a more permanent solution is found?

Also, while not presently covered in the UK law, what happens when depictions of violence, theft, fear, peril, or other negative characteristics are legislated?  The quality and style of media that could be hosted would essentially be zero, and even the games I've made so far would be "banned".

I know itch has bigger fish to fry at the moment, but some kind of information on what the plan is would be nice.

To clarify, I'm an adult, I've made a purchase on itch (forest fire bundle), and I'm a developer, not just a user.

(+1)

I'm in the UK and have an adult game. I can still view my page, there's no restriction.

Thank you for the clarity.

(1 edit) (+1)

UK & EU are becoming less different from USA, China, India or any authoritarian state because of things like encryption-breaking laws, age verification, directives like Copyright with Article 13/17 or ACTA, etc. All because of the excuse of minors or because they believe they can moderate all content, when it has been proven that moderating on a large scale is impossible when it becomes very massive.

Sometimes at least they wouldn't have done it with bad intentions, but we know that the consequences come later.

You should be worried.  

Right now, adult game pages are still accessible but the developers' pages are not. So, you'll say goodbye to even existing followers being able to easily discover any new games.  

Chances are they'll put in some sort of age verification process soon. But that still requires people to want to jump through that particular hoop.  

As you say, there's a chance even your own dashboard could be locked out. 

And the main thing really is that all it now takes is some lobby group on a power trip to convince whoever government at the time that your particular subject matter is potentially harmful to kids and you can kiss visibility goodbye.