Exactly!! We need to address this issue at its root. It’s honestly terrifying how much unchecked power third parties (payment processors or advocacy groups such as Collective Shout) have over what kind of content is allowed to exist. These aren’t even platforms that host or create anything, yet they’re dictating which stories, characters, and themes are “acceptable” to tell. How does that make sense?!?
What makes it worse is the total lack of transparency or accountability. These decisions are being made behind closed doors, and creators are left scrambling, trying to comply with shifting goalposts, without any idea of what rule they even violated. It’s exhausting and demoralizing.
EX: Itch decided to pull NSFW games without any proper heads-up. The official statement only came AFTER games were already shadowbanned or removed-- so there was no opportunity to salvage or adjust content in time. And now that they’re supposedly re-indexing free NSFW games, it’s still unclear what criteria they’re using. CA still hasn’t been re-listed :///
At the end of the day, we’re just people trying to share a piece of ourselves with the world. But somehow, moral panic and corporate interests keep overriding creative freedom... This isn’t just a game dev issue; it’s happening across multiple industries, and it needs to be called out.