Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines

Buying NSFW games on Itch.io? PayPal may Nuke your account!

A topic by Golgom93 created Aug 20, 2025 Views: 4,299 Replies: 9
Viewing posts 1 to 6
(+9)

Just woke up to an Email from PayPal stating that my account was permanently limited, thinking it's a scam I check and lo and behold:

But what had I done? Well my only purchases using PayPal were through Itch.io, that's the only thing I use it for:

It seems I was limited for "breaking the policies of our partners" mentioned in the first paragraph of the notice. It's no secret that PayPal are quite close with Mastercard and Visa, who have been pushing so hard for Itch.io to ban NSFW content from their platform.


Consider this a PSA: if you're using your PayPal account for other things, don't use it for itch.

(2 edits) (+1)

I cannot pay via PayPal on Itch. It shows an error. Don''t know yet about payment on any other sites. DIdn't get an email from them. 

That sucks!

Maybe Related: Your payment history is in USD, PayPal is based in the US, but the email doesn’t use US English spelling. “Centre” and “apologise” are not the expected “Center” and “apologize”. I wonder what PayPal is using to write its messages.

(+10)

An update: this does NOT appear to be the case. I have tested it, buying NSFW content here with my own Paypal account, had no issues, and have yet to have my account disabled. This also makes logical sense: If Paypal DID have an issue with Itch, there's not need or reason for them to go around sneakily nuking customer accounts: they could (and almost certainly would) either demand further censorship or just stop providing service to the site completely.

My condolences to Golgom, but it looks like his account termination was a one-off unrelated to Itch. Paypal has a long history of being oddly sensitive about a vast number of inscrutable things, which is why, although using the service to make purchases is generally fine, you should never, ever leave money in a Paypal account any longer than you have to.

(+1)

is it region specific? most likely because of the spelling from OP post with "apologise" or "centre"

Impossible to say. But again, it would make little sense for Paypal to just start randomly banning its users for doing business with sites they service. When one of the Paypal banks withdrew from Steam, they WITHDREW, and announced they were doing so. They didn't start banning people for buying Steam games. Paypal has always been bizarre and chaotic in how they do business, but this seems like a bit much, even for them.

(+1)

I tried myself; you are indeed correct.

It might be Paypal being crooked. There are common reports where Paypal has just been stealing money from it's customers whether they are paying or using paypal in the business operations.

We won't know what's going on for a while.

Good to see one more confirmation that it's working for most at least. 

Deleted 167 days ago
(+3)

I agree it is pretty sad to be thrown under the bus just because a small group of Karens want to censor what adults look at.

(+4)

This sucks bro let us use our money and do what we WANT.