Post by Jaboc.gb in game was un-indexed after launch

Viewing post in game was un-indexed after launch

None of this makes any sense though, Itch has literal p*rn games like Taffy Tales and AI slop adult only titles that are allowed to sell on itch while being indexed at the top of their categories and very searchable if 18+ is turned on. Where as my game (and my whole account), that isn't an adult only game, gets completely shafted for having 8 bit art that's about as controversial as some Castlevania titles.

Sure my game might not be for literal children, but at this point I don't know what to do. Please understand why I'm frustrated, I worked on my game for 2 years only to launch and be deindexed 2 days later. I read all the rules and hear what everyone is saying, but there is no consistency.

As of now it's still flagged by a mod and there's apparently nothing I can do.

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Eldwood6 days ago(+1)

There are three types of NSFW games on Itch:

Those that accept no payment. Free NSFW games can be indexed.
Those that are not indexed. (The game you linked to appears to be one of those, although I’m not sure how you found it if that’s the case.)
Those that are mislabeled as SFW, and will be marked as NSFW if they are ever found out. (If the game you linked to is one of those, please report it by going to the game page and pressing the Report link.)

Literal porn game or NSFW for some other reason makes no difference. Either the game is NSFW (meaning it either accepts no payment or is unindexed) or it’s not.

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Jaboc.gb6 days ago

With age filter off, that porn game was found when clicking "top sellers". It's literally at the top. Scrolling down there are many more 18+ games that have purchase price turned on. Some of these have been on here for a while.

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hechelion6 days ago(+1)

Itch doesn't have a staff capable of reviewing every game before it's published.

Most games are published and indexed, trusting that the developers are honest.

Itch has a "bot" that, through a secret algorithm, can deindex a game and place it on a manual review list. This means that the game must wait to be reviewed by a human staff member, but this only affects some games, and many others are indexed immediately without any prior review.

When you find a game with adult content (especially pornographic) when you shouldn't, it's almost certain that the game wasn't properly tagged by the author (sometimes it's an honest mistake, other times the developers try to circumvent the system).

In those cases, as already mentioned, the best thing to do is use the report button at the bottom of the game to bring it to the staff's attention.

For example, the game "TAffy Tales," judging by the images, is clearly NSFW, but if you check its tags, you'll see that the author didn't include any adult content tags:

2D, Characters, Pixel Art, Singleplayer, Story Rich, uberpie

It's possible the author is trying to get their game indexed (despite selling it), hoping to slip under the staff's radar.

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redonihunter6 days ago (1 edit)

tags are not the nsfw indicator. The game is properly marked. You actually cannot see the nsfw status on any nsfw game's page.

There are even sfw games that do have the tag "adult". Tags are not meta information. Look here for example https://xformgames.itch.io/gladiator-true-story Paid game, indexed, with "adult" tag. But it is not nsfw under the criteria of an US based website. But nude pixel art is. It's not an age rating, and yes, that is confusing.

And that taffy dev is an old and popular developer with 8k followers. Why do you think their Chapter 2 is top seller almost immediatly after publishing.

And as I said elsewhere, there is no strict rule that says that paid nsfw games are not allowed or impossible to be indexed. It is just the way most games are treated.

(The relationship between the "adult" tags and the nsfw status is this: if you select one of the "adult" tags, you get a firm reminder about maybe marking your game as sensitive content.)

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hechelion6 days ago

Itch is not accepting paid games with content deemed NSFW for indexing. The games that are listed are errors, and once the staff notices these errors, they deindex them.

I know that a tag and a sensitive content check are two different things. Personally, I think there's a bug in Itch's code, but in the words of the administrator on Discord, those games are mislabeled; they should already have a tag indicating adult content.

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redonihunter5 days ago

Even if that would be a considered a bug for the games in question, there is no rule about paid games being forbidden from being indexed. It is merely the way they currently handle things. And as far as I remember and as you can read, this delisting was a mere means to appease the payment processors to have talks.

So Itch might just decide to not "fix" that "bug".

The game in this thread already used the obvious maneuver to be visible. The demo version is indexed.

uberpie also has a nonpaid demo version visible... so there is that.

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Eldwood5 days ago(+1)

There does appear to be something weird going on with that game that you’re no longer linking. It’s definitely marked NSFW (i.e. I can’t find it all all without turning on NSFW content), and it definitely charges money. And yet, clicking on the uberpie tag in the game’s list of tags shows the game, so the game can be found through tags, which should never happen for unindexed games. I am intrigued.

(That the game shows up on the Top Sellers list is no proof either way because that page could intentionally or unintentionally ignore the indexed status of the game.)

One hypothesis is that the game collects payment directly without going through Itch, and that this makes them exempt from the “no money for nsfw” rule, but that’s just one possibility. Another is that it’s a bug on the part of Itch, or an exploit on the part of the game. Or that there are circumstances where browsing by tags will show unindexed games after all.

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Jaboc.gb5 days ago

I had that thought as well, maybe they are taking direct payments and that's the work around. I would do direct payments if I knew for sure it would fix my problem. I have NSFW turned on, so after my game was deindexed, I browsed around and was surprised how many "popular" games were for sale, so maybe they are taking direct, who knows.

When my game was indexed, it was showing at the top on a couple of my tags and even on the top sellers page. A good amount of my traffic was coming from Itch discovery. None of my tags work anymore, only way to reach it is by direct link.

Leafo told me to try unmarking the game as sensitive content, however it was originally marked by a mod which is what unindexed me, so I don't have the option to change it anymore.

I did get my old Demo page indexed again last night by marking it as sensitive and uploading my demo with payment option turned off, so that's at least a small win.

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redonihunter6 days ago (1 edit)

You complain about different things.

a) Your game is considered nsfw on Itch. And in my opinion, it is rightly so. If your game's certification in any given country would be adults only, all ages, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18 or 20, does not matter at all. The problem is, Itch has no age certification for games. They only have nsfw. Which usually includes pixel nudity in low res.

Personally from the little I saw, I would put it somewhere between 12 and 15. But adjusted for US based Itch, I would put it at 18, since there is only the choice of 13 and 18.

You try to publish on Steam. They will give your game an inofficial rating. Might be interesting, what rating they will give it for different regions.

b) Paid nsfw games are currently not indexed in general. We all hope this will be changed. Does this concern you? Not really. You have an unpaid demo version you can use to be visible. But apparantly you do not want to do this. It is delisted, either by yourself, or because you removed all files.

Any accidental traffic you can catch with the demo version and guide people to your paid version. Just do not try to mark your demo as sfw, when it links to a nsfw game. Even if you disagree with the nsfw attribute.

And any direct traffic you generate outside from Itch does not care if the game is indexed or not.

c) You see some games that are nsfw and are paid and are indexed. There is several hundred of those and they might be staff aproved or are indexed for some other reason. Itch has no issues with indexing adult/nsfw content as such and there is no rule that paid nsfw games cannot be indexed ever. Read here https://itch.io/t/5149036/reindexing-adult-nsfw-content There is actually written the intent to re-index paid nsfw content.

They just do not do it currently for most games. Maybe for some games it is a combination of the used payment methods, or some other factors. In the thread the problem seems to be Stripe. Itch usually does not discuss certain things in public. Or at all.

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