itch.io

Not a dev myself, but a friend of one. It took me a lot of hounding on my friend's behalf to get a direct response from leafo, who provided a rationale based on the "intent" of the page. I wouldn't be surprised if this is legal safeguarding like others have proposed, but either way you have to be really persistent to get any kind of response, and it doesn't make things any less frustrating in the meantime. 

Still nothing. I think the least the admins could do is archive the thread as a form of acknowledgement. You can't keep ignoring this issue forever.

Unsure what your game is specifically about, but the only response I got on my friend's behalf was an easily disproven claim of violating itch.io's content guidelines. As you've said, the way they apply the rules are inconsistent, and needless to say it's frustrating watching the admins play with people's lives and hard work like this. Best of luck in getting a response. 

Bumping this thread. I would really appreciate a response.

To the itch.io admins:

Recently, you responded to my (now archived/unlisted) thread about the game Shuichi's Vore Adventure not being re-indexed after over a month saying that this game features "underage presenting characters in sexual situations." I apologize for the fact that it's gotten to the point where I now have to post this letter on a public forum, but I simply cannot accept this as a reasonable response after the developer has been left in the dark after months of waiting to hear back. 

While I can understand your decision at face value, I do not believe it makes sense as a justification for several reasons. I can assure you that the characters in Shuichi's Vore Adventure are not underage, are explicitly stated not to be underage, and have extensive proof from their source material demonstrating that they can't be underage. Even if this wasn't true, I would at least like to know the rationale behind your refusal to reinstate this particular game, when several other games on the platform also violate this guideline by your logic. The most damning example of this is Chihiro's Vore Harem, a fangame featuring characters from the same franchise (Danganronpa) who are also deemed "high schoolers" in canon and can therefore be interpreted as "underage presenting"; the same logic can easily apply to the Danganronpa fangames Ouma's Love Hotel and Freetime Event: Theatrical Release. If the characters from the Danganronpa series featured in all of these games weren't adults, then shouldn't these games also be blocked? Why only Shuichi's Vore Adventure?

These aren't even the worst offenders on your platform. The remake of Demonophobia remains on your platform unchallenged even though it features "high schooler" characters who are actually underage, not just "underage presenting"; not only are these minors featured in "sexual situations," but these situations are much more explicit and arguably more obscene than anything that occurs in Shuichi's Vore Adventure. Not only that, but Family Home Movies, Naughty And Nice, You Are My Future, and Baby Fever are all fanworks that specifically capitalize on one of the focal characters from the source material (Professor Layton) being underage, and according to the disclaimer on the artist's own storefront, only one of their fanworks has ever been challenged or taken down on the grounds you claim here. Again, I would love to hear your reasoning in depth as to why all of these games can freely remain on the platform while Shuichi's Vore Adventure doesn't, because I genuinely can't see it.

I am not asking that you remove the other games listed above, as that would be unfair to those creators as well. I am simply requesting that you at least be consistent when it comes to your judgment on questionable games like Shuichi's Vore Adventure; if you cannot reinstate the store page in full, then at the very least, you should provide feedback on how to remove any ambiguity that these characters are anything other than consenting adults. 

Again, I apologize if my attempts to reach you and other staff have come across as rabid or irrational. But I assure you that keeping this game blocked from itch.io is hurtful and demoralizing to the developer in ways that you couldn't possibly imagine, hence why he hasn't reached out to you himself. I wouldn't have gone this far if I didn't think this issue was worth pursuing, and I don't care if posting this puts my itch.io account in jeopardy. If you are still truly willing to interfere with artists' livelihood in the name of appeasing payment processors, I strongly suggest you at least solidify the basis on which you do so. I don't think my friend and I are alone in this sentiment.

Thank you for reading.

crazy how i can still access comments on a banned game. trying to see something

Hi, I don't know where else to go for this. My friend's game linked here has been "blocked"--not just deindexed, but impossible to access entirely--ever since this fiasco went down, and he's received zero feedback from anyone here directly, even after submitting a couple of tickets (#310484 and #310658). I don't know if you can do anything about this, but it's been very frustrating and disheartening for him to deal with, and we would both appreciate some actual acknowledgement from an admin as active users of this site.

Not to be annoying again, but absolutely nothing's changed since I posted this thread. Would you mind giving the admins another gentle nudge? I can imagine it's been lost in the huge backlog.

Well, the ONLY sign of life he's ever had with support staff is a takedown notice that specifically instructed him to directly reply to the email, and that notice didn't have its own support ticket ID. For the record, if you can still help with that, his ticket ID is 310484 . Thanks for your help and prompt responses in the meantime--it genuinely means a lot to us.

If you mean "have him reach out to support," then he has, several times. In fact, you're the only person even remotely related to itch.io who has responded to either of us. I wouldn't have posted here if he hadn't tried all possible avenues of communication first. If you can't help then that's fine, but you're one of the only people who's got a direct line to the site admins and they don't seem to want to listen to him. 

Hi! I'm posting on behalf of a game developer on this platform (pscfunzone) since itch.io hasn't responded to his emails and it's been stressing him out for a while now. I know that many other NSFW games were reinstated following the fiasco in July, but to this day the game located at this link is still blocked due to a claim that it violated itch.io's content policy. Is there any way I could have this matter addressed directly?

bumping this for support. my friend has been similarly affected but he hasnt heard back from them at ALL from support about relisting his free game or his money and its awful

chat i played this game and had to increase my SSRI dosage afterwards. 8/8 would kiss that gay muppet catboy again

you have to be 18 to read this comic, anon