itch.io

I'm going to weigh in, along with many others it seems; The Nym-Foe "fight" is an un-fun pain, the timing on the pallet is too tight, and the meter ticking down in realtime almost feels intentionally mean.

itch chose to not shutter their own damned platform. If they had chosen to take a stand, not only would NSFW devs have lost the ability to profit from their work on Itch, but the SFW devs, too.

Don’t get tangled up in the details and lose sight of the big picture. SFW devs aren’t going to be left SOL, and we can focus on preventing the payment processors from doing this elsewhere.

Yeah! Why didn’t Itch just sanction the payment processors like Japan did! It’s not like Japan is both a nation and a powerhouse economy and Itch is a website for hosting small indie projects for prices ranging from cheap to free!

Itch is not to blame, they are victims. This isn't the first time something like this has happened. Previously it happened to OnlyFans and Patreon. Both platforms capitulated to the demands of payment processors, because it was the correct decision. The demand wasn't remove NSFW because we wont authorize transactions related to them anyways, it was "REMOVE NSFW CONTENT OR WE WILL REFUSE TO AUTHORIZE ANY TRANSACTIONS RELATED TO YOUR SERVICE."  As you might guess, platforms like OF and Patreon aren't funded by good vibes and fairy dust, they need MONEY, and losing access to digital financial processes would be lethal to these platforms.  Don't waste you time, energy, and attention blaming a group that had zero reasonable and viable alternatives to the action they have taken, direct your efforts to actions and activities that will fix this:

For the US users: https://action.aclu.org/petition/mastercard-sex-work-work-end-your-unjust-policy... 
For the UK users: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/722903

Everyone else needs the support of the payment processors infinitely more than the payment processors need us. Unless we magically make a new payment service, or get relevant legislation passed into law, this will keep happening because no business is going to commit digital suicide for moral high ground, it would be pointless, wasteful, and self-defeating. Itch supported NSFW content before, they will re-extend support once their platform and ability to do the thing they exist to do is no longer threatened.

Just gonna copy/paste a comment I made elsewhere on the topic.

>It's not really Itch's fault; Yes, they removed the tag, but when the two major payment processors, (Visa and Mastercard), tell you to do a thing or not have your payments processed, there isn't really anything you can do about it... You, and by extension Itch, need them infinitely more than they need you.

As much as it genuinely sucks that Itch seemingly didn't even attempt to make a stand, It'd have been a wasted effort anyways. The payment processors have all the power, and it would almost certainly have resulted in the death of the site.  At least for now, we still have the platform, and can try and push back via whatever legislation we can coerce our relevant elected officials to pass into law. Getting angry at Itch is a waste of energy, they were put in the unenviable position of either sacrificing NSFW content, or shuttering the website.

It's not really Itch's fault; Yes, they removed the tag, but when the two major payment processors, (Visa and Mastercard), tell you to do a thing or not have your payments processed, there isn't really anything you can do about it... You, and by extension Itch, need them infinitely more than they need you.

this is a lovely "little" game that shakes up the play just enough to not get stale, while also not squeezing in too much and overstaying its welcome.

Are there any new projects moving along the pipeline, perchance?