itch.io

It's only common sense, or lack of it, on itch and the payment processors part. Economical theory says that, if there's demand for a product, someone will offer it. Right now there are three of big platforms that allow AVNs (with more or less restrictions): Steam, Patreon, and Subscribestar. So itch renouncing voluntarily to that market, after they stated on Twitter that they would support them, is only giving money to their rivals. 

AVNs won't disappear. For most devs, doing this is a passion project that costs us a lot of money. If we are lucky, we can compensate it with monetization, but I guess that less than 5% of devs can make a living out of it. So if we invest our money and our time doing something we love, we won't stop doing it because one platform, like itch, doesn't like it. We will go to the platforms that allow it and work there.

In my case, I decided to continue publishing the game here for free because I didn't want to punish the players who don't want or can't subscribe to Patreon/SS. For this update, I wanted to do an SFW version to be able to monetize it on itch. It hasn't been as well received as I hoped (only 10 purchases when the last time Itch allowed me to monetize the NSFW version I sold 142 games) but I think it's a visibility thing. Most AVN players don't look for games in the general section. I will continue to publish it here (Early access SFW and when it becomes free, the NSFW version) for a couple of updates and see if it's worth the extra work. If not, I will return to publish only the NSFW version.

By what I heard, it's one of the payment processors threatening itch.io because of adult games, and itch.io folding just months after they declared publicly they will support them.

Now there's no payments, so payment processors can't meddle into what isn't a business anymore. But also that's not what I would call support NSFW games.

Subscribestar have a minimum payout. And most of the devs there are indie like me. And I prefer they take half the money I earn than not allowing me to get any money through the platform. Besides, Steam, the biggest game platform out there, only takes 30% if you sell under 500k games, and that percentage goes down if you sell more. That's less than 50%.

Since Patreon is the "best" platform to monetize the game right now, most devs (me included) comply to their ToS to avoid getting banned. 

If itch allowed something like Patreon with the restrictions of Subscribestar and allowed NSFW devs to monetize their games, I think they could take a big chunk of Patreon's customers, especially for games that update in long cycles. Some players could think "Why pay $5 monthly for 6 months without an update if I can get the game for $5 when it goes out on itch?". Yes, I know I'm talking about my interests, but I already have customers like that. They re-pledge to My Dorm's Patreon when there's an update and cancel after downloading it. That kind of customers should be itch target.

A lot of devs who received that dreaded email I talked to, still offer our games on this site for free (around 70% of the devs I asked). In my case, and others', so the players, who aren't the culprits, aren't punished. Other devs to get some promotion or for other reasons.

We can't monetize our work here because of itch policies, so only Patreon, Subscribestar and other minor platforms are left for us to do it (Steam isn't a viable option for a lot of devs). And I'm not talking about getting rich or even working on this for a living. I'm talking about covering the expenses. During 2023, only in Daz assets, I spent 36% of my Patreon and Subscribestar combined (raw) income. Add to that licensed music, taxes, hardware, internet, and professional services. Making a game, if you want to do it legally, is expensive.

Yeah, a year ago 80-90% of the developers of NSFW games received an email saying they couldn't charge for their games on itch. Me included. I continued publishing the game for free here when the public update was released because not doing it would be punishing the players, and they aren't to blame. Here you have an excerpt of that email.

I tried collecting payments directly through Stripe, but I got a warning because they don't support NSFW content (the same has happened to other devs with Paypal). Payoneer doesn't work with my bank account.

So for a lot of devs, itch.io disappeared as a source of income. Some had even to close their games because the itch.io income was a big part of their revenue and couldn't keep doing it.

A player recommended me doing an SFW version of the game that could be patched into an NSFW version, so I comply with the site rules and I can monetize the game once again here.

There is no nudity in this version, so no content warning is needed as far as I know

My Dorm v.0.15 SFW version - Early Access has been published finally.

The game continues the story of Mark (customizable name) and his struggles to keep the family together and the business working.

https://tropecitagamessfw.itch.io/my-dorm-v015-sfw-early-access