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Specifics of "adult content"?

A topic by SmoothBrainDev created Oct 06, 2020 Views: 1,292 Replies: 5
Viewing posts 1 to 3
(+11)

Hi, I just ran into a problem where my game, a retro FPS shooter, couldn't be found through search in any way because I had tagged it for adult/not work friendly content. I did it because the game has pixelated gore effects. The FAQ does not clearly specify what counts as "adult content", so I'm not sure if it's just pornographic content, or does blood and gore also count? I have removed the tag from my game and it's now properly showing up in searches.

Game in question: https://smoothbraindev.itch.io/incision

(1 edit) (+1)

“Adult content” is content that is aimed at adults, rather than minors. I happen to be an adult and when I search for your game it shows up just fine - don’t worry about it. 7 year old Dorean however can’t find your game through the search and that seems like a good, transparent, and user-friendly move to me. Good job.

Moderator

I’m not sure I can agree with this.

Children search for everything, and don’t forget that, at least legally in most countries, a child can also be 15 year old.

I’m not familiar with the legality of it, and I haven’t seen OP’s game to see how adult the graphics are, but I would suggest to lean on the safe side. If you think your game might be seen as adult-only, it would be safer to mark it as such.

@SmoothBrainDev: When in doubt, I would stick to the advice from Dark Dimension, as they are more experienced with using itch.io, interacting with its community + moderators, and actually distributing games though this platform - and presumably through other platforms as well. :)

That being said, as far as I am aware itch.io offers no kind of scale at this point in time. There is a collection of tags that interact with the “Show content marked as adult in search & browse”-flag from our user settings. And that’s it.

Hypothetically speaking: If I was a legal guardian, I would hope that my beloved underage offspring doesn’t see anything that I personally would consider “adult content” when I leave that flag unmarked. But if it was important enough for me that they aren’t shown such things, I would (have to) do the responsible thing and supervise when they browse on itch - or at least have them ask me if it’s okay for them to download games before downloading something. And if junior were to ask me if it was okay for them to download Bloody Gore and Firm Bananas (Part 7), I would write a somewhat impolite letter to the dev and/or itch as the platform holder.

Or I could say “You’re old enough. Just don’t install something that would scare my better half.” and waive my right to complain. At least that’s how I understand parenting.

I hope this helps.

(+1)

I'm only asking what the rules are, not what someone thinks is okay and not okay to them personally.

Sorry, I didn’t see that post earlier. If there’s nothing about it in the FAQ, then the unofficial rule would likely be: “Don’t get any complaints, or we would have add the adult tag for you.” Although I imagine that there would be some kind of consequences when such a thing happened too often. (Probably something along the lines of having to wait for your games getting manually reviewed before they’re getting indexed. - Not the big ban-hammer or something.)