Itch.io just banned lgbt content at the reauest of payment providers. It is now, short of finding them and handing them food, impossible to pay the last group of artists i was giving money to, because the mechanisms of payment have decided they cannot be paid.
But I still want the stuff they’ve made, their back catalogues, etc.
I think it would be super awesome if anyone had a list of all the deindexed content on Steam/Itch so people like myself can search for the devs’ content or ways to donate to them.
I saw someone on an itch forum mention https://libre.games/
Itch.io just banned lgbt content at the reauest of payment providers
Do you have a source on this? Everything I have read from them so far about the news today makes this sound like a temporary problem that was out of their control.
This is a time critical moment for itch.io. The situation developed rapidly, and we had to act urgently to protect the platform’s core payment infrastructure. Unfortunately, this meant it was not realistic to provide creators with advance notice before making this change. We know this is not ideal, and we apologize for the abruptness of this change.
We are currently conducting a comprehensive audit of content to ensure we can meet the requirements of our payment processors. Pages will remain deindexed as we complete our review. Once this review is complete, we will introduce new compliance measures. For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account.
https://itch.io/updates/update-on-nsfw-content
I’m pretty confident they will get this sorted out. It doesn’t seem like they have any intention of banning nsfw content.
Edit: I’m responding here about NSFW content because I was confused. I don’t think Itch actually ever banned queer/LGBTQ content in any way. The recent drama has been over NSFW content specifically so I assumed OP was specifically taking about NSFW queer content.
They mention deindexing from browse and search. I understand this to mean you can still visit and buy the products, and list the publisher’s titles on their publisher’s page.
That’s far from “banning”. And doesn’t prevent the supporting creators and browsing their catalog - the use-case OP described.
Why don’t all the companies tell the payment processors to pound sand? Do the processors not want to collect service fees? These dipshits have been going after adult content for ages, and it’s fucking pathetic.
Payment processors are monopolies for online and electronic payments because there is no global infrastructure (outside Chinese offerings) for electronic payments that don’t rely on Visa and Mastercard.
The payment processors are far, far bigger that a few online game stores. Even Steam isn’t big enough to change their minds alone.
Queer ≠ NSFW, especially a lot of trans themes. This is, in fact, a subatantial portion of the problem.
Do not equate the two if you want me to read any of the rest of what you have to say.
Have they said that queer stuff is inherently NSFW? I haven’t seen that said anywhere and don’t think it’s the case.
I just checked and the “LGBT” and “LGBTQIA” flags are 100% functional right now.
https://itch.io/games/tag-lgbt/tag-lgbtqia
Obviously if they did say that queer stuff is inherently NSFW that would be a big problem.
Didnt say, was a bunch on initial list
I’d say to anyone, please save this post and come back when you find any alternatives or to discuss existing alternatives.
Some of that stuff is on https://www.zoom-platform.com/
At the bottom, I see Visa and Mastercard. Not big enough yet, did not get contacted yet, or did not implement it yet?
Hm, I guess not big enough to matter.
F95zone.to but they only allow stuff that’s either in English or at least has English subtitles/translation patches.
First steam, now itch? What the fuck? Who hurt paypal, visa, mastercard to target game now?
What left for niche/nsfw game? GOG?
Edit: https://www.collectiveshout.org/open-letter-to-payment-processors
Want to treat fantasy of illegal thing as illegal… What next, murder?
List of karen and workplace from page:
- Melinda Tankard Reist
- Haley McNamara, National Center on Sexual Exploitation (US)
- Michael Salter, University of New South Wales (AUS)
- Helen Taylor, Exodus Cry (US)
- Dr Tegan Larin, Exodus Cry (US)
- Gemma Kelly, CEASE (UK)
- Kelly Humphries, DV & sexual violence consultant (AUS)
- Sally Jackson, FiLiA (UK)
- Jon Rouse APM, AiLECS Labs Monash University and Childlight Hub (AUS)
Its not just fantasies of illegal stuff. This is about eventually coming after queers and our culture, as the fuckers behind it have said explicitly.
Edit: i cannot believe people still fall for this dhit entirepy in earnest, but: first they whip up anger about a group that’s an acceptable target, then stretch the bpundaries of that group beyond all credibility, then when its totally normalized they just go after whatever targets they want.
Or, to put it another way: first they went after the dismemberment fetish porn, and i did not speak up, because i do not have a dismemberment fetishist…
For fucks sake it’s 2025. Nobody fucking believes you honestly don’t see this shit. You either want to look away, or you’re getting off on it.
But fuck cryptocurrencies, right? They don’t have any use case other than pump and dump schemes.
If only any of the crypto bros actually wanted it to be a functional payment and economic system instead of a just “line goes up to further enrich myself” mlm scheme.
It cant be both.
Monero
Use case transfer without restriction, regulation, censorship. Very good at that if not use centralized exchange. Pump and dump only for meme coin.
Seems like you know the creators and want to pay them, you can just ask them directly, doesn’t seem like its about piracy
Nope. Hypothetical thing ive done a few times in the past.
And im saying i don’t know all the people whose stuff i still wanted.
The group/category being ‘tiny mostly queer indies on itch’.
Sorry not sure I understand. Are you saying you don’t know who the authors are? You could look up the name of the game and find usernames and give them a message. I imagine most of them are on social media somewhere, or have email addresses, etc.
Some of em, but also im gonna want new stuff.
Then if they don’t live near me, how do i support them?
Remember the problem here is the money system.
You can still send them money even if they can’t sell their games. e.g. they could have a ko-fi or paypal or something. As for finding new stuff, I suppose it’d have to be word of mouth unfortunately.
ko-fi or paypal
Dude paypal has been christofascist from day 1. How do i get money to their ko-fi?
And? That doesn’t mean you can’t send them money on it.
If they have a ko-fi then just use the web ui to donate…
can’t send them moneu on it
Well i dont use it, and it will block or black-list them soon enough.
I misunderstood the question then, carry on.
I don’t mind these themes in my media but I don’t understand why it’s a genre? Straight isn’t a genre and none of this should be treated any different.
Yeah, would be cool if it were just a thing that happened in x % of stories, but it’s not. Our stories and experiences are culturally firewalled from the straights, to some extent.
Exposure.
So have a gay, bi or trans love story in a book, movie, TV show or video game the same as you would a straight one. Don’t announce it to the world as a genre because it’s not. Normalize it don’t separate it. Have people experience it the same as any other love store.
