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Pushed by payment processors, game sites remove adult material [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2025-07-26

Game distribution platforms Steam and Itch.io recently removed adult-themed titles to comply with demands from payment processing companies. These financial institutions—Visa, Mastercard, Stripe, Paypal, and others—are themselves under pressure from reactionary activists, especially one based in censorship-happy Australia. Steam commands an overwhelming share of mainstream PC distribution and Itch.io is a longtime home for indies, artists and marginalized folks: each represents a different side of the gaming coin. Allowing them to be brought to heel by banks and carnival barkers is catastrophic for free speech.

Payment processors hold a great deal of power over the companies that use them. When companies like Mastercard or Visa pull support, it impacts that platform's ability to receive payments. Conservative groups sometimes use these financial institutions to put pressure on companies to change their services. Insiders in the adult entertainment industry, which has seen similar campaigns lobbied against platforms like PornHub and OnlyFans, call these tactics a form of censorship that can hurt, not help, vulnerable creators. Itch's mass removals, which are being enforced on a widespread scale with apparently little consideration of context, have already affected some developers who are queer, female, or people of color, even for award-winning projects. On Itch's website, Corcoran called this "a critical moment" for the site. "Our ability to process payments is critical for every creator on our platform," Corcoran wrote. "To ensure that we can continue to operate and provide a marketplace for all developers, we must prioritize our relationship with our payment partners and take immediate steps towards compliance."

If you're surprised that the free speech guys aren't up in arms about this, read this article by Brian Beutler, who quotes one conservative: "The reason we have free speech now is because we want to be openly talking about our opinions so we can get the state that we want. But it doesn't mean free speech after we win."

They are winning and here we are.

Remember, though, that it's the financial institutions making the decisions here, and those decisions are made because they're afraid of the reactionaries threatening them. Anyone can play that game.

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[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2025/07/26/pushed-by-payment-processors-game-sites-remove-adult-material.html

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