Adult games–and games with adult themes–have been delisted from digital game sales portals Steam and Itch.io recently, following pressure from companies that process those platforms’ payments to remove them. After an extended period of silence on the matter, Mastercard has released a statement and says that its recent actions are based on the “rule of law” and aren’t an attempt to enforce censorship.
“Mastercard has not evaluated any game or required restrictions of any activity on game creator sites and platforms, contrary to media reports and allegations,” the company said. “Our payment network follows standards based on the rule of law. Put simply, we allow all lawful purchases on our network. At the same time, we require merchants to have appropriate controls to ensure Mastercard cards cannot be used for unlawful purchases, including illegal adult content.”
It’s worth noting that there has been no evidence that the games removed from Steam and Itch.io included illegal content, and for an even deeper breakdown, Wired and CBC have detailed timelines on the entire situation so far. Visa also put out a pre-written response to complaints (via Polygon), adding that it didn’t aim to “make moral judgments on legal purchases” and that it was also adhering to the letter of the law.
The pressure from payment processors was apparently the result of a campaign by the Australian anti-porn lobbying group Collective Shout, which has taken credit for the actions. Collective Shout released an open letter claiming that Steam and indie games storefront Itch.io hosted games with “rape, incest and child sexual abuse” content.
It has also released statements claiming to have sent about 1,000 emails and calls to payment processors, urging them to threaten to pull support from those portals unless those games were removed. But the result has been the delisting of any game with vaguely defined adult content. Developers say that games with LGBTQ themes or content have been caught in the purge, and many have criticized the payment processors for arbitrarily enforcing their moral standards–and Collective Shout’s–on what adults are allowed to buy and play.
In the weeks since payment processors have stopped supporting payments for adult content, several sites have been forced to take drastic measures. Steam began purging content from its storefront–and it made a vague update to its terms of service–while Itch.io also began to de-index content from the site.
Earlier this week, the site began to “re-index” adult and not safe for work content, adding that it is still in ongoing discussions with payment processors. Itch.io has long used Stripe as its payment processor, but the financial site will no longer support the sale of adult content that fits the description of “content designed for sexual gratification” on Itch.io.
The last couple of weeks have seen massive pushback against payment companies, as game organizations, developers, and artists have rallied together. The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has called for “greater transparency and fairness” in the moderation of adult games, while other groups have urged people to put pressure on the two payment processors and flood them with calls to register their concerns about censorship.
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