First they came for steam, then they came for itch.io .
First they came for steam, then they came for itch.io .
First they came for steam, then they came for itch.io .
Itch's general discussion board is insane to read right now. Filled with death threats and threats of lawsuits against itch. Who knows what kind of instant action the payment processors were demanding, do you really think they had a choice in this?
Instead of supporting the staff and showing some patience the nsfw players and devs turned on themselves. I wouldn't blame itch for permanently kicking all nsfw content off the platform after this lack of support from the community. The naivety is stunning. Like itch staff can just wave a magic wand to keep paid nsfw games as an option.
What we need is collective action against these mega corporations, instead of kicking down at a barely profitable game reseller that allows you to set revenue share to 0%.
All this not too long after the Funko domain takedown too, the itch staff really can't catch a break. I hope this isn't the end of itch just yet.
Showing opposition is good, if they find the community is so against this maybe they'll not grin and bear the nonsense of the payment processors. They could move to new payment processors, or use crypto to pay.
Moving away would seriously hurt bottom line as not everyone will bother setting up accounts. Moving to crypto would shut them down, the amount of people I know that pay with crypto for anything is almost zero despite having a tech-savvy friends group.
They could move to new payment processors
This is way harder than you can imagine.. You can't just swap out a payment provider overnight, and even then moving to less popular providers on such a big website is risky.
Why are you assuming they are grinning about it? They were hosting this all before in a very laissez fair approach. Unbelievable. It's not "bearing" the payment processors, it's existential. Either they do as they say or they go offline, how hard is this to understand?
Imagine a version of the game launchers/sites where you could pay with monero and be anonymous.
European independent payment processor? Nooooo, US's ass is so tasty to kiss...
USA is a lost cause already, but EU still has a chance. Get rid of USA-related anything. Let them sit there and eat corn and watch superhero movies.
EU banks are working on it
https://www.ecb.europa.eu/paym/integration/retail/retail_payments_strategy/html/index.en.html
There's some sort of SEPA instant payments that come into effect this fall, I think, too.
The US has the Fair Access to Banking Act trying to do similar things, but it's been stagnant for 2 years.
This bill places restrictions on certain banks, credit unions, and payment card networks if they refuse to do business with a person who complies with the law. Restrictions include prohibiting the use of electronic funds transfer systems and lending programs, termination of an institution's depository insurance, and specified civil penalties.
Banks and other specified financial institutions are allowed to deny financial services to a person only if the denial is justified by a documented failure of that person to meet quantitative, impartial, risk-based standards established in advance by the institution. This justification may not be based upon reputational risks to the institution. Banks may also deny services to a person who engaged in rude or harassing conduct toward an employee of the bank.
The bill establishes the right for a person to bring a civil action for a violation of this bill.
What makes you think that "European independent payment processor" would not pressure companies to follow similar (or worse) rules for "compliance"?
That is possible, of course, but European companies and citizens are less crazy so far. No guarantees, but the chance is here. Plus, more competition might force older processors to drop irrelevant to their work arbitrary stupid limitations.
Hey, corn is nutritious.
Read: bigoted crybullies got the credit card duopoly to fuck us, and nothing on the internet is safe until they're stopped.
bigoted crybabies
Actually highly organized American religious organizations doing this shit. They've been organizing for a long time and with trump now have a clear path to try and make the entire world suffer under their needs
Fuck the American Taliban
Collective shout is Australian, in Taylor's Lakes Victoria
What do you mean "actually?" Religious creeps are most of that category.
Collective Shout isn't a religious organization, they're a TERF one that basically blames porn for the existence of transpeople and has been trying to ban it from the internet entirely.
They got Andrew Tate off of Spotify, which is a win though...
I can understand if they're fighting human trafficking and such. But going after porn video games, which generally don't feature real people or generally glorify human trafficking etc., I'm not sure why this is part of their scope.
I could also see this group being against Donald "Grab 'em by the pussy" Trump.
I haven't seen the games that are getting targetted. I've heard it isn't all porn games. What's the criteria for removal?
I’m tired of all this far right puritanical bullshit
I can’t wait for every piece of entertainment to be flavorless gruel!
The end goal of every authoritarian entity is to control currency. Your access to food, entertainment, medical care, quality of life, etc. all go through your exchange of currency. If they control the currency, they control all of the above. NSFW video games are just a small foot in the door, I can see this encroaching onto every aspect of society soon
They are cumming for all of us!
Can we not overlook that this was activist driven. Looks like this Collective Shout is only a 40,000 person organization. 40,000 people just broke content access for millions. Over a game that had already been pulled from the platform without their intervention.
Not even that.
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/australian-anti-porn-group-claims-responsibility-for-steams-new-censorship-rules-in-victory-against-porn-sick-brain-rotted-pedo-gamer-fetishists-and-things-only-get-weirder-from-there/
It's absurd. I'm just going to link to the last thread from when this was on steam , and repost my comment.
https://lemmy.world/post/33277694