i wrote this moments after seeing someone explicitly say "itch is starting to transition all adult content creators off of this payment system etc etc". specifically, the word, "all". much like the devlog from perverteer which bigg cited to me and which i've seen cited numerous times since:
Rather sad news today. itch.io has effectively ended the sale of adult games on their platform.
doesn't seem very nuanced.
i... wish that people would believe me when i say that i am seeing opinions that i am seeing.
that analysis seems particularly unfair to itch. the overall vibe seems to be "well itch should go to bat for us", but they have been going to bat for us this whole time. itch is a handful of people, few enough that the things they individually care about bleed through into how the company behaves, and this is clearly something they care about. describing it as "falling in with the pack" is baffling to me — the pack is tumblr and facebook, where you're not allowed to post a titty at all. even twitter, bastion of musk-brand free speech, has been moving to make porn inaccessible if you're not logged in. itch doesn't do any of that. itch isn't even restricting selling anything! itch is saying that, for whatever reason, they can't take the payment-related heat on behalf of a few specific devs any more. and that sucks but i don't know what more to ask for.
i very highly value space on the internet that makes room for sexuality, which is exactly why i find it dismaying to see people instantly turn on one of those spaces, after it appears to have been backed into some sort of corner, seemingly because of being one of those spaces.
leafo even includes a mention that it's a big fucking bummer to go to bat for people, even when they are especially troublesome in some unspoken manner, and then find out that they are giving itch 0%! nothing! just, yeah, shield us from all this crap for free. he thinks the devs know the risk itch is taking on their behalf, but i'm not sure that's true. i've seen a lot of depressing commentary from adult devs today that feels like they think itch owes them seamless sales with 100% insulation from all outside forces. but i think "itch is obligated to hold my money in their bank account" is kind of a hard sell.
this is meandering a little, sorry. the discourse is definitely not all thoughtful and it is getting to me
i don't know. maybe i'd feel differently if i hadn't had multiple conversations with two itch people over the years, which is probably like half of the staff
yeah it sucks. it looks arbitrary from the outside (though i've only seen a couple of specific accounts affected so i can't really compare) and it seems like there's something preventing them from giving specifics. maybe they will come up with something they can say in the near future. if not, fundamentally i don't feel like anything has changed: i'm still subject to the whims of the platforms i use. every terms of service in the world says they can delete you or anything you posted at any time for any or no reason at all, even cohost's. my spouse and i have been erased from things just because enough people got in touch with the folks in charge to go "umm there's Drama about them" and they decided we were too much to deal with. no rules violations, no terms of service, no appeals process. just human beings making decisions about how much they can bear on behalf of strangers.