Kailaria

@Kailaria

Trans, autistic speedrunner

she/her
twitch.tv/kailaria

I like playing games with high amounts of replayability/customizability (meaning roguelikes, mostly, but also rhythm games), and sometimes also automation sims since I like programming so much that I do that professionally.

Kailaria @Kailaria4/25/2023, 9:41 PM

leggystarscream @leggystarscream

@Bigg4/25/2023, 7:33 PM

Sorry! This post has been deleted by its original author.

BáiYù @baiyu4/25/2023, 7:49 PM

Not going to sound the alarms quite yet but as someone who is slowly getting their hands into more and more erotic game development territory, this... really sucks! We all knew that itch had a chance of going south in the unsexiest of ways at the mercy of payment processors, but it still remains the most friendly and accessible games storefront to many developers worldwide.

I'm a little loathe to the idea of putting my own sexy queer games on some of the other storefronts specializing in that content since they would share a space with fetish content for cishets, so unless companies on that end of the spectrum are able to promise queer erotica devs a safe space, this might screw a lot of us over in the near future.

Edit: leaving this chost here for posterity sake but also, I think the majority of us will not be expecting an email from itch based on @eevee's findings here. Still always a good idea to back up your work somehow though.

#gamedev #baiyu does gamedev #erodev

Irenes (many)@ireneista4/25/2023, 8:46 PM

a serious problem

the queer community needs to figure out a strategy for this payment processor bullshit

it's really harming our ability to support each others' work and stuff

Xylaria @Xylaria4/25/2023, 9:28 PM

We need a payment processor and network of banks that are willing to say "fuck you" to morality rules.

Unfortunately, that requires inordinate amounts of money, all to support a cadre of the population that traditionally doesn't have much money at all.

It's absolutely an existentially-large problem, but unfortunately unless we can crack the capitalist superstructure that our society relies on, we're not going to be able to shift it.

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in reply to @Bigg's post:

Jess🌺@CyanSorcery4/25/2023, 8:03 PM

is it a hot take to say that if itch drives all the adult game creators off its platform that it would be the death of itch?

X @xkeeper4/25/2023, 8:56 PM

it might take a good while to really die but it could start an unrecoverable tailspin if people see what they're doing and jump ship. something something it keeps happening

Quidam @Quidam4/25/2023, 8:08 PM

Wow, I thought itch was better than that (not that any companie is good or anything). Do you think they were pressured to make this change? Maybe not directly, but maybe they were scared because of a recent law? But I'm not trying to defend them.
I send you well-wshes, that is unfortunately all that I have

cassie @porglezomp4/25/2023, 9:39 PM

It’s almost completely certain they were pressured to make this change, but it still sucks.

eevee @lexyeevee4/25/2023, 10:05 PM

i wouldn't panic just yet based solely on

an email that doesn't say who it's about, what kind of games they made, or anything about what prompted this decision
a tweet that also doesn't say who received the email and only vaguely handwaves "many"

that's a lot of very conspicuous omissions and makes me suspicious that there's a more specific reason being left out

eevee @lexyeevee4/25/2023, 10:10 PM

aaand the only concrete example i can find so far is the dev for a game called Sisterly Lust

@Bigg4/25/2023, 10:11 PM

I did do SOME research - here's statements from a couple of popular adult game devs about having received these e-mails:

@Bigg4/25/2023, 10:14 PM

Also, bear in mind that the e-mails only seem to have started going out over the past few days, making it conceivable that many devs haven't made decisions or public statements of their own yet. The lack of communication around what standards have supposedly been violated is, surprise, another not very good thing!

eevee @lexyeevee4/25/2023, 10:18 PM

if this were a sweeping policy change then it would make no sense to do it one dev at a time via support staff (which i suspect is like, two people) and not tell anyone what's going on. they could easily patch the site itself to tell you all this if you use "pay itch first" + have nsfw games

something else must be going on, and it sucks that we don't know what it is, but it's quite a few leaps to go from this to "itch is banning all adult game sales (but not saying that for some reason)" and tbh i think it's deeply irresponsible of perverteer to state that like it's a known fact

@Bigg4/25/2023, 10:34 PM

To be clear, it's at least Perverteer, Feyada, and a 3rd creator (can't find the tweet, think the name was Black-something) which, combined with the fact that there hasn't yet been any official response from Itch on Twitter or their forums despite them being asked about it repeatedly, is enough to make me nervous

I'd very much like for this to not be an actual exclusionary policy, I like using Itch, but it's also wicked condescending to act as though there's no cause for alarm here

@Bigg4/25/2023, 10:36 PM

Another dev saying they received it: https://itch.io/post/7688831

Snarboo @Snarboo4/25/2023, 10:41 PM

If this screencap is to be believed, some of the reasoning may be due to Itch's generous revenue sharing policy in addition to the usual payment processing woes.

SGTCharlynne @SGTCharlynne4/25/2023, 10:35 PM

This is the last thing I expect to happen with itch.io; I really don't see this ending well.

in reply to @baiyu's post:

unity @unity4/26/2023, 1:11 PM

This is awful >.<;; I was worried that it would just be a matter of time until this crap affected itch, but this is so sad to hear that this seems to be the coming reality.

Ugh I really hope something changes and soon to reverse this whole situation, sex is part of the human condition and shouldn't be banned from games just to appease corporations like Paypal, I hate this so much

in reply to @ireneista's post:

cassie @porglezomp4/25/2023, 9:41 PM

And it seems impossible to create a payment processor that’s not evil since the credit card companies and banks could just decide they don’t want to work with you for the exact same reasons. It feels like the only way you can make a dent in this is to already be so big that it would destroy anyone who didn’t want to deal with you, which means bigger than even any country.

Irenes (many)@ireneista4/25/2023, 9:49 PM

yeah we've been trying to think creatively about it but

alternative mediums of exchange will just be slapped with targeted regulation, and anyway they attract pyramid scheme assholes

the engineering mindset says to start by enumerating the constraints

the other key constraint here, the one which makes mutual aid with physical stuff not a viable solution, is that these are digital goods so the audience for them is all over the place, not physically nearby

where does that leave us

cassie @porglezomp4/25/2023, 10:54 PM

And like if people can’t pay with normal debit/credit cards, then the people who are trying to get paid will immediately have an audience that’s an order of magnitude smaller. Maybe alright if you just want to be able to show people appreciation, but bad if you want systems that people can use to live off.

Renpona @Renpona4/27/2023, 3:10 PM

there's a number of payment processors that do handle adult content

it's just that they're more expensive, among other things. platforms that do mostly SFW sales don't want to take on those extra costs just to handle the tiny minority of sales they do that are NSFW

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