The recent delisting of over 17,000 games from the independent platform Itch.io wasn’t a content moderation decision made by the platform itself. It was an act of financial coercion. Instigated by an Australian activist group and carried out by payment processors like Mastercard, it sets a dangerous precedent for all creative fields online.
The stated goal of the campaign was to combat media that glorifies sexual violence. An aim that sounds laudable, making it difficult to argue against in public. But like calls to age-gate social media, such goals can act as a Trojan horse. A socially acceptable pretext for gaining more information and control over people. And the outcome here reveals a profound and damaging overreach.
To understand the impact, you first have to understand what Itch.io is. Unlike more commercial platforms, Itch is a foundational space for small teams, individual creators, and students. It is a hub for the kind of diverse, experimental, and personal storytelling that our own national arts bodies claim to support.
An online storefront like Itch has no way to operate without a payment processor. It cannot exist. When the Australian anti-pornography lobby group Collective Shout launched their campaign, they successfully pressured Mastercard to act. Mastercard then presented Itch with an ultimatum. Comply with their new demands, or they would pull their services. This was an existential threat. The choice wasn’t whether to remove the titles. The choice was to remove them immediately, without warning, or the entire site would cease to function right now.
The mass removal of titles wasn’t an “outcome”. It was the only possible action to keep the platform from being wiped out entirely.
I make no judgement on Itch for complying with the ultimatum. They are a small platform facing down a financial giant and they had almost no chance of winning that fight. But their handling of the aftermath is a different matter. They have a responsibility to the creators who make the platform what it is. They should have told people what they knew, when they knew it. They should still be updating creators now. They presumably know exactly which tags are affected, which creators, and some idea of the funds and timelines involved. That information belongs to the community.
And as a direct result of that initial coercion, let’s be clear about what was removed. They explicitly targeted content which referenced sexual violence, even if it was a story about healing from it. They removed content about LGBTQ relationships, even if there was no sexual content. So alongside many NSFW games, we lost vital tools that guided players through trauma. We lost quiet, narrative-driven queer stories. Some of these were built using Yarn Spinner, a tool my team develops precisely so more people can use games to tell stories that matter to them.
This strikes at the heart of our industry’s future. At a time when we are rightly celebrating the growth of the Australian games sector, this action undermines our most vulnerable creators. It sends a message that telling difficult or unconventional stories could get you cut off from the market. Not by your audience or your peers, but by your payment provider.
And the timing of this is especially poor. We’re in a global moment where the rights of women and LGBTQ+ people are being actively “debated” and rolled back. For a supposedly feminist group to use this environment to attack the livelihoods of queer and feminist creators is profoundly counterproductive. It ignores the reality that many people creating adult and NSFW content are women themselves, exploring sexuality and stories on their own terms. This isn’t protecting women; it’s silencing them and cutting off their income at a dangerous time.
This sets a dangerous precedent for all digital media. We must question a framework where financial institutions can be leveraged to enforce a narrow moral viewpoint on art and literature. The risk is a chilling effect, where creators avoid sensitive topics not for lack of artistic merit, but for fear of financial de-platforming.
Our community must now consider its response. This is a moment to affirm our support for creative freedom, to advocate for the platforms that champion diverse voices, and to engage in a more nuanced conversation about safety and censorship. A conversation that is not dictated by the blunt instrument of financial coercion.