tldr: Australian pressure group Collective Shout has claimed responsibility for the recent Itch.io and Steam developments that have seen the platforms change how they deal with - and in some cases remove - NSFW games and content from their respective platforms.
The group had already been closely linked with the situation, which has seen Itch.io and Steam scramble to appease payment providers like Visa as they suddenly took an interest in the kind of games available on the platforms, especially those which contravened rules and “standards” the payment providers apparently had. It led to Itch.io deindexing all NSFW content from its browse and search pages, and Steam introducing vague new rules about adult content, while removing a slew of games.
“In response to false claims and misinformation about our campaign, we’re setting the record straight,” wrote Collective Shout in a Facebook update. "Some have asked why we involved payment processors, and others have claimed we are responsible for Itch.io removing all NSFW content.
"We raised our objection to r*pe and incest games on Steam for months, and they ignored us for months. We approached payment processors because Steam did not respond to us.
“We called on Itch.io to remove rpe and incest games that we argued normalised violence and abuse of women. Itch.io made the decision to remove all NSFW content. Our objections were to content that involved sxualised violence and torture of women.”
Collective Shout shared a timeline of the campaign on its website, noting how it began with No Mercy, a game which involves extreme sexual violence, being brought to its in March. The group’s actions - a mixture of petitioning, emailing, and lobbying - began in early April and led to the game being removed from sale later that month.
They are ok with murder and war simulation then? ROFL Smells like another religious pressure group tbh, haven’t looked into them yet.
They should go after all violence in games and media then; we’ll see how well they can fend of the pressure… Not sure if they have the ressources to survive that, so I would LOVE to see them try.
Oh it goes deeper than that.
Check out their FAQ. They’re cool with the dehumanization of males too. They’re only advocating for “dehumanization” against females.
A game about torturing women? Unacceptable.
A game about torturing men? Acceptable 👍
They mention some bullshit about how one happens more often and the other doesn’t so that justifies being hypocrites.
By all accounts they aren’t religious, we don’t have *gestures broadly to American Evangelicalism* going on here in Aus. They just seem to be TERFs and SWERFs.
The religion of pure bigotry seems to be the most popular one these days, especially online