Digital Distribution Platform itch.io Seemingly Removes Vast Amounts of Adult Content Without Announcement

This removal includes items that have already been paid for, with users unable to download the content.

July 23, 2025 — Digital distribution platform and marketplace itch.io appears to have removed a massive amount of content from their website, with users noting that games and other content with ‘NSFW’, ‘Adult’, or ‘Erotic’ tags are no longer appearing in searches. Additionally, many games rated r18 have been entirely delisted, preventing not only future sales, but the ability to download the titles whatsoever.

Despite this change in policy affecting thousands of items on the platform, itch.io has yet to release a statement on the matter, leaving creators and consumers alike in the dark about what is happening. 

UPDATE:

itch.io has released a statement regarding the removal of NSFW content on the platform, stating “We have “deindexed” all adult NSFW content from our browse and search pages. We understand this action is sudden and disruptive, and we are truly sorry for the frustration and confusion caused by this change.”

Additionally, the statement specifically mentions pressure from payment processors, and explicitly names the organization “Collective Shout” as party to the campaign to pressure itch.io. 

“Recently, we came under scrutiny from our payment processors regarding the nature of some content hosted on itch.io. Due to a game titled No Mercy, which was temporarily available on itch.io before being banned back in April, the organization Collective Shout launched a campaign against Steam and itch.io, directing concerns to our payment processors about the nature of certain content found on both platforms.”

Why itch.io decided to implement these changes without any warning or press release prior to its implementation remains unknown and unexplained, with itch.io only noting that the situation developed quickly.

The itch.io website is now devoid of NSFW titles on the front page, even with the setting turned on.

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This change comes on the heels of digital distribution platform Steam delisting huge swaths of adult games. In their updated rules and guidelines, Steam indicates that “Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult only content” should not be published on the platform. 

Why is this happening now?

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Following Steam's policy reversal, anti-porn organization “Collective Shout” claimed responsibility for the removal. As reported by journalist Ana Valens, the organization has been lobbying payment processors to stop facilitating payments for NSFW-adjacent titles for some time, and seems to have finally broken through. In their demand letter from May 26, 2025, Collective Shout specifically named itch.io as one of their targets. They don’t plan on stopping there, either, stating “We request that you demonstrate corporate social responsibility and immediately cease processing payments on Steam and Itch.io and any other platforms hosting similar games.”

With payment processors like Visa, Paypal, and Mastercard putting the screws to these digital distribution platforms, there’s little choice but to acquiesce to the demands, as the storefronts would be unable to process most monetary transactions without the processors. The distribution platforms themselves would be cut off from any funds, period, spelling doom not only for the platform, but many other developers or companies in the process.

“We request that you demonstrate corporate social responsibility and immediately cease processing payments on Steam and Itch.io and any other platforms hosting similar games.”

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There are many reasons why this sort of crusade against NSFW titles is both undeserved and unwarranted, but perhaps the most pressing is the relation to the current LGBTQ+ rights crisis we are facing in the US. These events don’t exist in a vacuum. It is no accident that these far-right groups are targeting itch and other LGBTQ+ adjacent platforms — it’s their stated goal. Project 2025 (and by extension the US government) has made it explicit that they intend to criminalize ‘transgender ideology’ — a term so broad it could even cover the acknowledgement that trans people exist. By first getting platforms to agree to remove NSFW content, they then only need to include groups or ideas they find unsavory under that umbrella to facilitate their erasure.

This deliberate attack on the LGBTQ+ community is just another item in a long list of hateful actions that have been enacted since the reinstatement of the Trump administration, but it is still horrifying nonetheless. The gaming community as we know it would not exist without LGBTQ+ peoples, and by continuing to censor and erase them from the world, we not only diminish the artform of video games, but we diminish ourselves. We are losing some of our greatest artistic and scientific minds in service of some of the most hateful people on the planet. We are losing lives and monuments of joy in order to appease those who only seek to cause pain.

It is unlikely that itch.io will be the last site to make changes like this. The efforts of hate groups to make these changes are ongoing, with payment processors seemingly happy to oblige them. I wish there was an easy answer for what comes next and how to stop this from happening, but I don’t have one, at least. For now, here is a petition from the ACLU directed at the payment processors to end the unjust targeting of adult content.

JetsonPlaysGames stands in solidarity with all of our LGBTQ+ family and friends.