The removal of thousands of adult video games from digital storefronts has sparked an online outcry, claiming censorship and free speech crackdowns.
The outrage began when Steam, the world’s largest PC gaming store, created a new rule saying content on the platform had to adhere to the policies of payment processors including PayPal, Visa and Mastercard.
After the new rule was added about two weeks ago, hundreds of adult-themed games were removed from the platform.
It included games with titles such as Slave Doll, Sex Loving Family and Sex Adventures: Incest Family.
The campaign said it targeted games featuring unconsensual sex and incest. (Supplied)
A few days later, a smaller game storefront, itch.io, announced it was delisting all games tagged with not safe for work (NSFW) content.
In a blog post, itch.io founder Leaf Corcoran said the decision to remove all NSFW games without notice was made to satisfy the demands of payment processors while they made changes to their adult content policy.
Mr Corcoran said games would be made public on the store again once its adult content policy had been updated, and if the games adhered to it.
On July 28, the platform updated its policy with specific themes that were prohibited for developers like “Rape, coercion or force-related”, “Underage or ‘barely legal’ themes” and “Incest or pseudo-incest content”.
Steam and itch.io did not respond to the ABC’s request for comment.
Why did these platforms do this?
The policy changes came after a targeted campaign from Australian not-for-profit Collective Shout, which describes itself as a “campaign movement against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls”.
In May it launched a campaign calling on payment processors to pressure Steam and itch.io to remove hundreds of games featuring “rape, incest and child abuse-themed content”.
Campaigns manager Caitlin Roper said she had identified 491 games on Steam tagged with “rape” and “incest” before launching the campaign.
“This is not merely fictional, these attitudes don’t just stay in fiction,” she said.
“This kind of misogyny and normalisation of violence against women … feeds real-world harm to women and to girls.”
Caitlin Roper and Melinda Tankard Reist from Collective Shout said they had been abused and threatened over the campaign. (Supplied)
On July 11, the group published an open letter naming the chief executives and presidents of PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, Paysafe, Discover and Japan Credit Bureau.
“We do not see how facilitating payment transactions and deriving financial benefit from these violent and unethical games, is consistent with your corporate values and mission statements,” the open letter said.
Visa and Mastercard did not respond to the ABC’s request for comment.
In a statement, a PayPal spokesperson said:
“PayPal is committed to maintaining a safe platform for its customers. We have a zero-tolerance policy towards any illegal activity. Any accounts found to be associated with illegal activity will be closed.”
What has the reaction been?
Some parts of the gaming community complained that the move amounted to “censorship”. (Reddit)
The moves have sparked a huge backlash in parts of the gaming community, describing it as a dangerous precedent of censorship from payment companies and an attack on free speech.
A change.org petition, which has now surpassed 200,000 signatures, accused Mastercard and Visa of “interfering with legal entertainment”.
“We demand an end to this censorship of fiction, and the right to choose the stories we enjoy without moral policing,” the petition said.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk appeared to back the petition, retweeting a post about it and writing “Bravo”.
Elon Musk said “Bravo” in response to a post about the petition. (Twitter)
Ms Roper said the censorship and free speech arguments were misogynistic.
“What we’re seeing is freedom of speech being used as a justification for misogyny and male violence against women and men claiming free speech in defence of their access to rape simulation games,” she said.
Ms Roper said she and her team had received countless threats of physical and sexual violence in recent weeks.
“This is not fiction. We are real women in the world being inundated with threats of rape and violence and murder and just the worst kind of misogynistic abuse you can imagine.”
Expert says campaign had hallmarks of moral panic
Brendan Keogh, a researcher at the QUT Digital Media Research Centre, said the changes highlighted just how much influence payment processors can have over online stores.
“In reality, a very small number of companies that we rely on to move money around the internet have a lot of power to determine what you are allowed to spend money on, on the internet,” he said.
Dr Keogh said Collective Shout’s campaign had the hallmarks of a moral panic, using extreme examples to galvanise public support.
“And that’s really just a smokescreen to remove a much, much broader range of content, which includes primarily queer content and trans content,” he said.
Parts of the gaming community have expressed displeasure about the changes. (Reddit)
Following the removal of all NSFW content from itch.io, the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) released a statement expressing concern that the action may have an outsized impact on marginalised developers.
“Queer, trans, femme-identifying, and POC developers may be disproportionately affected by overreaching censorship,” it said.
The IGDA said it did not condone or support games fetishising sexual violence, non-consensual sexual acts or the sexualisation of minors.
But it said the sudden blanket ban on NSFW content on itch.io impacted the livelihoods and reputation of developers who had done nothing wrong.
“The issue is not a lack of safeguards, but a lack of proportionate, informed, and transparent enforcement,” The IGDA said.
“The right to make mature games with legal adult content is a creative right, just like the right to tell stories about war, death, or love.”
Group says campaign wasn’t targeting all NSFW content
Ms Roper said Collective Shout’s campaign was only intended to remove rape and incest games.
“We did not set out to get all NSFW content removed. We specifically targeted rape games, games that promoted sexualised violence against women and children,” she said.
Collective Shout’s movement director, Melinda Tankard Reist, said the suggestion the campaign was targeting LGBT content was “a slanderous lie”.
“Collective Shout is diverse, it’s a miracle it all holds together,” she said.
“But we come around a common cause for a world free of sexploitation.”
Melinda Tankard Reist said the abuse they had received would not stop their campaign. (Supplied)
Ms Tankard Reist said the abuse and threats from people online had been aggressive and constant, but that they wouldn’t stop the group from continuing to campaign.
“This has been a 24/7 operation to protect ourselves and our systems,” she said.
“But once we get through this, we will certainly look at how we can expand the good things that have come out of this campaign. This is a win.”
