So, today I got my takedown notice from Itch.IO. I had hoped that when they did their "audit" that the game would survive despite the "family" content, but of course not.
Here's the notice I got on the Itch.IO Five of a Kind page: Takedown Notice Interestingly, the paragraph that starts with "We don't allow..." does not include anything that applies to this game. However, when you click on the first FAQ link, they seem to have updated their allowed content to include "Incest or pseudo-incest content." Itch.IO's New(?) Acceptable Content I don't remember that provision being there before and I'm willing to bet that it was added in the last 24-hours.
I looked into Collective Shout and the people who run it and it's clear that this is a religious anti-porn advocacy group that is pro-life and anti-LGBT. In other words, this is not a woke feminist organization. Their mission appears to be making porn of any kind so burdensome to access that it's effectively banned under the guise of "protecting the children." They also lump in LGBT stuff as "adult" content and want that banned too. The Infamous Banning Porn Section From Project 2025 I've written before about Project 2025 in previous statuses and tried to separate fact from fiction and try stay measured in my analysis so I could do my best to prognosticate what it means in practice and while there doesn't appear to be any direct evidence that this is the fulfillment of the banning porn aspect of Project 2025, The Project 2025 people seem to be well on their way to getting what they wanted without (apparently) doing the dirty work themselves...
The Internet seems to have formed a consensus around focusing on the payment processors (Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal), which is probably correct. I won't argue with it at this point. I had to read up on this to understand the relationship of the credit card companies to intermediaries like PayPal and the like. PayPal is simultaneously a client of Visa & Mastercard, but they're also a competitor because they can also link directly to banks to service transactions. For that reason, I kind of look askance when content creators only mention Visa & Mastercard but not PayPal, but that's a minor quibble.
I think it may be only a matter of time before SubscribeStar is on the chopping block. I'm definitely preparing for that. If/when that happens, I will simply stop attempting to monetize the game, Full Stop. That doesn't mean I will stop working on the game. I will never stop working on this game, unless my country decides to eventually pass laws forbidding it. I feel like this game is the most important and meaningful thing I've ever put out into the world. It was never about the money it was about entertaining people and bringing some joy into this shitty, shitty, SHITTY world.
I'm tempted to copy & paste the Call your local congressman and Here are the phone numbers for Visa and Mastercard that you've already seen in other places, but I don't know how I feel about that just yet. I've never wanted to be both a creator and an activist, but in the words of Batman in the interrogation scene with the Joker in The Dark Knight, "I'm considering it."
I'm still trying to understand all the details and nuance and want to be careful to not spread misinformation, but here is what I know (so far):
Itch.IO has temporarily(?) de-listed all NSFW games from its site until it can conduct an "audit" of the games on its site and has said it will revise its Acceptable Use policy.
Five of a Kind was not targeted because of the "family" content specifically, but was caught up in a wholesale deactivation of Itch.IO's NSFW content.
It appears this decision from Itch.IO was caused by an advocacy group called CollectiveShout griping at "payment processors" defined as Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal, who then yanked on the leash and Itch.IO folded.
My "Opinions:"
Itch.IO was a MAJOR source of routing traffic to the game and this development is a major kick in the nuts. Five of a Kind was averaging 200 views a day and 50 downloads a day over the past 30 days.
Itch.IO was never a source of direct revenue, but it will undeniably impact the ability for the game to grow if for no other reason than the traffic it generated. For now, I will have to rely on F95 and SubscribeStar to draw eyeballs to the game.
Over the past several months, I suspected something like this might be coming. It wouldn't surprise me if SubscribeStar is targeted down the road.
This event is not going to shut the update or the game down. I'm already accustomed to the game being barely monetizable at all because of my work schedule. The people I feel the most sorry for are the game devs who RELY on income from Itch.IO and have taken a substantial hit from it. I would make this game for free if I could and I have never been in a position where my livelihood was threatened by the game's paltry revenue.
I think it's a coin flip whether Five of a Kind is reinstated on Itch.IO. On one hand, not only do I go out of my way to say the characters are 18+ but that they are drawn "unmistakably grown." On the other hand, the game may just get caught up in a blanket removal of the *ncest tag, despite the game passing MY personal Venn Diagram of acceptability: Adult + Human + Consenting.
I know that this issue has a lot of space for culture war "narratives" to creep in and depending on what media you consume, this is the fault of Visa & Mastercard ONLY (but not PayPal, for some reason), radical feminists, or the fulfilling of Project 2025. You guys can engage in that all stuff on your own. I'm not gonna touch it because part of the reason I make this game is to ESCAPE partisan politics.
If I were more of a businessman, I would be monetizing the shadowbanning itself an extra gravelly voice "They're trying to shut us down, Folks! We need to get the word out to stick it to the lizard people, Bill Gates, and the Illuminati group and the best way to do that is to buy our new Extra Johnson Force+ Pro-- apowerful, non-GMO herbal supplement from the Five of a Kind store. This is a fantastic product, Folks!"
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