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Paid version cancelled due to itch.io policy changes


Rather sad news today. itch.io has effectively ended the sale of adult games on their platform.

The past few weeks, an email has been sent informing adult content creators that they can only sell their games on itch.io by enabling "direct payments", instead of bulk payments through itch.io, from now on. They did so without prior warning and with only a 30-day period for developers to cease payments or switching to direct payments. As all major payment processors available on itch.io (Paypal, Stripe) have clauses preventing the sale of adult content, this is not a viable option and will only result in getting my merchant account banned.

This is the wording used by itch.io in their email:
This decision was made after considering various factors related to your account, including nature of content, risk, disputes, and the resources required by our team to review payments associated with your account.

Payments are now disabled here and only the free version of the game should be available. I've delisted the paid versions of the game and I do hope the game can still be downloaded by anyone who've purchased it in the past. Updates for the paid version of the game will be available on Steam, Patreon and SubscribeStar. I will of course continue to update the free version of the game as before. If you have any questions just let me know in the comments below and I'll try to answer them to the best of my abilities.

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Viewing most recent comments 1 to 20 of 33 · Next page · Last page
(+2)

So as in Germany Steam is not an option, i can either pay monthly on Patreon or Subscribestar, play the stripped down free version or stop playing and abandon the game?

Aw man.. thats sad. I really want to support you guys, but i cannot pay monthly for each and every VN i ever bought :(

Also: What? You cannot use Paypal to get payments for adult content? wtf?

You can cancel your subscription after payment to get an update. It would be a rare sight, if a dev has the same version on patreon for sale on itch for the same patreon tier and same price. So what you typically see is something like sale price 10 on itch and cheapest tier on patreon with 1 or 2 gives you the current update, while the purchase on itch would give you updates till release.

Paypal does not ban adult payments, but you need aproval of paypal to collect money for adult stuff according to their tos. They do ban cigarettes.

(+2)

Just wanted to say thank you. Your games are so much more than just Adult VNs; they are quality experiences. The world, the characters, and the writing are all top-notch. Whether you'll post your next VN project on Itch or not, I'll support you wherever you choose to go.

(+1)

Thank you for the support!

(+2)

Your work is fantastic. I've happily jumped over to supporting you on SubscribeStar.

Thanks so much!

(1 edit) (+1)

I left the site that I found you on, volt I think, and would sadly leave itch.io too.  All these sites seem to be happy to take their cut but are way too quick to jump on the censorship bandwagon.  It's terrible and sad.  There's sooo many great creators that have made these hosting places popular.   Wish there was a site that wouldn't give into such nonsense.  Also, will you be doing more on discord, than you already do, or what's the next step?

(+3)

Yeah, the situation sucks. :( I'm going to focus more on Patreon, SubscribeStar and Steam for the time being. Discord is used mostly for communication, so important announcements will be posted there as well.

cant find your patreon do you have a link Perveteer?

(+3)

I think I'm not allowed to directly link to Patreon because of their ToS, but if you put "perverteer" after "patreon.com/" you should land where you want to go. ;)

(+2)

I thank you for this I have already made my mind up to support your work as soon as I am finically able to do so. I’ve been a fan of your work for a while. I mean this sincerely you and your team make is art.

Thanks!

(1 edit)

patreon's tos or itch's tos?

because, well, look at your itch settings, misc, connected accounts...

Linking to your patreon is not a problem. Do it on your profile, on your game, wherever you want.

But there might be problems in some cases for the content offered. Some dev claimed that they cannot offer the same version that is beyond a patreon paywall elsewhere. (Or was it patched/full versions? Can't remember exactly what was the problem. Point is,  itch even lets you integrate patreon, whyever would anyone think that linking to patreon was forbidden.)

Patreon's ToS prohibits certain content and there have been several instances of Patreon reaching out to creators and asking them to remove certain content posted on third-party websites.

Deleted 268 days ago
(+2)

I'm not sure if incest is the issue here. itch.io has so far been rather vague on the subject and hasn't issued any official statement. Creating a SFW version of the game might be feasible, especially in TFTUV's case. I'm not sure how thorough payment processors investigate the content sold by their merchants. A simple google search on Tales From The Unending Void would probably turn up too many red flags.

Deleted 268 days ago
(+2)

I believe the issue is more to do with PayPal and other credit card processing companies not wanting their name associated with porn. Which while understandable to a point is sort of stupid. Considering these same companies have no problems with violent video games.

Deleted 268 days ago

Real credit card companies do not have a problem with porn. It is a big business. And talking hardcore real life porn here, including hookers, where legal.

Patreon has arbitrary bans on things like incest.

Can you please point me in the direction of your subscribestar profile? I can't find you. Thanks

(+1)

Of course, it can be found here: https://subscribestar.adult/perverteer

(1 edit) (+1)(-3)

HHMMMM....that makes no sense (at least as worded) ..... telling us the whole story?  BECAUSE I have purchased 60 or so Adult Games on STEAM and all using PAYPAL.....so why are those "clauses" preventing sale to me of Adult Games on Itchio, when those same "clauses" are not preventing the sale to me of Adult Games on STEAM!?!?...... and why of the 18+ Developers I buy from on Itchio are you the only one that made this post?

(+6)

1/ they're not the only one. The dev of Knightly Passion did a similar thing, and I have no doubt others are to follow
2/ Simply put, Steam is big enough to negotiate with Paypal and dictate their term. That's not the case for a single dev.

(1 edit) (+3)

The way Steam works and itch.io used to work for me, is that all individual payments by customers are collected by the platform and paid out in bulk. So instead of a merchant receiving individual payments (detailing what exactly was bought and thus bannable), you get a more anonymous payout containing multiple payments at a certain interval or on request.

As Maravedis already mentioned, Knightly Passions switched to direct payments and I wonder how long that will last until their merchant account gets banned at Paypal. Some other developers also tweeted about it:

https://twitter.com/Deafpervs/status/1650155139041472512
https://twitter.com/Houtamelo/status/1650232406929035267

(+5)(-1)

well isn’t that some pardon my French but weapons grade bullshit. You can make a game field to brim with murder but god forbid you show a nipple .

Paypal allows adult content to be sold, but restrictions apply. Like the need to get approval of paypal, as it is written in their tos. If you have a company and actual porn is legal in your country, you should ask the terms for approval of your cartoon porn.

Or do you really think Steam and Itch silently hope that pp does not notice that they sell lewd games on their merchant accounts? You can sell hardcore porn dvds with paypal, if you have approval!

Paypal's ToS explicitly forbid the selling of adult content, there's no clause where it says you can appeal or get approval. So I'm not sure where you've got that information.

Steam is enormous and has the power to dictate their terms to payment processors. Also, the process bulk payments to merchants and as such take on the risk of chargebacks and fraud, shielding companies like Paypal somewhat. Patreon is the same, they have an agreement with Paypal. itch.io worked similarly, but apparently they've decided they don't want to have the administrative burden of handling bulk payments for some of the developers on their platform. As for buying porn with a Paypal account, those transactions are handled through high-risk payment processors like Epoch and CCBill who take on the risk of chargebacks and fraud for the credit card companies and charge a hefty premium to their merchants.

I got that information from the paypal website. And from simple deduction. If you can pay for stuff, there are people accepting those payments.

If it were banned by paypal in general, you could not pay for it. They do ban certain stuff with clauses that are too broad to be accepted in any court of law in my opinion, but I am not a legal expert. Like "violate any law, statute, ordinance or regulation"  "items that are considered obscene"   "certain sexually oriented materials or services".   The first, well, there are countries were basically everything is illegal. They do not specify wich jurisdiction. And what is obscene is in the eye of the beholder. And what certain materials they mean is not specified. It is all an arbitrary and unnecessary load of BS and pp need to be gone and replaced by a processor that gives the same functionality like the credit cards and banks    that are used behind the scenes. It is shameful to impose your own agendas.

And to expose their hypocrisy  on the same page they  list a bunch of stuff they can approve your account for. Including "any" adult content delivered digitally. That includes real life hardcore porn videos. Your content on the other hand is not even real people. But I cannot tell you what is required to get approval.  But apparantly you thought it is not possible at all,   inferring that people doing those sales are either not caught yet or are so big that they are above the pp tos.  

But do not get your hopes too high. Even though you only create cartoon porn,   you might be too small for them or there might be tax problems or other stuff. I would naivly assume that getting approval for non-real porn is easier.  After all, I am not even sure if they speak of porn, when referring to "adult content".  But adult dvds is  rather telling, because 11 out of 10 search results give porn. So what  else could they talk about with mature audience content. Furthermore, while people obviously watch cartoon porn for similar reasons as the real porn, it is not real porn. This goes so far that  in many sane jurisdictions not even loli is forbidden. Restricted from being watched by minors, of course, but not illegal, as the real deal would be. So why all the fuzz about cartoon porn merchants in the first place. 

Itch could do a lot better. If companies manage to collect payments for real porn and manage to pay out to the creators (talking about camming), it should be possible for porn game indie devs. Similar situation. But they do pay out via other processors that require bigger sums to be payed and take a bigger share - wich itch does not.  So no micro payments for direct payout. And micro here is less than 100 bucks. 

https://www.paypal.com/us/legalhub/acceptableuse-full?locale.x=en_US

Activities Requiring Approval

PayPal requires pre-approval to accept payments for certain services as detailed in the chart below.

10

 

Mature Audience Content

Any adult content delivered digitally including video on demand (VOD) and web-cam activities. PayPal may be restricted from processing payments in certain jurisdictions for adult DVD’s, magazines and other adult themed products or services.

What they do ban is stuff like cigarettes and you can only get approval to sell 

15

Tobacco

Non-cigarette tobacco products, e-cigarettes, cigars

Also Itch and Steam must have been approved for this as well, I guess.

18

Marketplaces

A marketplace is an e-commerce solution where third-party sellers can sell their products or services to customers. 

I do not understand what you wrote about ccbill and epoch with paypal. I pay my paypal with my credit card. Not with a third party credit card processor. I could also send the money to paypal directly with my bank account. This gets important for currency conversion, because pp is too expensive. 

(1 edit)

The possibility approval by Paypal seems to only apply to US merchants and for very specific goods only: https://www.paypal.com/us/cshelp/article/what-is-paypal%E2%80%99s-policy-on-tran...

Agreed on the hypocrisy of it all. But it seems safer for credit card companies to just sweep all adult content under the same rug and be done with it.

CCBill and Epoch are high-risk payment processors for merchants. As a customer you pay with your credit card or Paypal account, CCBill/Epoch handles the transactions and any risks attached and the merchant (that would be me, or any other adult content developer) receives the funds after they deduct various costs. The subscription fees for merchants are very high, unfortunately.

As you say, itch.io could indeed do a lot better. I believe several people have pointed out other payment options for them to implement, but they don't seem to be interested.

can i move my saves from the itch.io versions to the steam version?

(1 edit)

Yes, saves are in the same format, so they can be exchanged. Saves are likely located here: Users\*name*\AppData\Roaming\RenPy\

(+9)

I'm so sick of this. People blowing each other to pieces is fine, but god forbid there's a nipple anywhere.

(1 edit) (+2)

Or put another way, seeing women blown to pieces is okay, but not seeing women blow two p***ses.

(+1)

basically yes because for some reason violent content perfectly ok . But sexual content devious ,disgusting, immoral. lol

(+4)

Between this and their refusal to support third party downloads, the platform is fast become obsolete to me.

Refusal to support third party downloads? Like what? I seen plenty of third party downloads on itch. What do you mean exactly? The itch app? Because you can link other sites and download links on itch just fine. That is not seen on other platforms. Try linking to itch on steam.

(+3)

Seems like a very unnecessary move on their part. 

I wonder, however if I will have to purchase the game(s) on steam to continue receiving updates or if I'll be able to receive updates via itch.io.

It's all a bit odd considering the adult games (including this one) I get on Steam are paid for through PayPal, so why is it different here?

Steam is big enough to dictate term to the payment processors. Itch.io isnt

(+1)

Steam makes finding new games so unnecessarily difficult too. Sorry

(+4)(-1)

I know that not everyone is financially able, or willing, to subcribe to every developer whose games they want to play, but perhaps you can direct people on Itch to "Follow" you on Patreon, and to do a one-time "Subscribe" on Patreon so that they can enjoy your updates and you can still get paid without Itch?

(+2)(-2)

so, you're telling me, itch just stole all the games I've paid for?

(-1)

Yes. As creators can no longer provide updates to their games anymore

(+1)(-1)

yes and from their prospective they stole your money as well. How this doesn’t open them up to a class action suit is beyond me.

(+10)

I can only hope Itch will learn to regret this decision... I too had never heard of Itch without their adult content!

(+7)

Dumbass itch.

(+12)

If not for the erotic games, I never would have even heard of itch.io

Damn morality crusaders and their interpretation of "judge not, lest thee be judged thyself"///

(+2)(-1)

Only choice is to go to Steam and GOG

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