Cav's Place

Not that the effects and connections don’t go much wider, but since this is what this particular instance affects, I’m sure that at least everyone with any interest in gaming is by now very much aware of what’s been going on for the past couple of weeks, when a campaign led by an Australian activist group apparently convinced the major credit card companies to threaten stores with blocking transactions unless they remove many X-rated titles. Some are now trying to deflect the blame, but what’s clear is that Steam bowed right away and quietly, only confirming it a couple of days later, and itch.io caved in a pretty extreme manner a few days after that, though at least they released a statement about it, and a couple of days ago they announced allowing free X-rated titles again.
Not that things like this haven’t been going on for quite some time, but now they reached new heights and they come at a time when new checks and restrictions are also being enforced by law, notably the Online Safety Act in the UK and new guidelines that include age verification as part of the Digital Services Act in the EU. So the assault seems to be coming from all sides at once, governments, corporations and activists joining hands, and resistance is crumbling, the Internet rapidly becoming a much more censored and restricted place instead of what it was and should be, which is a place of freedom, an ever better method of escaping the claws of censorship, be it the “traditional” kind generally employed by conservatives and authoritarian regimes or the “cancel culture” pushed forward by “progressives” that in recent years challenged and in some areas even surpassed the others. And, on the other hand, it’s not as if the dangers of moving away from cash and the benefits of sticking to it, recognized even by the European Central Bank, aren’t plainly obvious for anyone who cares to see.
But this post is mainly about the issue that affects game stores, and I must say that I was quite surprised by itch.io’s reaction, seeing as, if you sorted their catalog before the change according to the best selling paid titles, you saw pages and pages that consisted almost entirely of X-rated titles, so removing them, and adding new guidelines that ban their addition in the future, is likely to eliminate the large majority of their revenue, so I have serious doubts about them being able to stay afloat after this, even if they are looking for other payment processors. But I’m pleased to say that others are openly fighting back, and while the name of one campaign strikes me as wrong, since it’s the payment processors and the power they wield that’s the real problem, far more than that activist group, the petition takes aim at the real culprits and may have its scope expanded in light of the recent legislative measures, to push back more strongly against such censorship and restrictions. And there is another campaign as well, which lists more suggested actions, albeit with a wider scope in one area and a narrower one in another. And then you have developers speaking out, and even a statement by the International Game Developers Association, though that’s too nuanced for my liking, taking aim at the lack of clarity more than at the restrictions themselves.
However, since it’s the stores that are directly affected by this and the ones that really have to put up a fight if we are to have any chance of at least halting the process, not to mention any hope of even thinking about reversing it, and it was also nice to see today’s announcement from Zoom Platform, I was particularly pleased and emboldened by the announcement made by GOG.com yesterday, clearly stating that they oppose and will fight back against such censorship, and not even trying to directly gain from it, but in fact promoting the campaign by offering a bundle of no less than 13 titles, or 14 if you consider Agony and Agony: Unrated as different, for free for 48 hours, with 30.5 hours left at the time I’m posting this. The other titles are Being a DIK: Season 1, Fetish Locator: Week One, Helping the Hotties, House Party, HuniePop, Leap of Faith (including the Official Walkthrough), Leap of Love, Lust Theory: Season 1, Postal 2: Complete (not including Paradise Lost), Sapphire Safari, Summer’s Gone: Season 1 and Treasure of Nadia. And if you’re interested you can then also grab the three free DLCs for House Party. You can’t pick only certain titles, you don’t get codes to give away for those you already own, you can’t gift the bundle, and it is apparently completely blocked in countries where any of the included titles are blocked, but there is an easy workaround for those who do want to obtain it from such countries, without bothering with VPNs. Now it remains to be seen how they’ll be affected by this, but while they’ve given me ample reasons to vehemently criticize and attack them for more than a decade, I’ll say that this is a good moment to show support… And, of course, also to very seriously consider switching to other payment methods if you’ve been using credit cards, PayPal or Stripe…