Why are you so mad at itch io? They didn't have a choice they had to comply with visa and master card or shut down we should be mad at them not itch io.
I shall re-state something I said to someone on BlueSky about similar statements being shared around there.
Yes. Collective Shout and Visa/Mastercard are the real problem here. These are the groups you should be the most angry at. They caused this to happen, with CS claiming it only took 1000 letters to do so (which, you know, if that's all it took... imagine if just 2000 super pissed off people called, emailed, and sent in physical letters about not liking this change for the next week).
Itch.io legitimately did not have a choice when it came to removing certan games and, it seems, hiding everything NSFW temporarially. HOWEVER.
They absolutely had a choice in how they went about it, and there is no excuse for them to have done so in the way they did it.
They could have taken literally any other route. They did not have to do this in the middle of the night with no annoucement for 4-5 hours. They did not have to update their TOS and then remove games for breaking a TOS no one knew was updated (they could have been much clearer here). They did not have to remove games people PAID FOR from their LIBRARY.
And they did not need to have a blanket ban for nsfw work THAT IS NOT PORNOGRAPHY. Many of the games, books, etc that were removed? Were not pornographic.
They were marked adult for sensitive subjects. Like an award winning game based on the developer's past WITH AN EATING DISORDER. The game was not nsfw, it was marked as adult due to the subject matter of the game. And it has been removed wholesale from Itch.io. Many LGBTQIA+ games that were not pornographic? Also gone! Shocker!
Itch.io also did not have to blatantly lie about not allowiing devs to recieve their payment for removed games that already had been sold. Multiple devs cannot get their rightfully earned money, this is a documented fact.
So yes. I am angry at Itch.io. I do not blame anyone else for being mad at Itch.io. They could have handled this in any other way that did not involve silently going scorched earth and punishing everyone who made even remotely provacative non-pornographic adult oriented work. People can be mad at Collective Shout/Visa/Mastercard for what happened and ALSO at Itch.io seperately for how they handled it at the same time.
And just know. The fact they removed non-pornograhic adult oriented material?
Was absolutely what Collective Shout wanted in the future.
Itch.io gave them the easiest win for the next step in their goals, considering the group wants games Grand Theft Auto and Detroit: Become Human banned. Itch.io only needed to remove speciific NSFW games, as indicated by them saying they will allow more NSFW games with specific restriictions once they work some things out, but they just banned content like those games willingly.
Be mad at all of them.