Itch.io has started reindexing free adult NSFW content and plans to slowly re-introduce paid content to ensure it can support the “widest range of creators in the long term.”
The news comes just over a week after the indie marketplace said it was deindexing adult content at the behest of major payment providers like Mastercard and Visa.
Those payment services had been targeted by a campaign called Collective Shout, which accused them of “profiting from rape, incest [and] child abuse games” by supporting digital platforms like Steam and Itch.
In an update shared on the Itch community forum, platform founder Leaf Corcoran said developers looking to become eligible for reindexing must select the ‘no payments’ pricing option to ensure their product is available for free.
They said Itch will also deploy a new ‘content warnings’ system for pages tagged NSFW. All page owners will be required to comply with those new rules to become eligible for indexing.
“This feature is not yet ready, but we will post an update when it is. If your page was previously indexed, you will have a time window to complete this requirement to avoid going in and out of indexing,” added Corcoran.
On the subject of payments, Corcoran said Itch recently spoke with payment processor Stripe about its content policies and remains in talks with other providers to figure out a way to accept card payments that Stripe is unable to process.
As it stands, Stripe said it cannot support adult content that is “designed for sexual gratification.”
“Stripe is currently unable to support sexually explicit content due to restrictions placed on them by their banking partners, despite card networks generally supporting adult content (with the appropriate registrations),” explained the company in a statement sent to Itch. “Stripe has indicated that they hope to be able to support adult content in the future.”
Itch disabled Stripe payments last week on pages identified as having ‘adult NSFW content’ but may review that initial list now it has more information from Stripe.
“Our long-term plan is to implement one or more new processors to avoid putting the platform at risk,” added Corcoran.
