Danica Davidson
July 31, 2025 
Many NSFW games have been erased from Steam and itch.io, due to the pressure of payment processors like Visa and Mastercard, who in turn seem to be responding to pressure from pro-censorship groups like Collective Shout. PC Gamer decided to interview some indie game developers on what they thought about the situation.
The response from the developers was universally negative. This could be PC Gamer choosing these responses on purpose, or it could also reflect that many indie developers are worried about their artistic freedom and livelihoods.
Developer Jenny Jiao Hsia and colleague AP Thomson wrote their answers together for PC Gamer.
Aware that Collective Shout says it’s going after video games to protect women and girls, they noted, “There are many many women who consume and enjoy adult content. There are many many women who produce adult content and deserve to be fairly compensated for their work. Cutting these women off from income streams and audiences does nothing to ‘protect’ them.”
They continued, “Sex is a natural part of life and culture. It just is! For many people it’s a fundamental part of the human experience and as such intersects with artistic expression in a multitude of ways! Treating it as a completely taboo subject that cannot reach the public eye protects no one and mostly helps contribute to regressive attitudes surrounding sex and sexuality.”
They stressed nuance. “Our feeling is that any blanket ban is going to ensnare a whole lot of legitimate artistic expression while malicious shock-content will continue to be produced, often just sidestepping the ban entirely.”
Another developer interviewed was Robert Yang, who said, “The larger commercial game industry champions free speech often only at their convenience. Corporate game industry lobbyists will gladly fight government regulation of violent video games and gambling, but they’re strangely silent when LGBTQ indie game makers are in the crosshairs like this.”
The people interviewed pointed to this site as a place where people can find ways to contact payment processors themselves if they want to make their opinions heard on this matter.
Source: PC Gamer
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
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