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20,000 online games blocked after Australian anti-porn campaign

An Australian anti-pornography campaign has been blamed for the sudden removal by a global distributor of 20,000 online adult games.

Collective Shout had lobbied against sexually violent games, but now gaming platforms are removing all adult content, to the fury of gamers. Picture: iStock
Collective Shout had lobbied against sexually violent games, but now gaming platforms are removing all adult content, to the fury of gamers. Picture: iStock

An Australian anti-pornography campaign has been blamed for the sudden removal by a global distributor of 20,000 online adult games.

Independent gaming platform itch.io announced on Friday it had “de-indexed’’ all adult content considered “not suitable for work’’, or NSFW, so the games can no longer be searched for online.

Itch.io blamed Collective Shout, a group of Australian women who last week convinced credit card companies and PayPal to block payments for hundreds of online games with themes of rape, incest and sexual violence.

Itch.io is the third gaming platform, after Steam and Nintendo, to ban online games – infuriating gamers, who have bombarded the Australian campaigners with death, rape and doxxing threats.

The ban also drew the ire of Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and owner of the X social media platform, who said he would create his own payment platform for gamers.

X owner Elon Musk is backing the gamers. Picture: AP
X owner Elon Musk is backing the gamers. Picture: AP

Collective Shout founder Melinda Tankard Reist said she and her female colleagues had received a “deluge’’ of death and rape threats on X, as well as doxxing to incite violence against them. One gamer posted on X: “Stop killing our games feminist bitch and kill yourself you hypocritical sl*t … Australia needs to be nuked all Australians killed.’’

Another posted that Collective Shout “are the group responsible for censorship of games, anime and manga. They don’t realise they aggroed a huge chunk of the internet with their stunt’.’

“Now that angry moms in Australia discovered they can very easily censor video game markets with just 1000 phone calls based on simplistic ‘protect the children’ vibes,’’ one gamer posted.

“By this time next year some group somewhere will do the same to ban ‘violent video games’ to ‘protect impressionable children from becoming criminals’.’’

Ms Tankard Reist said itch.io was deleting 20,000 games – going far beyond her request to ban sexually violent games – which had “ramped up the abuse’’.

Despite X suspending the personal account of Ms Tankard Reist, Collective Shout has gone viral this week, with an average of 8400 mentions daily, compared to the usual three.

Ms Tankard Reist is preparing material for complaints to the police and eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, who on Thursday condemned the trolling attacks.

Collective Shout founder Melinda Tankard Reist. Picture: Newswire/Gary Ramage
Collective Shout founder Melinda Tankard Reist. Picture: Newswire/Gary Ramage

Angry gamers took to X to complain that games they had already downloaded from itch.io, which hosts independently produced online games, had vanished from their libraries.

“Isn’t it great that not only can retarded feminists block you from buying new games they can also take away the games you already own,’’ one posted.

But itch.io denied it was deleting games already purchased.

“Recently, we came under scrutiny from our payment processors regarding the nature of some content hosted on itch.io,’’ it stated on its website.

“Due to a game titled No Mercy, which was temporarily available on itch.io before being banned back in April, the organisation Collective Shout launched a campaign against Steam and itch.io, directing concerns to our payment processors about the nature of certain content found on both platforms.’’

Collective Shout’s campaign forced the withdrawal of the No Mercy online game, criticised by child protection experts as a graphic rape and incest simulator.

In its statement, itch.io said it had no choice but to review its games because “our ability to process payments is critical for every creator on our platform’’.

“To ensure that we can continue to operate and provide a marketplace for all developers, we must prioritise our relationship with our payment partners and take immediate steps towards compliance,’’ it stated.

“We understand this action is sudden and disruptive, and we are truly sorry for the frustration and confusion caused by this change.’’

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/20000-online-games-blocked-after-australian-antiporn-campaign/news-story/18a2f66f586edc76b1107737682928ca