Game Studio Behind Vintage Story Accuses Itch.io Of Withholding “Six-Figure Sum”

For those who’ve never heard of Vintage Story, it’s a sandbox survival game set in a world with Lovecraftian undertones. Specifically, it’s a standalone version of a Minecraft mod called Vintagecraft, which places particular emphasis on realism; players perform multiple actions to craft materials rather than doing this entirely through menus. It began development on April 5, 2016, before going up for sale on September 27, 2016, with frequent updates since then. Its official website indicates that it is still in Early Access.

With the game being taken down from Itch.io, it is currently only available on the Humble Bundle store and through the studio’s site, as it isn’t currently on sale via Steam. We reached out to both Anego Studios and Itch.io for statements on the situation, but haven’t heard back from either at the time of this article being published.

Itch.io is already engaged in controversy, receiving criticism for recently delisting around 20,000 games that allegedly included adult content. Eventually, Itch.io came out with a statement that they had removed these games after being pressured by credit card companies like VISA and Mastercard. These payment processors had, in turn, been influenced by the Australian anti-porn activist group Collective Shout, an organization with ties to anti-LGBT Christian advocacy groups in the US.

It seems somewhat questionable that Itch’s removal of these games and its alleged refusal to pay Anego Studios are linked, as according to Anego Studios, they stopped receiving payment three months ago, which is well before the game purge occurred. That said, if what the studio says is true, it certainly won’t help alleviate the storefront’s ongoing bad PR.