itch.io Deindexes All NSFW Content On Its Browse And Search Pages Without Warning

By Wallace Truesdale  |  July 24, 2025 | 12:59pm
Screenshot from Consume Me
Video Games News Itch.io
itch.io Deindexes All NSFW Content On Its Browse And Search Pages Without Warning

On Thursday July 24, the game storefront itch.io, a popular online marketplace for indie game developers, announced it has “deindexed” all NSFW games from its browse and search pages. 

The statement pins responsibility for the decision on payment processors and the anti-porn group Collective Shout, stating “Recently, we came under scrutiny from our payment processors regarding the nature of some content hosted on itch.io. Due to a game titled No Mercy, which was temporarily available on itch.io before being banned back in April, the organization 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 recently claimed responsibility for a recent NSFW game purge on Steam after the storefront adopted a policy that gave payment processors some authority over what games appeared on the platform.

A paragraph lies farther down the announcement that implies this could just be the start of a longer process, stating “We are currently conducting a comprehensive audit of content to ensure we can meet the requirements of our payment processors. Pages will remain deindexed as we complete our review. Once this review is complete, we will introduce new compliance measures. For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account.” This is then followed by confirmation that game removals are happening, stating “Part of this review will see some pages being permanently removed from itch.io. Affected accounts will be notified via their account’s email address from our support address. You can reply to that email if you have any follow up questions.”

Signs of this decision preceded its announcement, as developers found themselves impacted reportedly without warning. On Wednesday July 23, game developers on Bluesky started warning people that the platform was shadowbanning and removing NSFW games content.

Visual novel writer ebi on Bluesky was one of many to sound the alarm, stating “so itchio has shadowbanned any games tagged with ‘nsfw’, ‘adult’, or ‘erotic’ so they don’t show up in searches, and several devs have reported that their r18 games have been removed from the site with no warning.” They would later give an update on how their visual novel, Sweetest Monster Refrain, was also removed, saying “it was only available on itch so now it can’t be accessed anywhere. i didn’t receive an email about this or any warning.” The store page link currently leads to a page titled “Sweetest Monster Refrain” and a statement below it that reads “This game’s files have been suspended by an itch.io administrator. Contact support if you need assistance.”

Another Bluesky message shared the upcoming (and already-award winning) game Consume Me was delisted, stating that “Consume Me just got delisted in a wave of delistings on itchio. It’s a semi-autographical game about disordered eating. It won the grand prize at the most recent IGF awards. When storefronts start mass bannings, everything is threatened.” At the time of writing this, a search of the game on Itch does not return any listing of it. 

Confusion over Consume Me’s delisting would be understandable given how the game stands out amid a purge of more sexually-explicit work. Consume Me has shared nothing in its promotional materials or demos that contains sexual content. But, terms like “adult-only” and “NSFW” are vague enough to include many things outside of the raunchier part of the spectrum, as has been seen with attempts to sexualize and subsequently censor the LGTB community. The execution of this censorship across storefronts, despite the pressure often coming from the same groups, will not be uniform. Notably, Consume Me is still on Steam and also appears in its search bar.

For another idea of how this news landed, take a look at itch.io’s General Discussion page. If threads like “The Censorship of NSFW Titles is Disgusting,” “The discord going crazy,” and “Collective Shout end goal is trying to re-instate the Hays Code but for video games” are any indication, this is a less-than-welcome action for those in and out of itch’s community. It’s hard to be surprised considering that this action, outside of being another abrupt instance of censorship, removes a source of income for many developers.

 
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