UPDATE: Mouthwashing Was Deindexed From itch.io Before Payment Processors Started Pressuring the Site about NSFW Games

Given the rate at which games are being affected, it’s worth differentiating between deindexing versus delisting games. When a game is deindexed from a platform, that means it can no longer be found via the search and browse pages of the platform, akin to hiding it. The game itself is still available for download and purchase on the site, as can be seen in Mouthwashing’s case here. However, this does not diminish how badly this can impact a game’s reach. 

Without knowing where to get the original page link, these games are effectively unknown to anyone but their pre-existing audience and whoever spreads word about it. Mouthwashing benefits from being a hit that took the world by storm, sitting at over 28K reviews on Steam with an Overwhelmingly Positive rating. Most games do not enjoy that level of fame. 

Delisting is the more severe action of the two, as it means the game isn’t just missing from search on a platform, but that it can’t be purchased or downloaded. In essence, delisting is removal from the platform entirely. This can be catastrophic for developers. It could mean a severe loss of income, even more so if a given platform was the only place the game was being sold. It should also be viewed as anti-preservation, considering that this in effect makes a game disappear unless, or until, the developer hosts it somewhere else. 

Many games have already been delisted on itch.io following the platform’s rule change. Some games have also been removed on Steam following their similarly NSFW-antagonistic policy update. Developers are already trying to keep track of delistings in a Google spreadsheet, with the stated intent of the document being serving “as a provisional repository of NSFW games for itch.io and Steam that is easy to navigate, duplicate locally, and contribute to. In view of circumstances affecting NSFW content creators, we deem necessary to archive NSFW games outside of their original platforms.” 

People are not letting this deindexing and delisting happen without a fight. They have reportedly been flooding Visa and Mastercard, some of the payment processors that pressured itch.io and Steam into censoring NSFW content, with phone calls and emails. Unsurprisingly, censorship is not a popular policy.