On July 2025, Steam, a popular storefront to purchase games on PC, and itch.io, a storefront that sells games, comics, tools, resources and much more, have recently delisted several NSFW games, after the group Collective Shout published an open letter to payment processors such as Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and more. As a result of this letter, payment processors have strongarmed Valve and itch.io.
Collective Shout's actions have pushed payment processors to force both Valve and itch.io to delist NSFW games, which has overreached into delisting several games using sensitive topics for artistic purposes and LGBTQ+ games. Collective Shout has already demanded the removal of mainstream AAA games such as Detroit : Become Human and Grand Theft Auto 5, wrongfully claiming that these games are exclusively about violence against women. Read more
Payment processors have caved to the outcry of a small, right-wing puritanical group who wants to dictate what adults can or cannot buy with their own money, and is setting a dangerous precedent that threatens the future of independent art on the internet. Many livelihoods are at risk because of the outcry of a niche of people who seek to restrict artistic freedom. They've done it with Patreon, Gumroad, Pornhub, they did it to Steam and itch.io, and they'll keep going. With your help, we can speak louder.
Below are petitions and forms you can fill in. If there are enough forms filled or petitions signed, actions may be taken by the parties in order to help our cause.
Below is a list of phone numbers and e-mails that are publicly available on the websites of the payment processors, compiled for convenience. It is recommended to prioritize phone numbers over e-mail, as e-mails could easily be filtered out by the company. Insist to make your complaint through phone if a rep tells you to file your complaint through e-mail. If possible, do not leave personal information to these companies.
You should keep in mind while reaching out to them that their bottom line is what matters to them. Below are points you should make while reaching out to customer support lines, coupled with an example script.
When calling in, always try to escalate with a supervisor. This will help make our issues be heard to people at the top.
After a call, you should tell the agent you want to give them a five star rating. This can be a trick to directly get in touch with the supervisor, which is the person we're trying to get the complaint to.
This is fairly self-explanatory. Directly state what's going on, say that you'd like to purchase adult content. No escalation required, however the immediate mention of "itch.io" "steam" or games may result in the agent disconnecting from the call.
Coming off as a concerned, oblivious customer confused as to why they can't buy their porn game seems to be the best approach as of writing. If done right, time that could be spent on other customer support issues are instead used. After the thing However, it's difficult to write a universal script for this approach, as agents' response to your inquiry can vary. Below are a few primers to help you get an idea of the approach.
UPDATE : There have been reports of VISA and MasterCard hanging up directly on people calling in about "the videogame thing". itch.io sells more than games, it sells comics and resources. You can prevent being hung up by replacing it with comics.
Hello, my name is [YOUR NAME HERE] and I am calling to make a formal complaint about a policy that [PAYMENT PROCESSOR] currently holds.
[PAYMENT PROCESSOR] has recently pressured platforms like Steam and itch.io to remove content at the behest of a small group that does not represent me, the userbase of these platform or the population at large. It is not a payment processor's role to decide what kind of content I can or cannot spend my money on, so long as it is a legal transaction. Your policy decisions are in the way of my right to spend my money how I see fit. Your policies are unlawful, and seek to hurt legitimate businesses. I urge [PAYMENT PROCESSOR] to revert this policy immediately.
Additionally, groups like Collective Shout, NCOSE, AVPA and Exodus Cry do not speak for me, the users of Steam and itch.io or the rest of the population.
If [PAYMENT PROCESSOR] continues to impede on legitimate businesses, free speech and users' freedom to purchase legal goods, I will press to as many opportunistic law firms as possible and kick off a class action lawsuit against your company, as well as support any politicians or political party who are going to put regulations and legislations against your company's anti-consumer practices.
Hello. This message is to lodge an official complaint about the ongoing rampant restrictions [COMPANY] has placed on legal sales made by legitimate businesses.
[COMPANY] has recently pressured platforms like Steam and itch.io to remove content at the behest of a small group that does not represent me, the userbase of these platform or the population at large. It is not a payment processor's role to decide what kind of content I can or cannot spend my money on, so long as it is a legal transaction. Your policy decisions are in the way of my right to spend my money how I see fit. Your policies are unlawful, and seek to hurt legitimate businesses. I urge [COMPANY] to revert this policy immediately.
Additionally, groups like Collective Shout, NCOSE, AVPA and Exodus Cry do not speak for me, the users of Steam and itch.io or the rest of the population.
It worries me as a day to day user of your services that such a policy can completely harm the income and livelihood of legitimate businesses owners and individual artists. I don’t believe this policy is the right way to approach safe and legal business practices between consenting and adult consumers.
The following actions are absolutely necessary to protect the freedoms of your client base and the sustainability of legitimate business practices:
- Remove from your Terms of Service any mention barring the use of your service for sale and purchase of legal products.
- Contact the following companies and any other company you have previously put pressure on to retract your content restrictions. These include, but are not limited to: Itch.io, Steam(valve), Patreon, Fansly, Onlyfans
- Put in place protections to prevent such restrictions from being put in place in the future without ample warning and time to contest them.
If these changes aren't made then I, along with many others will be forced to seek other options for processing payments. If [PAYMENT PROCESSOR] continues to impede on legitimate businesses, free speech and users' freedom to purchase legal goods, I will press to as many opportunistic law firms as possible and kick off a class action lawsuit against your company, as well as support any politicians or political party who are going to put regulations and legislations against your company's anti-consumer practices.
After calling a few banks, they have claimed that MasterCard and Visa's policies are their own jurisdiction, and that banks aren't responsible, and linked to us the United States Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
When contacting them, simply describe the situation regarding the sale of NSFW games, their vague/obtuse policy, them blaming banks and banks saying they have nothing to do with it as they only distribute their cards, etc.
As our protests are ongoing, there has been significant reports of calls being disconnected. They can easily filter out e-mails, and matching phone numbers may not help, but they don't really have the means to filter out physical mail. Here's our guide for sending in mail.
If you don't have the means to send letters to your local post office, services like LetterStream may be useful to expedite this process (Thanks @zoquete.itch.io!)
All information below has been acquired via publicly available information or relayed by parties working with/for these companies.
⚠️ = Current priority target
Stripe is currently a major priority, as they have the ability to deny itch.io's eligibility to their services according to itch.io's owner.
When contacting them, we judge it's better to inquire to them if their execs told Stripe to not offer their services for adult content, rather than accuse them. They're associated with Stripe's Treasury API, not necessarily their main operations, it's highly possible that Stripe is lying to us.
Source : Stripe Treasury ("built with trusted bank partners" section), TechCrunchUnfortunately, PayPal doesn't seem to have any e-mail address, as it uses its website's customer support. You will need to log in to your PayPal account if you wish to access Customer Support lines or messages. Here's a few lines we found so far :
Payoneer is itch.io's secondary payment processor.
Nations around the world have been on a trip of creating short-sighted legislation with similar goals as MasterCard and Visa's policies. Lawmakers believe that curbing pornography, a form of expression, and access to other content they deem as obscene will address the issue.
These bills fail to realize that the problem stems from the monopolization of the internet by a few companies, causing things like the slow demise of spaces deemed safe for kids, the death of small web spaces like forums, and so on. Rather than focusing on building spaces online for kids, lawmakers seek to censor content for adults that they deem immoral, creating risks of privacy breaches, opportunities for phishing and more.
We included a few of them on this site, and we hope you get involved and protest these authoritarian laws.
A misguided bill with similar goals of censorship under the pretext of "protecting children" has been making the rounds in the United States. This is a trojan horse bill to increase internet surveillance, further censor what's allowed online and to further kneecap expression and artistry online.
After the UK's OSA failed to address the core issue the bill addresses and instead created problems for everyone else, somehow it seemed sound for Canadian lawmakers to follow suit. Bill S-209 aims to put legislation enforcing age checks, and Bill C-2 is an outlandish "border protection" bill that gives authorities the right to ask any ISP your Internet data without need for a warrant, a bill which if passed would go against sections of the Charter of Rights.
The UK's adoption of the Online Safety Act has similar motives as Collective Shout's outcry to censor sexual content, and just as much overreaches into anything they deem as "obscene", such as LGBTQ+ content. The bill's aim isn't to protect who they claim to protect, but rather an excuse to censor whatever they see fit.
If you are in the UK, here are some ways you can protest these decisions.
UPDATE : The government has responded, claiming they have no plans to repeal the act. If you are an UK resident, sign the petition anyways.
While we try to find more phone numbers, e-mails and people we can reach out to, here are a few additional links that offer more options to help stop payment processors from censoring video games.