German-Spearheaded Petition Joins Critique of Adult Game Delistings

A new petition spearheaded by prominent German journalists, game developers and DEI advocates has gathered over a thousand signatures in the first day. Like other emerging protests, it aims at payment processors to take the pressure from store fronts selling adult games.

After the recent delistings of adult games on Steam and Itch.io by demand of several payment processors, a growing organised resistance has emerged under makers and players of adult games as well as among LGBTQIA+ communities against these policies. Among the reactions is a petition led by prominent German games journalists and indie game developers known for their advocacy for queer communities. “We appeal to everyone who sees digital games as cultural artifacts and an important part of today’s media landscape, to stand up for our right of expression. We demand that payment processors stop imposing their rules on shops and media distributors. We demand that they act as a neutral intermediary between suppliers and customers”, the organisers summarise their petition demands.

The petition that is spearheaded by DEI advocate Nina Kiel explains their reasoning as follows: “Recently, this development took a significant turn for the worse, with both Steam and itch.io being pressured into removing content that is deemed “brand-damaging” or “offensive” by payment processors such as PayPal, Visa and Mastercard as well as political activists. Most notably an organization called Collective Shout, which has close ties to religious fundamentalist organisations such as the National Center on Sexual Education. Much like these influential partners, Collective Shout promotes abortion bans, censorship, the criminalisation of sex work, and openly discriminates against trans people. Under the pretext of fighting “the objectification of women and the sexualization of girls”, Collective Shout pressures corporations, marketers and media into removing all content they deem unacceptable. They purport a causal link between fictional portrayals and real-life behaviour for which they do not provide sufficient empirical evidence.”

The organisers demand payment processors like Visa, PayPal and Mastercard to reconsider their approach to games with adult content. Among the first undersigned are well-known faces of the German games journalism and games development spheres, such as Manuel Fritsch, Editor-in-Chief of IGN Germany, Lena Falkenhagen, Professor for Game Art and Design and Chair Woman of the German Writer's Association, games consultant and ‘The Mane Quest’ Editor-in-Chief Alice Ruppert as well as international game designers such as Nina Freeman. The petition has gathered more than 1.000 signatures in the first 24 hours and announced that it sent calls for statements to major stakeholders in the business such as games industry associations.

The effort is not the first petition reacting to recent happenings, but the most specifically aimed at games as well as at European audiences. A more US-centric petition hosted on ACLU that criticises the payment processors’ approach to not only adult games, but the depiction of sex and payment of sex work in general, has reached almost 150.000 signatures. It too had been shared by prominent games industry and games journalism voices.

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