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Outbyte PC Repair FREEClear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEScan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Collective Shout’s 2025 campaign pressed payment companies to stop processing payments for Steam, itch.io and other platforms hosting games it described as depicting rape, incest, sexual torture and child abuse. The campaign was followed by changes to storefront rules and discoverability, but the evidence does not show a direct Mastercard order or establish that the games industry as a whole was transformed.
What is Collective Shout?
Collective Shout is an advocacy group that campaigns against the sexualization and objectification of women and children. In 2025, it focused on games it said depicted sexualized violence, torture and abuse. Its claims about the number of games it identified and the support for its campaign are the group’s own figures, not an independent audit.
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The campaign began with No Mercy. Collective Shout says it reviewed the game after receiving a tip from a gamer, then campaigned for its removal from Steam. Its timeline says the developer pulled the game from the store on April 12, 2025, after a petition that the group says drew more than 70,000 signatures. The group also reports that supporters sent Steam 3,463 emails.
Why payment processors?
After its earlier requests to Steam did not receive a response, Collective Shout turned to the companies that process payments. In a July 2025 letter, the group asked payment gateways to “immediately cease processing payments on Steam and Itch.io and any other platforms hosting similar games.” It said its investigation had found 500 games involving violent sexual torture and incest-related abuse across Steam and itch.io. That is Collective Shout’s count, not a verified total for either storefront.
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The tactic was to challenge platforms through a business dependency rather than rely only on store-level content rules: the group argued that payment companies should not facilitate purchases on platforms hosting the material it opposed. The campaign timeline says it began an email campaign to processors on May 26 and sent its open letter in July.
What changed on Steam and itch.io?
The platforms took different actions. Steam changed its rules and reportedly retired some games; itch.io initially de-indexed a much broader category of adult material from browsing and search while it reviewed compliance.
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| Platform | What was reported in 2025 | What the evidence establishes |
|---|---|---|
| Steam | Valve expanded its rules to cover content that may violate payment-processor rules, including certain adult content, and confirmed it was retiring several games, according to The Guardian’s July 16 report. | The Guardian said Valve did not specify which games were removed or precisely what adult content was barred. Its July 29 report said the number of Steam games removed was unclear. |
| itch.io | On July 24, the platform said it had de-indexed all adult NSFW content from browse and search pages while conducting a compliance review. | De-indexing affected discoverability; it does not by itself mean every affected game was permanently deleted. itch.io cited a catalog of more than 2 million product pages and said unreliable user-provided tags made a narrow review difficult. |
itch.io said the payment-processor concerns involved content on both itch.io and Steam. The platform explained that payment processing was critical to creators and that its large, user-generated catalog made relying on tags impractical. Collective Shout, meanwhile, said itch.io chose to remove all NSFW content even though the group’s stated concern was sexualized violence and torture. The campaign’s stated target and the platform’s broad initial response were therefore not the same in scope.
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Why did thousands of adult titles just disappear from the biggest PC gaming marketplaces?
The wording “disappear” can obscure an important distinction. On itch.io, the July 24 statement described adult NSFW material as de-indexed from browse and search pages. The Guardian later reported that more than 20,000 games had been removed from itch.io’s NSFW category since July 16, attributing that figure to the newsletter Game File. That category count is not evidence that 20,000 games were permanently deleted.
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On Steam, the reporting concerned rule changes and games being retired, but the available accounts did not establish a complete public list or total. Steam’s policy response should not be treated as identical to itch.io’s broad de-indexing review.
Did Mastercard order the restrictions?
The precise chain of pressure is disputed. Mastercard said it had not evaluated games or required restrictions on activity at game-creator sites and platforms. Valve’s account, reported by TechCrunch in August 2025, was that Mastercard did not contact Valve directly; instead, processors and acquiring banks communicated with Valve. That supports a description of indirect pressure through financial intermediaries, not a direct Mastercard order to remove named games.
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The statements answer different questions: Mastercard denied setting game-specific restrictions, while Valve described how payment-related concerns reached the company. The public accounts do not establish that processors all applied the same requirements or explain every individual storefront decision.
Which games have been affected?
The clearest named case in Collective Shout’s timeline is No Mercy, which its developer pulled from Steam in April 2025. Beyond that, the sources do not provide a definitive, independently verified list of affected games. Collective Shout’s 500-game figure is its own investigation claim; Game File’s figure, as reported by The Guardian, concerns games removed from itch.io’s NSFW category; and the number of Steam removals was reported as unclear.
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- This Visa Virtual eGift Card is non-reloadable. No cash or ATM access. Visa Virtual eGift Cards are emailed active.
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These figures measure different things and should not be added together or treated as a single count of deleted games. No independently published current count of games affected by either storefront’s policies is established here.
What happens next?
itch.io said it was re-indexing free adult games while negotiating with processors in early August 2025. Its later FAQ and update described follow-up to the review, but the available sources do not establish the platform’s policy status as of October 2026. The cited reporting also does not establish current Steam rules or later changes after 2025, so those historical developments should not be read as a definitive statement of present policy.
The 2025 episode shows how advocacy aimed at payment providers can coincide with platform rule changes and broad discoverability effects for creators. It does not, on the available evidence, measure a lasting industry-wide change or prove that video games as a whole were remade.
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