tldr: Australian pressure group Collective Shout has claimed responsibility for the recent Itch.io and Steam developments that have seen the platforms change how they deal with - and in some cases remove - NSFW games and content from their respective platforms.
The group had already been closely linked with the situation, which has seen Itch.io and Steam scramble to appease payment providers like Visa as they suddenly took an interest in the kind of games available on the platforms, especially those which contravened rules and “standards” the payment providers apparently had. It led to Itch.io deindexing all NSFW content from its browse and search pages, and Steam introducing vague new rules about adult content, while removing a slew of games.
“In response to false claims and misinformation about our campaign, we’re setting the record straight,” wrote Collective Shout in a Facebook update. "Some have asked why we involved payment processors, and others have claimed we are responsible for Itch.io removing all NSFW content.
"We raised our objection to r*pe and incest games on Steam for months, and they ignored us for months. We approached payment processors because Steam did not respond to us.
“We called on Itch.io to remove rpe and incest games that we argued normalised violence and abuse of women. Itch.io made the decision to remove all NSFW content. Our objections were to content that involved sxualised violence and torture of women.”
Collective Shout shared a timeline of the campaign on its website, noting how it began with No Mercy, a game which involves extreme sexual violence, being brought to its in March. The group’s actions - a mixture of petitioning, emailing, and lobbying - began in early April and led to the game being removed from sale later that month.
Nitpick: I’d like to know what part of incest implies violence and abuse.
Btw, does anyone know if Madmind Studios’ games were delisted as well? Agony and Succubus would make the fuckwits of Collective Shout shit themselves
Leaving aside how gross it is, and separate from whether corporations should be the arbiters of morality:
Incest between parent and child, even if the offspring is of legal age of consent, would imply an insurmountable power differential as well as likely grooming. Incest between siblings would depend on the age differential and authority structure of the family. It’s not a case of incest=abuse, but of how likely it could imply abuse. The challenge is nuance. The goal is harm reduction
I understand that for some incest porn is enjoyable, not because they would commit incest themselves, but because incest=forbidden=naughty=sexy. Maybe that’s you? In any case, you asked how violence is implied, and that’s my take