We Need to Talk About Censorship on Adult Games

Hello everyone!

Many of you may already be aware about all the problem that has come out of what happened with itch.io recently. For those of you who don't know, itch.io has removed all adult games from their search engine, which includes Lucky Paradox as well. This was due to lawsuits from a group called “Collective Shout” and some games with controversial content, so payment methods like Visa and MasterCard, have had to push back.

I must be honest. I am very concerned about this whole situation.

Itch.io is a great place to get visibility, especially when considering such indie developments like this, which can't afford a Publisher or marketing expenses. In fact, for now I'm investing as much as possible in the development of the game. Without itch, Lucky Paradox will lose a lot of visibility.

Now that I've let a few hours pass since I read the news, I've been doing some research, and I currently see three possible paths. There has been a lot of misinformation about this.

1. Least Evil Path (Most Likely): If everything goes as mentioned in the statement given by itch.io. The games were “shadowbanned” while they investigate all games that have controversial content. Then there will be an update of their policies and everything will be back to “normal”. None of this should affect Lucky Paradox, as no rules would be broken in this regard.

2. Bad Path: Itch finally decides to ban all adult content from its platform. So Lucky Paradox would lose a lot of visibility for new players, and this would affect donations on Patreon. However, I could continue the development with your help through Patreon, although not having the income from itch, I would be more limited in terms of money to invest in new music and 2d art that I plan to add. However, in spite of everything, Lucky Paradox is still going ahead.

3. Catastrophic Path (Less Likely): In addition to the previous case, there is an escalation in the banning of adult content, including platforms such as Patreon and Suscribestar. This means that I would lose all the monetary support that allows me to develop Lucky Paradox. This would definitely doom the game, since it would be impossible to continue, even less considering that as I am an independent developer, I do not have job insurance. This would ruin my life not only financially, but also emotionally.

Developing Lucky Paradox has become my life for the past few years, and I don't want politics to ruin everything I have built all this time. I want to believe that itch.io, will not abandon us, but it all depends on the level of pressure these institutions put on us.

It's like a dystopian future, where the banks are going to dictate what we should spend our money on, and what we should think about it. Ironically, this sounds like something Liz would say. But as the phrase goes... Who's watching the watchers?

We can only wait and see how events unfold. I don't plan to rush into making a drastic decision. I will continue to work on new content for you and keep the community alive, dont worry about that :).

For now, I have made the decision to delay the public release until all this is cleared up. Since I'm hoping that itch.io will get back to normal, and doing the free launch there helps bring a lot of new people into the game. To launch it at this time, would be shooting myself in the foot.

For my part, I hope everything is resolved in the least painful way. That this is all just a misunderstanding, and that I don't lose this project that I have put my life into.

It's time to stand together!