The Future of this Project 2 (August Update)

Hello everyone. Late last month I posted a dev log called "The Future of this Project". There I displayed my worries about the current and ongoing mass censorship that PayPal and Mastercard have levied against video games as a whole, especially NSFW games. This game, Chronicles Meteorfall, is not NSFW, but does contain elements intended for mature audiences as well as heavy LGBT+ themes, so there was a possibility that this game as well as this entire account could be de-indexted, or even worse completely deleted. Since the initial bannings, including itch.io banning hundreds of games and accounts and delisting over 15,000 more, a lot has come out about this whole situation. Here is the basic rundown.

1: On Steam, only around 150 games were banned. Most of these games were highly immoral. Pretty much entirely rape sims or incest visual novels, which already broke Steam's TOS of "highly objectionable content." Steam already has a history of banning games considered too taboo and vile for even their platform, such as RapeLay or No Mercy, so it makes sense why Steam would do this even without the payment processor's influence.

2: On the itch.io side, itch.io larely over-reacting to threats from payment processors and in a heavily rushed overnight move de-indexted (NOT banned) all NSFW games on the platform as well as fully banned a handful of them. To be clear, itch.io already has bans targeting games promoting or glorifying, rape, incest, and/or child abuse. All the games that were actually BANNED, not de-indexed, were horrific games that I couldn't speak the names of here that by all means should have been banned a long time ago.

3: Itch.io is currently working on using alternate payment processors, most likely Discover, to circumvent MasterCard and Paypal's restrictions. In addition, they are working on re-indexing all NSFW games, but this is an ongoing process and will take some time. They mainly de-indexted NSFW games only TEMPORARILY in order to cover their asses legally, and didn't intend to ban any games.

4: Neither itch.io nor Steam intentionally banned any LGBT games (unless they glorified rape, incest, or child abuse) or de-indexted SFW games. If they did, that was mistake and they asked if you are having issues with your game being unfairly banned or de-indexed to contact support. That was largely misinformation spread by leftists on BlueSky fearmongering and doomposting.

5: Famous NSFW games like Mouthwashing, Fear and Hunger, and Black Souls were not banned or even de-indexed. That's misinformation. In addition, Mouthwashing has not been available on itch.io since mid-2024. The download button on itch now just links to the Steam page which has been the case for over a year.

6: Currently, thanks to efforts from pretty much every social media site, including unlikely allies like the anons on 4chan, Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and a new enemy, Stripe, have been absolutely HOUNDED by calls and emails condemning the restrictions on NSFW. Multiple petitions against said bans have signatures in the millions, and entire call centers are shutting down because these companies are flooded with so many calls. They have heard our voice.

7: Both PayPal and MasterCard have given condescending responses that basically just had them doubling down and them claiming they have only been "restricting illegal content." Last I checked, hypnosis isn't illegal, and is not only is it a widely practiced form of therapy, but is also fully consensual by design. Just a reminder that hypnosis is one of the things payment processors are against, consider to be equivalent to rape, and think its depiction should be banned in all media. The fight has not been won yet, but if we keep up the pressure and they see a clear drop in profits, they WILL cave.

8: Finally, multiple bills are being proposed in the US Senate and House restricting payment processors from preventing the sale of legal content. Both bills have non-partisan support from both republicans and democrats.

At the end of the day, Chronicles Meteorfall will not be affected by any of this, because Chronicles Meteorfall is not NSFW and the bans on LGBT+ content on Steam and Itch.io were largely a hoax.

In other news, we have good news and we have bad news. The good news is that my demo is nearly complete! Almost everything is done, all that's left is the playtesting and bugfixing and some small final touches. The bad news? In the last three weeks I suffered from the worst depression of my life and even had another "attempt", so now I'm going to be sent to a residential service for a month in order to obtain intensive therapy and treatment for my severe depression. I'll be gone for a month, and I will be leaving on Sunday, August 10th. Around 8 PM to 9 PM on Saturday, August 9th tomorrow, all access to my major social media sites (Reddit, Discord, YouTube, BlueSky, Tumblr, and DeviantArt) will be blocked and will remain blocked until September 12th 2025 when I arrive back home. I will not be able to bring my 3DS, Switch 2, or Steam Deck, but I can bring my phone and my switch. This means that I can work on my games during that time, but it would be unwise to post my demo during that period as I would not be able to market it through social media.

The good thing about going to residential is that I now have a solid release date for the demo to Chronicles Meteorfall!

Chronicles Meteorfall Demo Release Date:

Saturday, September 13th 2025!!!

But yeah, that's everything that's going on right now. After I finish my demo during rehab and get some people there to playtest it, I will work on the final updates for Chronicles: The Lost Page and Noel and the Tower of Doom, which unlike CM will be posted ASAP instead of me waiting until I get back to post the CM demo.

See you later gamers. I see you all after therapy.