Last week, one of the biggest stories surrounded Steam and itch.io, two platforms that made the decision to remove several adult games and titles from their stores to meet the new guidelines being pushed forward by payment processing partners. This has led to a bit of an uproar as it seems to suggest that payment partners have a greater level of influence in determining what video games can be sold than respected age rating systems and bodies do, something that neither fans nor industry members seem all too happy about.
This has caused UKIE, the UK's games industry trade body, to speak up and issue a statement, which GamesIndustry.biz has now reported upon. The comment says that payment partners would have faith in the "trusted age rating systems and the enforcement mechanisms behind them," rather than going over their heads and imposing their own restrictions.
The full statement explains the following:
"The UK games industry champions creative freedom while taking its responsibilities to players seriously. Clear and consistent age ratings are a crucial part of helping people make informed choices about the content they engage with.
"That's why Ukie strongly supports the use of robust classification systems like PEGI across all platforms, including those hosting adult or experimental content. This ensures that content is labelled appropriately, that younger audiences are protected, and that creators can publish with transparency.
"We believe payment providers and platforms alike should have confidence in trusted age rating systems and the enforcement mechanisms behind them."
This whole situation spirals from the No Mercy incident, where an organisation called Collective Shout took action against a game that featured sexually explicit and violent acts, a game that was soon removed from online platforms but not before the damage was done, leading to an open letter being published asking for payment processors to stop profiting from games that featured "rape, incest, and child abuse".
While the intentions behind this move to take a firmer stance on adult games is no doubt pure, this does also come as the UK is facing the issues that the new Online Safety Act imposes, which blocks the majority of adult content (mostly anything with an 18+ rating) unless users submit personal data or complete a face scan from being accessible, something that has caused uproar too due to the risk of sharing said information with a third-party poses, and also how it sets a precedent for blocking any information and content that the government now deems to be "adult".