So I just got an email, and Game Jolt banned any and all content regarding sexual content. The two games I had hosted there for the last several months are removed as well. Others I followed, if it had any sexual content, was also removed.
So big heads up.
The line about normalizing and glorifying sex is what’s really upsetting me, especially.
What’s more fun is their TOS saying nothing about this change. They just quietly removed all these games and emailed the devs about it.
Correction, I looked at the wrong page, thanks to HentaiWriter on Twitter for pointing me in the right direction. This is listed in the Guidelines page now: Game Jolt - Games for the love of it
That’s odd. Do you think it’s that fundamentalist anti-porn group that tried to get OnlyFans to stop doing porn?
The only thing I could think of why is either one of two things, 1.) They’re sensing more children going on the platform so to “protect” them they went ahead and quietly removed the games, quickly before the Karen mothers began their march, or 2.) They’re uncomfortable with how several games on the site are sexual related, so to keep their site pure they purged the games that didn’t fit what they wanted.
The fact they said “normalizing” is such a grey word that could range to even kissing or hand-holding being a possible way to remove such unwanted games. The fact they did this without a warning prior most likely means they had no time to think about how to do it, perhaps they are in trouble with someone or they fear a group may try to cancel the site itself. If so then this move was done out of fear, not any concern for the devs.
Apparently it has to do with seed funding, and AmEx / Mastercard’s anti-porn BS, which stems from them so… yes. Yes I do.
I agree! But the first paragraph isn’t the case. If you ever tried to, or looked into, posting a game on the website it’s extremely user-friendly and had open and well-designed machinations in place to hide NSFW content for anyone who didn’t want to see it. Like itch, the flag to see adult and mature content was set to off by default.
At the same time, games were made highly visible from the front page (again, if you’re flagged to see it). So nothing was hidden.
I’m pretty sure this was a rash decision, and the fact they’re claiming it’s for the kids is a tell for me that this was never about kids. They designed it this way, and it worked.
It’s about money and the hope for more profits at the cost of banning porn.
Edited my post above with a correction.
They just killed their site, no question about it.
Or at the very least critically wounded it, considering how blanket their terms seem to be.
Well they are private company and they do what they want, i think its normal way to do so, some people wouldnt even notify you. And no hate there just saying.
The issue is they did this without warning, meaning even devs that weren’t hit will tread on the site with more caution since already several other devs may have lost their entire game libraries being available.
It would be the same for Youtube to strike against all video game players for having foul language or language affiliated with them on videos without a single warning. This would greatly harm those that felt freedom in having their speech now being greatly restricted while those that weren’t will now have to worry whether a person or people they bring on could say something that violates the guidelines.
It’s like the whole COPPA shite the site went through, all animated or potentially kid-related channels feared they would lose their livelihoods should Youtube allow this. The only difference is Youtube kind of warned content creators of what could happen however, Youtube did get itself in the situation in the first place which angered many (me included) of their mistakes harming good people.
“Game Jolt”? Hahahaha more like Game DOLT, amirite???
Honestly when sites don’t try to make the changes clear for people who use their content for things they show that they aren’t very responsible when people get their things removed from a site that has a huge effect on their income things tend to go bad for the site which could possibly lead to a mass migration to other sites like in the case of Only fans
They are making a social app and therefore have to follow Apple’s rules. same thing that happened with tumblr if I remember correctly.
from their linkedin page:
Apple asked them to better age-gate 18+ content or get removed, and Tumblr went scorched earth instead. Twitter allows 18+ content, despite their shitty algorithm trying to run them off, and they’re still in iOS store.
Game Jolt already has age gating, and some of the best setups for it out there. I’m pretty sure, since that post you showed is over 8 months old, the catalyst is a lot more recent. Like pressure from credit card companies and/or some seed money investors when they clutched their pearls.
Especially since there was literally no warning, and they did it within a day. At least Tumblr gave everyone a heads up first.
that is because twitter and apple are in the big tech cartel and game jolt (and tumblr) isn’t so they don’t get to break the rules
Uh… if you want to believe that, but considering more believable and applicable facts are known (Like Twitter marking the app as 17+ per Apple’s terms) I’m taking this with a grain of salt.
Doubt speculation will do any good.
I’d like everyone to keep speculation to a minimum. Doesn’t do any good nor does it change their policies. As others have suggested, itch would be the platform to move to.
You have a point, sorry boss.
