Following in Steam’s lead from June, indie marketplace Itch.io has “deindexed” all adult NSFW content from the search tool on the marketplace.
It has been reported that, following June 2025, Steam will delist NSFW (non-suitable for work) adult content-based games from its marketplace, citing new “onboarding” marketplace rules. The rules are pretty extensive, starting with something hard to define like “hate speech,” to stuff that is a no-brainer like child exploitation, content that hides mature subject matter, and revenge-based, lewd images of real people. The indie marketplace Itch.io has now followed suit, but they’ve “deindexed” (a term that means made unfindable) nearly all NSFW titles until their own rules are clearly defined.
These censorship actions were fueled by the release of a particularly controversial title called No Mercy (which was released in March 2025) on Steam, described by critics on the platform as a “rape and incest simulator,” and whose vicious subject matter outraged fans on a global scale. No Mercy is described as “NOT your average love story,” and its developers have defended the title in a statement on Steam after it was removed from the marketplace. The Zerat Games statement was mocked and torn down by the group Collective Shout, a “grassroots campaigns movement against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls” on Facebook, who celebrated the game’s removal from the service in the post.
After the Steam decision, Itch.io has just released their own statement regarding NSFW content on their marketplace, saying, “We have ‘deindexed’ all adult NSFW content from our browse and search pages. We understand this action is sudden and disruptive, and we are truly sorry for the frustration and confusion caused by this change.” Itch.io cites Zerat Games’ controversial title, No Mercy, as a primary reason for the change in market rules. That, along with Collective Shout’s campaign against the content —which resulted in the violent title’s removal from marketplaces— is another primary reason payment partners squeezed the platform to clean up what’s being sold on the site. The ‘deindexing’ is the platform’s way of taking “immediate steps towards compliance.”
These steps involve the mass removal of NSFW content, as outlined in Itch.io’s statement. The platform will undergo a “comprehensive audit of content to ensure we can meet the requirements of our payment processors. Pages will remain deindexed as we complete our review. Once this review is complete, we will introduce new compliance measures,” likely similar to Steam’s recent terms of service, which cover a wide range of titles.
While all adult content has been shadowbanned from Itch.io, this is expected to remain in effect only until the platform completes its audit. After that, new measures will be implemented to prevent future issues related to NSFW content.
