GameJolt’s In For a Shock
It’s a tale as old as time, isn’t it? A website that hosts user-submitted content decides they want to constrain their rules around a loose idea, but realizes too late how impossible that task is. A “porn ban” sounds easy, right? Just remove the porn, and keep the non-porn games on the site. ‘What’s porn’, you ask? Oh, that’s easy! It is, quote: “content that depicts, solicits, promotes, normalizes or glorifies sexual acts, sexual solicitation and sexual violence.”
But what of that game over there? The one that discusses sexual themes occasionally, but only in a limited context? Perhaps a title that focuses on abuse, with indirect mentions of sex, all with the goal of teaching the player and bettering the world?
And yes, that oddly-specific example is just as non-odd as you’re suspecting. It’s a real game, entitled “Curtain”, that once featured on GameJolt’s front page. While the game has since been re-instated, this whole debacle gave its developers a bit of a scare.
😐
I mean, I think there’s a difference between ‘curtain’, a game about abuse that talks about it indirectly in the hopes of helping people, and some porn game, but idk pic.twitter.com/RQrbMUgg24
— Llaura (@ldreamfeel) January 3, 2022
GameJolt’s response to the inevitable wave of backlash was even stranger. They went with the sarcastic route, posting memes and GIFs making fun of this whole thing. It’s a tactic they’ve since apologized for, for obvious reasons. Hard to keep a userbase happy through massive changes by shaming those who take issue with it, you know? Especially when the “will my game get removed” boundary is getting eroded even further. Indie game development is hard sometimes.
Itch.io, another inde game hosting platform, saw a chance to poke fun at GameJolt, posting their own response in an equally sarcastic fashion.
⚠️ WARNING: ITCHIO IS NOT FOR PRUDES. IF YOU CLICK OUR LINK PLEASE BE CAREFUL ABOUT WHAT YOU MIGHT SEE 😎🍆 😱
— itch.io (@itchio) January 3, 2022