This article originally ran in Back Alley Games Issue 18, August 2025

Horror and eroticism often share a fairly blurry line. Body horror, cannibalism, rape revenge, and the incest themes common in Gothic horror are only a few of the many examples of how sex, sensuality, and the disturbing intersect in horror media.

The recent payment processor bullshit that has been circling the internet for years has now hit indie game storefront Itch.io, and horror games are being caught in the crossfire.

I am personally a TTRPG (tabletop role playing game) designer, not a video game dev. There are two major online storefronts for indie tabletops: Drive-Thru RPG and Itch, with Itch being far more popular for weird art games.

Naturally, I greatly prefer to use Itch to host my own offbeat projects. I work mostly in the horror genre, using mechanics to influence players’ emotions as well as putting their imaginations to work coming up with their own nightmare fuel.

Earlier this year, I wrapped development and writing on an as-yet-unreleased splatterpunk game, Swallow, about consent and cannibalism.

Do you see where I’m going with this?

Swallow is decidedly a NSFW game without being explicitly pornographic. It has a healthy dose of carnality, exploring how we treat our own and others’ boundaries and using cannibalism and gore as an allegory for interpersonal relationships.

It is entirely feasible for vore fetishists to use it as an outlet for their kinks (and more power to them, but that’s not why I wrote the game). Under their new guidelines, I will not be able to host Swallow on Itch.io.

And that fucking sucks.

I am choosing to pursue a traditional publishing route with this game (because, honestly, how the hell am I supposed to market it?), but a lot of designers don’t have that luxury. Even going with a publisher, digital copies will be sold, either through my own storefront, the publisher’s website, or both.

The new prohibitions from payment processors forbid non-consensual content (real or implied) and coercion, among other banned topics. These payment processors rule over every online storefront, and their reach is only increasing.

Regardless of what website eventually hosts Swallow, PayPal and Stripe will refuse to let people buy it under these regulations.

The legal approach to porn has been “I know it when I see it” since Justice Potter Stewart in 1964.  Now payment processors are going beyond that already nebulous definition, banning swaths of umbrella-termed content to appease conservative lobbyists.

Horror often examines the dark underbelly of the spectrum of human experiences and emotions. Yes, this includes sex. Not every game about child sexual abuse, rape, or coercion is glorifying those acts.

Many of them are made to create empathy for victims in those who have not experienced such abuse. Exploring these themes in a safe environment, such as a game, is often healthy.

The world is not a soft and wholesome place, and our games should not be limited to cozy vibes and feel-good storylines. Commercial censorship despises the grotesque.

Art that pushes the boundaries of comfort and acceptability has a storied history of being labeled degenerate and banned from “polite society.” But so-called degeneracy has always been present in artistic expression, has always been important, healthy, and normal.

Sex and art are inextricable. Sex and horror are inextricable.

And I refuse to flatten my art to appease corporations who would never appreciate it anyway.

This article was submitted by a member of the Back Alley Games community and was edited for publication by our staff. Opinions and thoughts expressed within are not those of Back Alley Games.