UK Rules Out Intervention in Adult-Game Payments Dispute

Overview

• The official response follows a UK Parliament petition that crossed the 10,000-signature threshold seeking to bar processors from refusing lawful content.
• HM Treasury said payment firms can choose their clients subject to regulatory requirements and stated it has no plans to intervene in such decisions.
• Steam and Itch.io cited card-network rules in removing adult titles, with Itch.io deindexing thousands of NSFW games and Steam deleting hundreds.
• PinkNews reports campaigns have drawn large public support, including a separate petition with more than 250,000 signatures urging access to legal adult content.
• Civil-liberties critics, including the ACLU, argue card-network policies amount to moral policing that harms sex workers, while Itch.io has indicated it is exploring alternative processors for adult content.