I keep seeing people try to pin the Steam/Itch censorship wave on “feminists” or “progressives.” Let’s set the record straight: the real crusade against video games has almost ALWAYS come from the Right.
1990s–2000s: Jack Thompson, conservative politicians, and Christian lobbyists blamed Doom, Mortal Kombat, and GTA for school shootings. They tried to get them outright banned.
2000s: Congress ran hearings about “protecting the children,” targeting Rockstar and Midway. Games like Bully and Manhunt were dragged into court.
Today: It’s groups like Collective Shout (a conservative, Christian-aligned org in Australia) pressuring Mastercard, Visa, and PayPal to choke off funding. U.S. Republicans push bills like KOSA, obscenity laws, and age verification that threaten all online content.
Meanwhile, feminists and progressive devs have been the ones defending creative freedom. all we did as just SLIGHTLY criticize some of the goonerbait designs and refused to support Hogwarts Legacy since JKR would 100% use the money she made from the game to fund anti-trans bills
the same people who blamed Anita Sarkeesian for “censorship” are now celebrating when Collective Shout goes after LGBTQ+ creators.
Let’s not rewrite history. The far-right has always been the biggest enemy of video games. They’re the ones still trying to erase queer content, control adult art, and dictate what can and can’t exist.
Collective Shout has very obviously queerphobic goals and intents, and anyone who is keyed into any of this can clearly notice it. But of course, chuds and apolitical types either don’t know the nuance or don’t care, so they’ll just blame it on leftists and feminists and such, and it poisons discourse better than a “THIS IS WHY THE LEFT HAS FAILED” type slop could ever hope to achieve.