A UK-based tabletop roleplaying publisher, SoulMuppet Publishing, recently found its digital storefront on Itch.io completely blocked to customers in its home country. The incident highlights a precarious new reality for indie creators, caught between the rollout of the UK’s Online Safety Act and escalating pressure from payment processing companies.
This past weekend, anyone in the UK attempting to visit the Itch.io page for SoulMuppet, known for TTRPGs like Orbital Blues and Best Left Buried, was met with a stark message. It read, in part:
Due to regulatory requirements established by the United Kingdom’s communications regulator (Ofcom), this page has been restricted from access within the UK.”
The publisher confirmed to Geek Native that they received no prior notification from Itch.io about the impending block. The cause, as they later discovered, was a single “adult” content tag on their TTRPG Paint the Town Red. Removing this one tag was enough to restore the page, but it raised serious questions about the platform’s new, automated enforcement mechanisms.
Mol from SoulMuppet told Geek Native:
While we understand that itch.io unfortunately has their hands tied, by both the UK governments “online safety bill” and pressure from payment providers, we believe this issue was handled poorly and with a severe lack of communication.”
This “perfect storm” for digital creators has two main components. The first is the UK’s new Online Safety Act, which is being implemented in stages. The law places a significant burden on platforms to prevent underage users from accessing adult content. While large social networks like BlueSky can deploy sophisticated (if sometimes buggy) AI-driven age verification systems, smaller platforms and independent sites may struggle to comply. This has led to what The Verge has termed the “age-gate apocalypse,” where overly broad or blunt tools are used to restrict content, often with unintended consequences.
The second factor is pressure from financial companies. Payment processors have been increasingly assertive in demanding that digital storefronts like Itch.io and Steam police the content they host, threatening to withdraw their services if they are seen to be facilitating the sale of “sexualised content.”
The UK’s video games trade body, UKIE, commented on the broader situation in a statement to GamesIndustry.biz:
The UK games industry champions creative freedom while taking its responsibilities to players seriously. Clear and consistent age ratings are a crucial part of helping people make informed choices about the content they engage with… We believe payment providers and platforms alike should have confidence in trusted age rating systems and the enforcement mechanisms behind them.”
For TTRPG publishers, whose content is text-based and lacks a universal, formal rating system like PEGI for video games, the situation is even more ambiguous. A tag meant as a simple content warning can now trigger a regional ban without notice.
In a post on Instagram, SoulMuppet Publishing warned that this problem extends far beyond their own experience and has implications for creators worldwide.
This is not just a UK issue. This is not just a SoulMuppet issue. This is not just an itch.io issue. If we don’t speak up for now, payment processors will continue to be lobbied into moving the goalposts.”
The publisher noted that the new Terms of Service update from Itch.io, which payment processors forced, is written so broadly that it could easily be used to target a wide range of material, including “safe for work furry content and content about surviving harm.”
SoulMuppet’s temporary disappearance from the UK Itch.io store serves as a cautionary tale. For countless other indie TTRPG designers and small studios, it demonstrates how easily they can be caught in the crossfire of platform compliance and corporate pressure, with their access to their audience hanging in the balance.
