There's a new happening doing the rounds on X, social media and various gaming sites that's being dubbed "
GamerGate 3.0" (
is it "3", "4" or "5" now. Ed.). And like all previous iterations, the whole thing stinks to high-heaven of disingenuous 'progressive' activism using potentially legitimate concerns to gin-up a controversy to make a name for themselves and pull in funding.
So, what happened.
Apparently, another activist group[1] calling themselves
Collective Shout, claims to have
successfully lobbied a number of payment gateways including PayPal, VISA and Mastercard, to pressure gaming platforms Steam and Itch.io to remove a number of games the group deemed to be offensive or face service censure. Steam and Itch.io appear to have complied, removing the offending games [2], as well as
updating their ToS [3] to accommodate a change in policy.
The group had previously seen some minor success with a similar campaign to remove another 'offensive' game from Steam earlier in the year (April 2025),
No Mercy, based on complaints to the Australian Board of Classification over the games non-compliance with certification criteria, which in-turn lead to the eventually removal of the game globally. Banks and payment processors were not targeted for that campaign.
So, at face value, an activist group that, to paraphrase, "lobbies for better safeguards to protect women and girls' representation in media" discovered a number of offense games on Steam and Itch.io, campaigned, and eventually succeeded in getting them removal from Steam and Itch.io.
This raises a number of questions/concerns (in no particular order);
- How did Collective Shout 'discover' the games they deem to be offensive?
- What prompted them to search this content out?
- What criteria did Collective Shout use to determine the offensiveness of the alleged games?
- Who determined these same criteria?
- Were the alleged offensive games incorrectly, (in)appropriately labelled, categorised or identified in Steam/Itch.io?
- Were the game's authors/publishers contacted/given an opportunity to respond?
- Is the corroborating documentation that facilitated this judgement available for public review [4]?
- Were they advised by legal counsel, especially with regards to lawful standing of the very claims made?
- Did they contact Steam/Itch.io and report what should be valid violations of Creator ToS, if so, what happened?
- Does the requirement implemented by the various payment processors apply more broadly, i.e. does the requirement effect other types of content categorised as 'adult' and/or 'fantasy depictions' (legal defences)?
- Were Collective Shout alone in their efforts [5]?
- Was Steam/Itch.io given an opportunity to act on reported content, if it was reported, if not how much time was allowed by either party for resolution?
- Did Collective Shout report the games in question or just go straight to payment processors?
- Where are the letters or notifications from Steam/Itch.io indicating they refused to comply with the request/found nothing in violation of their ToS [6]?
- What's the rationale behind Collective Shout demanding payment processors involvement in another party's affairs or business?
- Given that Collective Shout are based on Australia, what legal justification do they argue over Entities based in the USA?
- What legal justification do payment processors argue to coerce compliance in non-financial affairs, and why can any changes to this effect, that might have more wide-spread affects, be legally justified on the word of a few unaffiliated third-parties?
This begs the bigger question as to how an unknown charitable organisation has the power to do something other organizations tried, and failed to do.
None of the above is answered by any 'blog' post on Collective Shouts website or any posts made to social media.
Footnotes
1: Collective Shout is registered in Australia as a non-profit Limited company. The group state they lobby on behalf of women and girls, and while there doesn't appear to be any definitive declarations they have 'feminist' leanings, their singular focus makes this highly likely, which in turn speaks to possible broader motivations.
2: A list of games can be found on the internet but it's not clear if these are the original games removed or part of a subsequent removal of other 'offending' games.
3: Onboarding, Rules and Guidelines: the addition of "15. Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam's payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult only content."
4: Per Collective Shout's open letter to the payment processors, the content was "too distressing [to be made] public". And it appears only a single individual was responsible for this, "conduct[ing] extensive research [... of... ] content including violent **** torture of women, and children including incest related abuse involving family members".
5: The letter, while authored by Collective Shout, was signed by a number of organisations, largely Australian.
6: Both Steam and Itch.io have relative clear but still open-to-interpretation Terms of Service creators and publishers have to abide by when publishing or uploading content to both services. In cases of dispute, it's not clear if Steam/Itch.io are obligated to make their rulings public, nor are creators/publishers expressly forbidden to make sure rulings public if not.
