A tectonic shift in the political climate has given rise to a sharp increase in authoritarian practices and policies and made 2025 an unprecedented and disconcerting year for censorship, including for the video game industry. In the face of outstanding pressure on the payment processors powering storefronts like Steam and Itch, thousands of games--largely pertaining to adult subject matter that was sexual in nature and labeled NSFW--were either removed or deindexed from those respective stores. Though the uproar around these removals died down with time--partly due to loss of momentum pressuring these stores to rescind the bans, partly because certain free games were eventually reindexed on Itch--the recent release of Santa Ragione's Horses has brought the conversation back for another round before year's end. That's because, once again, a title with a significant amount of adult content (seriously, Horses fits a lot of taboo material into a fairly brief runtime) has found itself in the crosshairs of the ongoing puritanical culture war that's raging throughout the country, as well as in the world of video games. And as it continues, the controversy around certain games and their subject matter begins to raise questions about artistic expression, who in this medium is allowed to discuss and prominently feature adult-oriented content, and what kind of conversations and explorations of these subjects will the corporate powers in control of the industry permit. Horses is a notable development in this ongoing controversy for several reasons, not the least of which is the preventative measures taken against it. Whereas the bulk of the censorship mentioned here came well after games were released and available to play, affecting many games that had already been listed on these stores for some time, Horses has been facing an uphill battle leading to its release on December 2.Continue Reading at GameSpot

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