News Roundup: Game Makers Face Online Speech Regulations

Table of Contents

• Itch.io Faces Severe Speech Regulations Worldwide

• Critical Role’s Next Season Debuts at San Diego Co …

• Cosmere Launches the ‘Stormlight’ RPG Chapter

• In Other News

• My Reporting for the Week

Itch.io Faces Severe Speech Regulations Worldwide

Game designers are feeling the pressure from two new initiatives to restrict access to adult material on the internet.

Itch.io is best known as a popular digital platform for hosting indie video games, novels, art, and TTRPGs. The platform announced on July 24 that it was permanently removing an undisclosed number of them that contained explicit content while also delisting and “shadowbanning” others in an audit. It’s unclear how much of this content has been affected, although dozens of creators have gone to social media to claim their content is either restricted or removed from the platform.

The decision was due to Collective Shout, a “grassroots campaign movement against the objectification of women,” pressuring payment platforms like Steam and Itch.io to take down the content by directly expressing its concerns about the explicit content to the payment processors themselves.

“Our ability to process payments is critical for every creator on our platform,” wrote Itch.io founder Leaf Corcoran in a blog post. “To ensure that we can continue to operate and provide a marketplace for all developers, we must prioritize our relationship with our payment partners and take immediate steps towards compliance.”

“This is a time critical moment for itch.io. The situation developed rapidly, and we had to act urgently to protect the platform’s core payment infrastructure. Unfortunately, this meant it was not realistic to provide creators with advance notice before making this change. We know this is not ideal, and we apologize for the abruptness of this change.”

It’s caused several creators who have hosted content with sexual elements to reconsider their relationship with the platform, and some are claiming that they are unable to see their explicit content or are being denied payouts, according to Rascal News. Many of the affected devs identified as queer as well, according to Press Space to Jump.

The adult creators’ content was further restricted after Itch.io and other hosting platforms incorporated an age verification tool to their platforms in response to the United Kingdom’s Online Safety Act, a bill passed in 2023 that requires all pornographic websites to verify a customer’s age before offering them access. While this isn’t as restrictive as the initiatives within states that require users to confirm their age via ID before accessing adult content, it will still hinder creators’ ability to sell their products.

There is an ongoing online effort to petition payment processors to reduce the pressure on game hosting platforms. Whether it will be enough to push the needle will need to be seen.

Critical Role’s Next Season Debuts at San Diego Comic Con

It’s the most critical weekend in fandom; San Diego Comic Con. If you want big movie news, big television news or other developments, this is the place to look.

Critical Role stood as the standout news for the TTRPG industry so far. The first look at the Mighty Nein TV show was released to the public, featuring the main cast in cuffs (and showing off their personalities. As always, Jester is an icon.)

Legends of Vox Machina Season four, which will add Sam Riegel’s Taryon Darrington and feature a big heist, was also revealed. The showrunners confirmed that Legends of Vox Machina will conclude with its fifth season.

While Dungeons and Dragons did have some select merchandise items on the floor, they appear to be holding off on sharing any news until next week at GenCon (if anything.) Physical copies of the D&D/Stranger Things crossover Welcome to the Hellfire Club were seen on the floor as well as exclusive Baldur’s Gate 3 posters.

Collectors also had the chance to get a chibi-esque Nendoroid Astarion from BG3 or a Pop-up Parade copy of The Emperor.

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Cosmere Launches the ‘Stormlight’ RPG Chapter

Brotherwise Games officially released the first set of books for the Cosmere RPG, the wildly successful TTRPG crowdfunding campaign from 2024. The campaign raised over $15 million in crowdfunding, and the results are coming to fruition for fans worldwide.

The company officially released the first books in the series online this week, including the Stormlight Handbook, World Guide, and multiple adventures for getting your feet on the ground. The company claims that the files were downloaded more than 850,000 times as of release day, which is a staggering number.

The launch arrives just in time for GenCon this week.

The game will feel very familiar to D&D or Pathfinder fans, offering some interesting ways to explore the specific lore of Roshar, as well as neat mechanical concepts like the plot dice.

I got to preview the game over at The Fandomentals.

In Other News

Cthulhu comes to your local D&D table with the release of Cthulhu by Torchlight, a digital exclusive supplement that brings the Lovecraftian mythos to Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons. It has a rat with a human face. I don’t know what else I need.

Paizo decided to team up with Warframe, a science fiction mech-themed F2P video game, to create a supplement that will allow players to play as “Tennos” with the Starfinder ruleset. The news was announced at TennoCon, the video game’s annual convention.

Critical Role is teaming up with Ad Hoc Studios to make its first video game. Ad Hoc is known for the upcoming superhero game DISPATCH and has veterans from Telltale Games on its team. (Dispatch also features several Critical Role VAs on its team, including Laura Bailey.)

The creator behind the popular YouTube D&D channel Dingo Doodles released the Fool’s Gold: Death by Karaoke graphic novel this week! It’s as silly as it sounds.

Two classic D&D Forgotten Realms video games (Dragonshard and Demon Stone) are getting new PC ports in August in partnership with Hasbro and SNEG. SNEG has released multiple older D&D video games in the past.

Game Informer released images for the upcoming pair of Forgotten Realm D&D supplemental books, which feature iconic characters like Baldur’s Gate 3’s Karlach, Dragon Heist’s Jarlaxle and even Minsc!

My Reporting for the Week

First up, I spoke with Cubicle 7 about The Laundry, the company’s new update to the TTRPG about Cthulhu, spie and mathematics

We also covered Hasbro’s Q2 2025 financial report, which went into extensive detail about how Magic: The Gathering may have been the saving grace for the company’s financial health.

And that’s it for this week! Next week, expect quite a bit of news as we prepare for GenCon. In the meantime, feel free to send us tips or emails at [email protected].