GOG is making a gift of a collection of grownup video games to protest censorship

In partnership with builders, recreation market GOG (Good Previous Video games) has launched a new website referred to as FreedomtoBuy.games that’ll allow you to obtain choose “grownup” video games totally free. GOG believes the web site takes a stand “towards the quiet erasure of artistic works from digital cabinets,” a response of types to current choices from Steam and Itch to delist sure violent and sexuality-explicit video games from their respective platforms.

GOG is at present providing 13 video games totally free for the subsequent 48 hours, some with well-known scandals and others that appear to fall into the “NSFW visible novel” bucket that makes up nearly all of sexually-explicit video games on digital storefronts. The titles accessible to obtain are:

POSTAL 2, a graphically violent open-world recreation, is a notable inclusion as a result of it was banned in New Zealand in 2004 and delisted from the German version of Steam in 2016. HuniePop, one in all a number of “adult-only” video games Twitch streamers are explicitly forbidden to stream, is smart on the listing, too. GOG has made a concerted effort to protect video games of all kinds, together with maintaining them in order that they run on present {hardware}. The purpose of creating these video games accessible to obtain is as a lot about preservation as it’s about highlighting how apparently simple it’s to stress digital storefronts to take away content material, although.

Valve’s determination to delist titles from Steam was chalked as much as a new rule that requires video games to abide by the requirements set by the fee processors that work with Steam. Itch supplied a similar explanation for the delistings on its storefront, pointing to stress fee processors have been receiving from a nonprofit referred to as Collective Shout. Within the course of, indie video games like VILE: Exhumed have been delisted, primarily for depicting issues that may make a sure group of individuals uncomfortable.

Itch, for its half, appears to be making an attempt to carry again as many video games to its storefront as it will possibly. The platform is restoring free NSFW games, and says it is nonetheless in talks with its fee companions about restoring paid video games to its storefront.