Game Update - Voluntary removal


Sales and downloads for the game have been stopped, and for now will be unavailable except to people who have already purchased.

Due to the new NSFW bans, it is unclear if this game will survive the purge, but I do not believe that it falls under a restricted content type despite looking like one. One of the core parts of the game is that it does include forced sex, but the context to it is important. The first thing you do in the game is register for the game event. In fact, characters explicitly signed up for the event knowing the consequences and get reminded when the player registers at the start for the gametype.

An important part of the game lore is that the competitors get into sexual situations, but they gave consent fir them by entering the game. At no point are they forced to register or take part.

However, it is unlikely that Itch will care about the distinction and the current threat is that if a game is removed then purchasers get refunded. To date that means Itch could potentially hit me with $5200 of refunds which will financially cripple me. So the only way to avoid this is to effectively stop more transactions and disconnect my payment provider just to protect myself.

This is doubly annoying as the current build of the game has major issues and we're getting close to a new release that fixes a lot of the game.

The simple fact is that if the game gets removed here, then its finished. There are no other real options for sales and distribution. This game has been developed for the last 3 or so years hoping that eventually it would reach a point where sales picked up and this would become a viable start to a small studio, but until this situation is cleared up, the only real option is to put things on hold, prepare for the worst and hope for a good outcome that allows the game to become available again.

I would apologise, but this situation is down to Itch and a complete lack of solid information other than vague new rules that just leave more questions than giving any answers. I hope we can start back up again, but for the time being all I can do is stop downloads, disconnect payment processor and wait it out.

Get The Running of the Wolves Demo

Comments

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(+1)

Some good news is Japan is considering taking action against the people behind all of this

(+3)

... dumb sugestion. host it on f95 and set up an unrelated tipjar? really this could be a windfall for smaller payment processors like ccbill or japans jcb.