Make sure this setting is unchecked (it's unchecked by default when you create your account)
The setting does not matter, if you select eroge as a tag. And many other tags. I remember complaining about this to support and in forum, but iirc it was dismissed on the basis, that people that selected the adult tag would want to see the adult games. And that there would be the 18 confirmation dialog. Disregarding that the hover screenshots and many thumbnails are not sfw as well, in addition to the 18 dialog being a saved setting that you might have allowed and then forgotten - you cannot clear that confirmation in settings.
I don't know what to tell you, maybe avoid selecting nsfw tags on accident in the future?
I just wanted you to know that your advice is undermined by itch not making that setting work as expected. In theory your reply should have been enough, pointing to the setting. But sadly the setting does not work as expected.
I believe there may have been a miscommunication. A change has been deployed and it will now no longer auto-complete adult tags if you don’t have adult content activated or visible when typing in the tag drop-down on browse games (eg. /games). There is still nothing stopping you from manually typing in any tag and navigating to it, and viewing an “adult tag” will remove the default filter that is applied. Our stance is still that if you manually navigate to a page of a certain kind of content, then you will see that content.
Our stance is still that if you manually navigate to a page of a certain kind of content, then you will see that content.
My stance is, that options in settings should work as advertised.
You made a workaround. But at least removing the tags from suggestion box if not logged in and having setting enabled is a tad more consistent.
So maybe adjust that setting's wording so people will not be surprised. A (unless selecting "adult" tags) disclaimer or something like that.
While itch is not aimed at kids or teenagers (like gamejolt apparantly tries to) default setting to on would be just wrong. That stuff is for opting in, not opting out.
(Itch is aimed at people wanting to play or create indie games. That is not something I would attribute to teenagers in general. But maybe I am mistaken and some kids do not play on their xbox yelling insults at strangers ;-)
Tag "search" works just fine with the nsfw protection. It is just as age protected as it advertised - with the exception of certain tags.
Try it with this one (setting on and off)
https://itch.io/games/tag-science-fiction/tag-story-rich
And then try that one (setting on and off)
https://itch.io/games/tag-adult/tag-science-fiction/tag-story-rich
It is obviously an arbitrary list of tags and to my understanding they would just have to clear that arbitrary list to deal with this issue. Or did they hardcode that list somehow? It "works" for adult, erotic, eroge and some others, even non featured tags. Curously, it does not work for sex.
Also, I told them about the issue in April, almost a year ago. Request 152691.
And as a reminder for anyone wanting to try all this, if you have adult content released yourself, you cannot deactivate the adult setting for your account. Just browse for it without being logged in.
yeah, "adult" tag should only be visible if you're logged without restriction, or at least age there should be login request before results show up.
Enforcing to avoid explicit content in thumbnails is also a solution, but that may trigger a rage storm from nsfw devs
In theory there is this dialog when entering the game page. At least when on a fresh browser session without cookies. But hover screenshots will still pop up, even if you hide the thumbnails. Also the thumbnails are what enable you to quickly sort games into categories. If you make devs hide the nature of their game, unintentional visits to game pages would increase. Also there are devs that have such content yet did not use itch for months or years. They would not update their thumbnails.
This might be naive, but since it is only certain tags, those tags must share a common attribute like being on a list and that list should be modifiyable, even if the mechanism can not trivially be disabled. So delete the tags from that list or remove that attribute, problem solved. That would be a solution that might not solve the underlying mechanic, but all of the symptoms.
What ticks me off, is that there is an option on a site, that does not do what the option says it would.
Let's look at another option. Infinity scroll. (x) Disable auto-loading next page when browsing.
How would you think about this issue, if this works for most tags when browsing, but as soon as you enter "horror" tag, your browser would load the next pages automatically, without you clicking next page. Or vice versa. You usually scroll to load pages, but suddenly when browsing for "visual-novel" you need to click next page.
Maybe don't use such language in a topic started by a minor complaining about unchecked adult content. No offense.
How sensible of you to use words like that when it's explicitly stated that the OP is 14
the tags that definitely mean explicit sexual content
All tags have a fuzzy meaning that lies in the eye of the beholder. That is not only an issue with adult tags, but for tags on itch in general, since the developer choses the tags.
Also, just because you tag a thing, does not mean you will show it in graphic detail. It is debateable, if pure text games should be considered "nsfw", even if they deal with such topics and thus could tag them. But even with graphics, you can have topics without showing them. There is a reason why you used the explicit qualifier.
Also, the current tag descriptions do not even spell out that it is explicit content, for example this one
Erotic
Usually containing sexual themes, content or more. Not safe for work most of the time.
Which tags ignore the setting is arbitrary. But it is not tags you typically find on games aimed at underaged players. Except horror maybe. But that is another discussion, how much horror a game can have before it has to be marked as adult. (the horror tag does not ignore the setting, but by the logic for the mechanism, it should).
I'm aware it's fuzzy.
I meant, games whose tags would normally make them blocked by the "don't show me adult content" filter, but are viewable in a tag search. (I'm also aware that games tagged with something like 'sex' does not mean there is actually sexual content; accurate tagging is a whole separate issue.)
If there are games hidden from general search by the adult content setting - those games should not come up in a more specific search or tag search. I'm not concerned with where itch.io draws the lines, but the lines should be the same no matter what kind of search is being done.
Tags do not make them blocked, I think you meant that they normally would be blocked by the setting, because they are marked in their meta data as adult.
You are concerned that there might be tags one does not know what they mean and suddenly they unlock the adult content. Eroge is the only one I can think of. For that matter, even nsfw and other common adult tags, since we are talking about juveniles and at that they might not even be fluent in english. Otherwise, the tags are what adult games use to make them visible for people looking for that content. And a few explicit tags. The surprising thing is more, which typical adult tags do not ignore the setting.
There is a way. It is an experimental method implemented in modern browsers. The Content Styling System, CSS. But you need a user Styling Extension for that. I prefer Stylus for that.
You can import this code snippet into such a styling extension. This will block ALL adult content. It is akin to xxx meaning adult stuff. Maybe you can activate it with javascript too.
@-moz-document regexp(".*.*.*") {
body {
display: none !important;
}
}I have not found the adult marking yet, and I am dabbling currently with extensions and with game filtering. It is meta data and you do not see that on the game page, nor on the browse thumbnail. Although I did not search for that information specifically. The wrapper they use for adult confirmation dialogue is gone, once clicked away. And that a game is non adult, is evident because it was displayed to you in the first place - hence I consider the whole issue as a bug. Trivially you could just modify the browse url. But why bother. They just need to delete the tags from their exception list. Or how am I to believe they implemented the feature in the first place? It is a feature and it has a configuration. It has to. Even if they cannot remove the feature just like that, they should still be able to configure it to do nothing, if no tags are on that naughty list anymore.
-- And they don't all agree on what "adult content" is. --
And there you got a very good point. Since "adult content" is also a bit subjective.
And let's also be wary of false positives, as some words may imply "adult content" while in fact it's not. I've been banned on Twitter for 14 some years ago by a bot-moderator for using the word "trigger", as that was a death threat. (I was using that word in a completely different context, though).
Indeed, as soon as I see software packages of which the developers claim the impossible, I personally walk away as fast as I can.
The system itself works quite well. And it does not involve tags at all, only the meta data. A game does not even need tags.
The issue is, that the system is ignored for certain tags. They implemented a whitelist so to speak. The fix is not to implement a blacklist on top to cancel that whitelist, but to remove that whitelist, as the configuration has to be done by the setting and not by the tags.
Oh, and half of the games tagged furry are adult games ;-) They get filtered out just fine with the setting.
As to why there are tags in the suggested list, that are common adult tags in the first place, including literal adult, well, we can speculate. Maybe they had too many complaints from people browsing that tags and not seeing any content. But instead of displaying a message that people might need to make an account and activate adult content (or changing the suggested tags per setting), they "fixed" it by having that whitelist. Or any other reason that seemed like a good idea at the time. (One should also not forget, that you can land on tag browsing by clicking tags on a game page, so tags need not even be in the suggested tag box.)
Also, there are games with some common adult tags, that are not adult games. As in, they have to be marked as adult. Maybe they even had at one time a mechanism that would add the marking based on tags, for developers that forgot to mark it in meta data. But strictly speaking, you can have the tag erotic, without the game being a M or AO rated game. It is only tags. Once could argue that the tag might be incorrectly applied. But even the suggested tag definition on itch for erotic only says: Usually, and most of the time.
A lot of sites are excluding 18 and inappropriate stuff altogether because of rules of payment processors. There's the possibility that Itch decides to get rid of Those So Called Adult Games Which Are Porn Made For Men That Can Not Catch Girls in order to maintain big processors (Paypal and Stripe.)
Itch tag system in general is flawed, I really think is a priority to improve. Just the fact that one can't put a tag to not show is something very bad. Itch is for so many kind of games, and I think that's amazing (This is the only game website with that principle, I think) but precisely for that a good tag system is crucial. It has many years as it is so I don't know then they gonna improve it.
There really should be a warning popup or something, when people set this meta data, to inform them, that from now their account is set to have adult content enabled.
I suspect it was made to reduce complaints about people not finding their own game. (Not that there is a lack of people complaining about just that for other reasons ;-)
If you are referring to the title of the post, that was referring to the unwanted appearance of the games in browse. Not their existence on Itch.
Of the 1 million games here, about 2% are nsfw. A flood of nsfw, that is taking over itch... Maybe you should browse different tags, if all you see is nsfw.
If Itch is "flooded" with something, it is horror, and I blame youtube.
it would be nice to have some sort of strict SFW option for the site
Content — How content on itch.io is shown to you
( ) Show content marked as adult in search & browse
Please make sure you have this option deactivated in your settings. And make sure to give Itch a feature request that they should not block this setting, just because an account has uploaded a nsfw game (Should one of your games be marked as such and your setting is blocked because of that).
Because what you say is how Itch does work. There are pitfalls, unfortunately. You can still see that content, if you select certain tags. Their workaround is to not have those tags in the suggestion box. And you can see those games on profiles.
If you see them in browse your account is configured to see them.
The observation that people are more willing to pay for this type of content on average is just this. It is not an indicator for an invasion, but an indicator for popularity.
Speaking of popularity, look at the top 10 in popular sort. That will be 90% horror. Are we invaded by horror then?
And I can even name a reason why people are more willing to pay. Production value and professionalism. If you scrutinize the list of games that have a Steam key, you will find that about 10% of those games are nsfw games, which is a lot higher than the ~2% ratio. This tells me, that on average the production quality of those games is higher. It is not a perfect metric, but it is objective instead of subject. And being able to release on Steam is kinda telling on how professional a group of developers is. Amateurs do not do this. And professionals also do more marketing, like zero cost devlogs.
yes I'd say that horror and adult content is flooding everything 🤔 (sign of the times I guess)
listen do you have some sort agenda or simply obsessed about this thing? (I mean no offense you just seem to have a lot of long replies)
I mean I'm not sure anymore what are we even arguing about at this point or if we even do
like we both seem to agree that there is an influx of adult games
and your point seem to be that the measures for hiding them are already more than adequate? 🤔
and your point seem to be that the measures for hiding them are already more than adequate?
There was a loophole. It was kinda fixed. This thread was about this loophole. There could be improvements. I wish for a more strict following of the setting and that the setting would not be blocked for content uploaders. But currently, unless you have an account that has the content activated, you should not see it in search and not in browse.
Also I would welcome a more complex maturity setting than yes or no.
I do not have an agenda, but since I can type rather fast, I tend to write a lot and I also like to discuss and I just do not quite agree with that inflood observation and tried to argue why I think so. Also, in inflood would be about new games, not about the top games. About 1 in 25-50 new games is adult. About 1 in 14 new games is horror.
I think the negative tagging suggestion that is often suggested would be helpful for this.
You wanna exclude two dozen different adult tags?
Adult content is excluded from your search and browse results by your account settings
[ ] Show content marked as adult in search & browse
If you do not have this activated, you only see adult content in search and browse, if you select one of the arbitrary "adult" tags. Like adult or erotic.
I think that I would like the option of trying to remove results via negative tags.
Maybe just switching the settings option would help with removing the clutter of lewd games, but I think that it's unfortunate that "adult" seems to be considered to just mean "pornographic".
Though I currently haven't made anything that I'd tag "adult", I could easily imagine doing this for a game I'd consider "R18 ", where due to subject matter and themes; I'd feel more comfortable making sure people are aware that I'd really prefer that the game isn't played by children and is intended for adults. I'd like to imagine that I'm not the only one with this thought process.
I think I'll just switch off "adult games" for now, but I wish there was a better solution to this.
it's unfortunate that "adult" seems to be considered to just mean "pornographic"
In the US? Yes. Read here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment_Software_Rating_Board#Ratings
There are so few games that have AO, adults only, that they made a list. And you can count the games on that list that are not of a lewd nature on one hand.
To go above M17 with non lewd things is near impossible. So adult game is a synonym for certain content - just like in "adult book store" or "adult toys".
I also would wish for more content granularity to filter. Age is so one dimensionally.
And then there are games like Darkest Dungeon. Look at the official ratings. It has T in the US and even in restrictive Germany it has 12 . If you do not know Darkest Dungon, I suggest you have a look. And then compare any of your planned "mature" content with the content of that game.
I think as adults we tend to lump children together. Teenagers are technically children in a legal sense if used as a synonym for minors, but actually, the phase of being a child only goes from birth to puberty. A game not being 18 does not mean, it is family friendly. And Itch is intended for 13 . Unlike that Scratch gaming site, which is intended for 8-16 and even has a ScratchJr for 5-7 yo.
Ah; I'm not American, so maybe that's part of my confusion.
I'm aware of Darkest Dungeon, but my interest isn't in a specific countries rating code (I might of muddied the water by mentioning the Australian ratings code "R18 "), I'm interested in a developers ability to use their own discretion when labeling their own work.
Maybe part of the solution is a more robust way of content filtering.