On June 15th worldwide auction site eBay will implement a new “Adult Items Policy”and it’s a lot harder with mature content than simply banning the sale of pornography.
The website’s new guidelines take a huge step towards banning (or severely restricting) the sale of all types of sexual content, from art to dildos, but you, a reader of a website primarily focused on video games, are possibly more interested in these topics rules:
The following items are not allowed:
– Adult articles with content that is illegal
– Item that does not meet our requirements Illegal policy for explicit content
– Sexually oriented materials, including nudity and sexual activity, are not permitted. This includes the following: Adult movies and video games with an X, XXX, R18 rating, or no adult-only audience rating
– Sexually Explicit Anime, Comics, Books, Movies, Animations, Manga, Hentai, Yaoi
eBay is also removing the “Adults Only” category, which means “Items in Category” [adult only video games category] are no longer allowed on eBay ”. The site’s statement for crackdown says “We want to make items available to adults who they want to buy and can legally do so, while preventing easy access for those who don’t want to view or buy those items.”
This is incredibly crappy for artists and creators in the field, but there are also aspects of it that are alarming for games without overt “adult” or sexual themes. Australia, for example, rates many major video games R18 Grand Theft Auto V. to Disco Elysium (I contacted eBay to clarify how the new guidelines will affect it this and will be updated when I hear back).
.