‘Steins;Gate’ Writer Not A Fan Of Credit Card Crackdown On Japanese Media, Wants “To Create Opportunities To Make Adult Games In A Way That Fits The Times”
In the face of Visa and MasterCard’s ongoing turn to denying payment processing services to any service or creator that trades in any manner of ‘adult material’ – though in particular those from Japan – veteran Nitroplus studio writer and Steins;Gate co-scenario-planner Vio Shimokura is looking for a way to keep delivering eroge content to fans worldwide.
As previously reported, recent years have seen a massive spike in retailers being forced to drop adult media from their offerings for fear of losing their ability to process credit card payments, with 2025 alone seeing turnabouts from such notable businesses, including Nico Nico Shunga, the online out-of-print manga repository Manga Library Z, popular doujinshi outlet Melonbooks, nerd merchandise chain Suruga-ya, and even Steam, Valve’s massive digital video game storefront.
And far from an unproven conspiracy, Visa Asia Pacific Head of Product Cietan Kitney confirmed in December 2024 that not only was this crackdown intentional, but also that it was being done because “sometimes it is necessary to disallow it to protect the brand.”
“The reality is that this is a complex decision involving both global and local policies,” said the Visa exec, “and it is also important to maintain integrity and integrity, and we will continue to do so.”
Shimokura, who in addition to the fan-favorite cyberpunk visual novel has also lent his talents to such other Nitroplus-produced titles as Mojika: Truth Rears Its Ugly Head and You and Me and Her: A Love Story, offered his thoughts on this latest wave of worldwide puritanism while speaking to Japanese video game news outlet 4Gamer in reflection of his career thus far.
Pressed by his host, as machine translated by DeepL, “Given the current climate surrounding adult content—where credit card issues lead to more censored text across all 18+ content, and even games that aren’t strictly 18+ face distribution bans at the agency level—the situation surrounding erotic content seems to be getting stricter every year. How do you feel about that?”, the writer admitted that while this censorship was already starting to have a detrimental effect on Nitroplus’ adult output, as published through their Nitro Origin banner, he had no intention of abandoning the genre:
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“Even at Nitro Origin, we haven’t been able to release many adult games lately. As the brand name ‘Origin’ suggests, Nitroplus has a strong identity rooted in its origins as an adult game developer. Personally, I want to create opportunities to make adult games in a way that fits the times.
“That said, works like Rusty Rabbit [a Metroid-style side-scrolling platformer] and Dolls Nest [a mecha action/adventure game] have started launching on Steam under the Nitroplus brand name, so there seems to be room to explore more possibilities for visual novels as well. Well, whatever happens, whether it’s games or anime, regardless of the medium, I think it’s fine to just create what I find interesting without overthinking it too much.”
Unsurprisingly, Shimomura is not the only Japanese video game writer to speak out on this issue.
Taking to his personal Twitter account on November 5th in the aftermath of Manga Library Z’s forced shutdown, NieR series creator Yoko Taro warned, “Credit card payment companies are refusing to accept legitimate adult content payments. Regulations beyond the law have been in place in publishing and other fields, but the fact that a payment processor, which is involved in the entire distribution infrastructure, can do so at its own discretion seems to me to be a different level of danger.”
“If they have control of the clearing house, they can even use it to control speech in other countries,” he added. “I get the sense that this is not just a matter of adult regulation or freedom of expression, but a security hole for democracy as a whole.”
