The provocative horror game Horses from the Italian studio Santa Ragione was not allowed on Steam and Epic Games Store. This decision almost led to the closure of the studio, depriving it of access to the largest platforms and solvent audience. However, in the midst of mass removals of games with "adult" content, caused, according to many, by pressure from payment systems MasterCard and Visa, the Polish store GOG still decided to support the project.
GOG Managing Director Maciej Gołębiewski said in an interview that the decision to sell the game was for him "a matter of freedom".
We as a company are always ready to defend values - our own and those that we consider right for the industry. We believe in creative freedom. As soon as the platform, through its rules, begins to decide what is good and what is not, what can be sold and what cannot, it is a slippery slope
Gołębiewski emphasized that GOG is a curated platform: employees actually play the projects before publication.
Horses is certainly provocative, but there is nothing in it that would prohibit its sale. Democratic governments and regulators, not companies like Visa and MasterCard that control almost the entire payment market, should decide what is legal and what is not.