Making a
living from creating independent video games and depending on
international platforms is becoming a real financial nightmare in the Asian
country. To the surprise of the community, Japanese indie
developer Takii Noame, specializing in Yuri visual novels,
was forced to delay the release of his long-awaited title Watamari Part
2 – A Fake Marriage?. The reason? Banks in Japan decided
to abruptly block all revenue transfers from their previous games published
on Steam.
The problem
escalated rapidly due to international policies. The developer publishes both
games for all audiences (the Watamari series) and works with
explicit content (the Ne No Kami series), all through the
publisher Sekai Project. It turns out that the Japanese authorities
tightened the reviews of international transfers to prevent money laundering,
so the SBI Shinsei Bank demanded documentation of his income.
When the bank discovered that a portion of the money came from sales of yuri
adult content, they simply refused to process the payments and notified the
developer with a simple phone call.
Trying to
save his finances, Takii Noame asked the publisher to send only the proceeds of
his fair games to the public through the Japan Post Bank. However,
after another review, this transfer was also rejected without the bank giving a
single reason, something that the creator describes as a complete mystery.
Although the studio has been struggling for a month and recently managed to
open an account at another institution that only allows it to receive small
amounts, the economic disaster caused the sequel to Watamari to
be delayed by at least two months. Sadly, this is not an isolated case, as
several game creators have reported similar incidents recently.
Seeing that
banking institutions are taking the role of moral censors to block the
legitimate income of independent developers
