Yesterday, I published a lengthy dive into Patreon’s “dim panopticon,” a censorship mechanism where adult content creators can seemingly brush up against the site’s guidelines as long as Patreon believes a user has not gone too far. After that article’s publication, an anonymous adult game developer with a lengthy Patreon presence contacted me with further information about their experience with the site. During our correspondence, the developer shared a series of images suggesting Patreon once held a supportive stance toward NSFW content creators behind the scenes, looking to foster community among adult creators. Patreon likely shared a similar fate as itch.io, in that it became a “hesitant censor” — forced to engage in censorship due to demands from its payment processors.

“Patreon staff have consistently demonstrated affection towards the NSFW community. There's been numerous loopholes employed by them to allow for content that would otherwise be banned by banks,” the anonymous developer told this reporter. “They also established their own NSFW forums, and released numerous NSFW newsletters. Most of their restrictions came from financial processors forcing them.”

The anonymous adult game developer, a Patreon creator with a history on the site dating back to the mid-2010s, stressed that Patreon generally held a positive and supportive tone towards its adult content creators at its start. The developer shared an email correspondence from Patreon’s early years, in which a staffer spoke in a colloquial and casual tone with the anonymous developer while discussing business. The developer’s Patreon contact even used emotes in certain cases, demonstrating just how laid back the site was in its communications with NSFW creators.

“We had assistants at Patreon assigned to us early on. I could email ‘Hannah’ or whomever else and they'd reply within 24 hours. Each assistant assisted 30-some other creators. The CEO would also respond to emails himself for questions or concerns,” the developer said. “For a few months early on, you couldn't use PayPal for NSFW, but Patreon made a deal that allowed them to pay-out NSFW Patreon accounts.”

As a general rule of thumb, Patreon seemed to be somewhat permissive of both content and content creators during the 2010s. “If you were suspended for any reason besides causing harm in real life or political issues, it was almost unheard of to be permanently banned,” the anonymous dev said. That was the case at least up until 2024, they explained.

“You would be allowed to return after changing the offending material from your store page or content. This is why some creators were able to be suspended 5+ times before they were truly permanently banned.”

Yesterday, I discussed 2025 Patreon’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” approach to content moderation. More specifically, Patreon seems to avoid overmoderating content when possible, yet the site can and will remove creators that cross an (ever-changing and uncertain) line. Nonetheless, the anonymous adult game developer explained how Patreon started out as a rather permissive platform, one that has slowly tightened the screws on taboo NSFW material as the years went on.

“There were many NSFW games with lolicon early on. I can't remember any being banned permanently in the first two years,” the adult developer said. “Lolicon would have been banned if it was obvious. Ageplay was never banned more than once or twice. Hypnosis was safe until 2019. During the early years it was exceptionally hard to be banned for anything. Patreon preferred to look the other way.”

Changes came to Patreon over time. Summertime Saga, the most popular adult game on Patreon, had its account briefly suspended in 2018 due to incest content within the game. Incest in adult games was targeted for bans at the time, followed by “a softer ban wave for rape games.”

“Only lolicon and beastiality were strongly enforced for bans at the start,” the anonymous developer said. “Incest and rape were also listed but rarely banned.”

A 2017 open letter to Patreon notes that the platform once "courted" adult content creators, vowing to fight back against "payments discrimination against adult content.” Then, Patreon changed its content guidelines, ending most forms of sex work on the site. Payment processors seem to be the deciding factor for any content bans on Patreon. After a series of suspensions, Motherboard’s Sam Cole received correspondence from Patreon in June 2018, with the platform stating it has “been ramping up the proactive review of content on Patreon due to requirements from our payment partners.” Patreon proceeded to crackdown on hypnosis content deemed “nonconsensual” in 2019, following a pattern commonly seen with payment processors — most adult sites end up banning hypnosis content in some shape or form due to financial institutions’ demands.

One might assume that 2017 marked the beginning of the end for Patreon maintaining a positive relationship with its adult community. However, information from the anonymous Patreon developer suggests that Patreon did genuinely try to foster and celebrate its remaining adult content creators behind the scenes, even as payment processors began breathing down Patreon’s neck.

“During 2019 there were real life meet-ups for Patreon creators at rented venues. They had one for NSFW creators, which Patreon staff attended. There was also a NSFW forum for creators only. You could discuss things with fellow creators and ask the staff questions directly,” the anonymous developer said. “Leading it was a manager specifically in charge of NSFW creators.”

The anonymous Patreon developer shared a series of images that confirmed the platform’s interest in supporting its remaining adult creators. In 2019, Patreon hosted a meetup "just for adult content creators" in Los Angeles, complete with free refreshments. A 2022 email advertised Patreon's "A. Clubs," an accountability system for creators to stay on top of their project goals; one of the advertised teams was "Skye's Adult GameDevs Club” for “friendly game devs who create games for adults." In October 2021, Patreon sent out an email about a quarterly livestream under its "Creator Policy Engagement Program," with its fall stream addressing “questions from the adult/18+ creator community." Of note, Patreon directly discussed concerns around payment processor censorship during this event.

"Hundreds of creators tuned in live and shared input across our feedback channels, including how Patreon can support adult/18+ creators in complying with upcoming requirements from payment processors like Mastercard," Patreon wrote in an email about the livestream. "The Policy Team then incorporated that feedback into how we'll address those requirements which will start to be implemented this month."

Ironically, in an era where reporters were running story after story about Patreon censoring creators, the platform was still trying to figure out how to connect with its remaining NSFW artists and developers. That’s not to say that all of Patreon’s decisions during those early and middling years were ethical. The platform certainly devastated many users’ livelihoods and incomes, regardless of whether Patreon hesitantly pulled the trigger.

That said, nuance is important in payment processor censorship. There’s a fundamental difference between a platform who eagerly complies, and one who is still trying to make the best out of a bad situation. It seems Patreon legitimately wanted to provide support to its adult creators for most of its history, even when the platform was in payment processors’ crosshairs.

Is that NSFW-friendly spirit still alive at Patreon? Sadly, it does seem payment processors are slowly whittling away at Patreon’s soul, turning it into a platform that’s apathetic to its NSFW creators. It’s as if a self-fulfilling prophecy has occurred, and those who always believed Patreon was primarily out for themselves, at the expense of its adult creators — that might not have been true in 2021, but it seems far more likely in 2025.

“Early on there were many newsletters sent to NSFW creators specifically about their concerns. These messages were friendly and supportive. Sometime during the pandemic, most of these forms of specialized communication vanished,” the anonymous game developer said. “Most of the community is sure that in 2024 the [Trust & Safety] team was outsourced. The new outsourced team would ban creators on sight for small infractions, things that wouldn't have resulted in bans prior. Most of these bans could be removed by asking for a manager at Patreon. They would confirm the ban was over-reaching and undo it.”

Yesterday, I mentioned that Patreon’s approach to lolicon is a bit like Mr. Burns’ illness-infected body — at risk of devastation at “even a slight breeze.” While Patreon turned the other cheek to this kind of content in the past — unless it was far too open and obvious to ignore moderation — it seems Patreon is more likely to moderate lolicon today in order to protect itself from payment processor anxieties. That’s a far cry from where the platform once stood a decade ago.

I was curious about the anonymous developer’s thoughts, given they’ve seen all of the site’s turbulent NSFW history over the past decade. “Do you think Patreon still wants to protect its NSFW creators?” I asked. “Or do you think, given the changes to Trust & Safety, Patreon is slowly giving up and just letting the adult community exist without support?”

“I honestly don't know at this point. I think they might be giving up now, yes,” they replied. “I'm still positive about things in the adult community though, but Patreon has been around so long I'm not surprised they've given up.”

If true, then expect Patreon’s relationship with NSFW content to slowly fall into a state of disrepair: More false-positives from AI moderation, more kneeling to payment processors, and, supposedly, a Trust & Safety team that breaks from the spirit of Patreon’s early days, when NSFW content was celebrated behind the scenes. Even if Patreon once had its heart in the right place around adult content, those days might as well be dead. Now it’s just business as usual — same as it ever, at least everywhere else.