It always sucks to see creators of erotic content getting their projects shut down or restricted against their will. The latest victim of online censorship is Lewd Idol Project, a yuri VN about a girl named Kairi who dreams of becoming an idol in Akihabara, as well as her kinky producer Ranko who helps her use her sex appeal to become the lewdest idol around.
Lead developer Toffer stated in a Kickstarter update that PayPal locked the team's account and seized all the funds they had raised: a whopping US$35,116, almost four times their original goal of $9,000, apparently due to its content coming under "sexual services," which goes against Paypal's terms and conditions.
"Being left out of the platform is not the problem. The biggest problem here is that they have locked all our funds we were using to develop all future LIP releases and they won't even allow us to withdraw or use any of it. They have literally tied our hands and deprived [us] of whatever funds we needed to fulfill our future releases."
"It is truly sad that a company so huge and with such an important name in today's world like PayPal treats its clients this way, leaving us without any possibility of reply, depriving us of our funds without any prior notice and, from one day to the next, leaving us without the possibility keep doing what we love and are so passionate about, which is the development of adult games and specially, this project which was our first ever crowdfunding campaign."
There is one silver lining, at least. LIP is still going forward even if they have no access to the funds they raised.
"I just want to let you know that this won't end here, we're not going to give up so easily. We're not going to allow this kind of things to keep happening like nothing. Today it was us, tomorrow it could be you or any other of your favorite lewd content creators. Please spread the word about this, I don't want this tragedy happening to anybody else.
The Lewd Idol Project series will keep going no matter what. This is our job, this is our passion, and we won't let them win. I just wanted to be 100% transparent with you and tell you the whole story before you hear it anywhere else. I'll keep you posted about any news here as always."
If you'd like to support Toffer Team through this uncertain time, feel free to check out the free demo for LIP, or you can buy the entire first volume on Steam. It may be a while until the next volumes or the fanservice stretch goals are released, but the more people helping them out means the sooner they can finish this project.
As always, feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments section!
