In Europe, Wero[1] has a chance to become the de-facto payment system, once it's supported by more banks in more countries and adds online payments functionality.
Unironically, crypto? It might seem like an annoying hurdle now, but as more and more things are banned by puritans, the crypto experience will surely rise to meet the need.
It's interesting that Valve sort of put themselves in this situation by opting not to police their store anymore.
I'm personally a fan of fewer restrictions on content in video games and fewer "gatekeepers" but it's kind of inevitable that people would get upset when you chose to allow people to sell games like "Sex With Hitler" and "Pimp Life: Sex Simulator". Deciding to allow that content on your store and simultaneously not going to bat for it is weird, it's like they decided to just get the porn money while they could as a short-term boost to revenue.
Itch.io still has fewer restrictions but I assume they'll eventually have to clamp down too once payment processors cut them off - they don't have the financial resources to fight it like Valve or Epic do.
Interestingly Nintendo has as of late relaxed their restrictions too, you can find porn-adjacent shovelware on the Switch eShop despite their history of being very censorious. I wonder if payment processors will successfully push them around too or if Nintendo is too big to get pushed around.
For those thinking is only related to chargebacks and fraud, it is not.
VISA and Mastercard have been banning a lot of content that is not porn but has political values that are disapproved by certain billionaires and investors. There is a bunch of links I wanted to post about, such as US billionaires bragging he personally called VISA CEO to ban content on PH or japanese politicians mad at the censorship of japanese art with certain values because of these companies. But I am on phone walking home so if anyone else has such links please post.
Trump changed banking regulations so that "reputation" can no longer be a reason for banks to "derisk" customers after crypto industry outcry, but the reason to exit customers must be factual money laundering or similar reason. But the change does concern cards, as payments are not under FDIC surveillance.
Simulated "immoral" activity could be considered a moral gray area. If nothing else, morality is subjective.
So I think it's reasonable to argue for private, individual consumption of morally subjective material (not least of which is the logistical difficulty of preventing such things), as well as the right to create and sell such things. (You or I might approve of or oppose those things, but that's a different argument from what I make below.)
Aside from that, I don't think Valve or a payment processor is obligated to be a neutral party. Whether it might come from collective consumer backlash or whoever makes decisions for an organization deciding what they will or will not allow to flow through their system, I think they too should have the right to allow or ban things. If publishers and consumers want their morally gray content, so be it, but don't feel entitled to have Steam and VISA along for the ride if they don't want to be.
Hypothetically, Valve might prefer Steam be neutral, because money. But then they have the option to fight their payment processor or look for alternatives, rather than "forcing" their payment processor to be a part of something that the payment processor opposes.
TL;DR when a morally subjective issue involves a lot of parties, every party should have the right to "opt out" if they are morally opposed. (in my opinion)
I think the trouble here stems from the lack of alternatives to the small group of payment processors. The near-monopoly allows their choices to override the choice of all the other involved groups, and almost no viable alternatives exist for Valve to move to if they disagree.
The article calls out “certain adult games” which is vague. It is interesting to note that most of the delisted games were themed specifically around incest.
> The article calls out “certain adult games” which is vague.
A Quick Look at the list has me wishing I hadn’t thought to look at the list.
I suspect the vague “certain adult games” was chosen because it makes it sound more controversial. If the headline was “Valve removed incest-themed games under pressure” there would be a lesser reaction.
Collective Shout, the group behind this petition, has previously gone after more mainstream games, like Detroit Becomes Human, for spurious reasons. I have no doubt they'll use this win and mealy-mouthed language to push for more censorship.
And yet it is possible to make simulations extreme enough I would not opposed to banning them. There are some things that should not be normalized in society.
It shouldn’t be payment processors doing it unilaterally, I’ll grant that. But I’m not (and I’m sure a great many more of a silent majority) wholly opposed to the outcome.
It's a slippery slope. It's not real but can certainly, by definition, create a situation that mimics reality to the point of assisting someone at committing a real crime that they couldn't possibly commit without the simulation.
Sure, but simulation does give you exposure. And too much exposure (from the simulations going mainstream) begets normalization, something you definitely do NOT want with content like that. We are already suffering enough from pop media making many kinds of abhorrent behavior mainstream.
Okay so is Steam enough of a money printer for Valve to say "well fuck you guys, we'll make our own credit card with hookers and bingo"? And hold out Half-Life 3 (only purchasable with the ValveCard) as a carrot?
Related to this, here's an ACLU filing with the FTC that lays out the content that the credit card companies don't like and how they pressure companies to remove it.
Why do payment processors do stuff like this? Is there some regulation that requires them to? I get that they don't want to process fraudulent transactions, but I'd think the response to a higher percentage of fraud from some industry would be to charge them more. It doesn't make sense to me why they would be concerned about the content of games, as long as everything is legal and the parties concerned aren't subject to sanctions.
Some of these games seem completely abhorrent, and probably illegal in more restrictive jurisdictions, but not the United States. And I've not seen any suggestion they're funding terrorism or something. So I'm perplexed.
I'm more curious why PCGamer did not publish the name of the games that were removed. There are some incredibly perverse titles in there and if they are advocating to normalize this kind of content, they should have no shame doing so.
Honestly, this whole Visa/Mastercard control thing feels a lot like realizing you’ve been following rules that don’t really fit you. It’s tough to break out of it. But FedNow is an interesting option. It lets banks move money instantly, 24/7, with no card networks involved, so less hassle with the content policing. It’s not a magic fix (still early days, only works in the US), but it shows there’s another way if you’re willing to step outside the old patterns. Sometimes that’s what you need to actually move forward. And no I'm not a Fednow shill. Has anyone tried Kagi btw? ;)
Look. Ignore the content. Why the fuck do we allow credit card companies have a say in how we spend our money?
Fraud? Abuse? Fine, let me put cash onto a card and if that card gets stolen, oh well, my loss. Mastercard should have no say in what what speech is considered acceptable outside of their offices. We don't care what execs at a water company think? Why do we care about the people at Mastercard?
Fuck that. Why do we need credit card processors AT ALL? For that matter, why are debit cards tied to credit card networks? Unless and until people realize that these things are useless outmoded and antiquated, it's a waste of time trying to improve them. Do you want a faster horse, or the automobile?
It is a shame that it takes payment processors to get Valve to do even the bare minimum curation of their store. IMO the thousands of outright bad games and ai slop asset flips and weirdo porn that verges on outright illegal content in many countries should have never been allowed in the first place. All of this leads back to various executives at Valve essentially doing no actual work and refusing to hire anybody because a huge part of their corporate culture is to keep headcount low while chasing constant growth.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 96.6 ms ] thread[1]https://wero-wallet.eu/
I'm personally a fan of fewer restrictions on content in video games and fewer "gatekeepers" but it's kind of inevitable that people would get upset when you chose to allow people to sell games like "Sex With Hitler" and "Pimp Life: Sex Simulator". Deciding to allow that content on your store and simultaneously not going to bat for it is weird, it's like they decided to just get the porn money while they could as a short-term boost to revenue.
Itch.io still has fewer restrictions but I assume they'll eventually have to clamp down too once payment processors cut them off - they don't have the financial resources to fight it like Valve or Epic do.
Interestingly Nintendo has as of late relaxed their restrictions too, you can find porn-adjacent shovelware on the Switch eShop despite their history of being very censorious. I wonder if payment processors will successfully push them around too or if Nintendo is too big to get pushed around.
VISA and Mastercard have been banning a lot of content that is not porn but has political values that are disapproved by certain billionaires and investors. There is a bunch of links I wanted to post about, such as US billionaires bragging he personally called VISA CEO to ban content on PH or japanese politicians mad at the censorship of japanese art with certain values because of these companies. But I am on phone walking home so if anyone else has such links please post.
https://screenshot-media.com/politics/human-rights/pornhub-p...
Exodus Cry leader was later fired for sexual misconduct
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/anti...
Trump changed banking regulations so that "reputation" can no longer be a reason for banks to "derisk" customers after crypto industry outcry, but the reason to exit customers must be factual money laundering or similar reason. But the change does concern cards, as payments are not under FDIC surveillance.
So I think it's reasonable to argue for private, individual consumption of morally subjective material (not least of which is the logistical difficulty of preventing such things), as well as the right to create and sell such things. (You or I might approve of or oppose those things, but that's a different argument from what I make below.)
Aside from that, I don't think Valve or a payment processor is obligated to be a neutral party. Whether it might come from collective consumer backlash or whoever makes decisions for an organization deciding what they will or will not allow to flow through their system, I think they too should have the right to allow or ban things. If publishers and consumers want their morally gray content, so be it, but don't feel entitled to have Steam and VISA along for the ride if they don't want to be.
Hypothetically, Valve might prefer Steam be neutral, because money. But then they have the option to fight their payment processor or look for alternatives, rather than "forcing" their payment processor to be a part of something that the payment processor opposes.
TL;DR when a morally subjective issue involves a lot of parties, every party should have the right to "opt out" if they are morally opposed. (in my opinion)
https://bsky.app/profile/steamdb.info/post/3lu32vdlsmg27
Wondering if this will be a slippery slope towards pulling more anodyne stuff.
A Quick Look at the list has me wishing I hadn’t thought to look at the list.
I suspect the vague “certain adult games” was chosen because it makes it sound more controversial. If the headline was “Valve removed incest-themed games under pressure” there would be a lesser reaction.
Hopefully they don't know about the little-sister route in Making Lovers.
Thus I can imagine that they don't want to become criminally responsible if that's illegal.
This statement imply that:
* Simulated violence is not violence.
* Simulated sex is not sex.
* Simulated sorcery is not sorcery
It shouldn’t be payment processors doing it unilaterally, I’ll grant that. But I’m not (and I’m sure a great many more of a silent majority) wholly opposed to the outcome.
Who gets to decide these things and based on what?
Let's simulate grave digging
Let's simulate blackmailing the dead for an eternity
For fun AND for profit
Which is possibly because violence is not as awkward to watch with your family as sex is.
https://www.collectiveshout.org/open-letter-to-payment-proce...
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Steam-Payment-providers-force-V...
mindgeek then wiped all _unconfirmed_ content regardless of whether it was revenge porn or not.
they have their own banned topics lists and if you fuck up you lose your income
https://www.aclu.org/documents/federal-trade-commission-comp...
Some of these games seem completely abhorrent, and probably illegal in more restrictive jurisdictions, but not the United States. And I've not seen any suggestion they're funding terrorism or something. So I'm perplexed.
Fraud? Abuse? Fine, let me put cash onto a card and if that card gets stolen, oh well, my loss. Mastercard should have no say in what what speech is considered acceptable outside of their offices. We don't care what execs at a water company think? Why do we care about the people at Mastercard?
It’s not a precedent, its been the status quo for half a century
They should have at least aimed at Living With Sister: Monochrome Fantasy.