The US has some clear laws against government controlling speech and, in the abstract, that makes it pretty much impossible to censor games. Various factions - exactly who it is difficult to pin down - have been working hard to set up a system where they can shut things down without ever explicitly instructing anyone to do anything. This appears to be the system engaging by accident because some crazy from Australia accidentally said the right thing to the right people.
So I do actually believe Mastercard when they say this, but holding them accountable anyway is probably for the best. They're likely the single group with the most influence over the regulators.
Ehh, mastercard and visa have been playing these kind of games for years. For example hypnosis is a censored term on most porn sites, and most try to take down videos using or referencing marijuana in videos. Not because either of those things are against the law to have in a video, but because payment processors like Visa and Mastercard will blacklist sites that don't of their own volition. Go ahead and go type hypnosis in any major porn site and you will see you get zero results.
"Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down, but Valve says payment processors 'specifically cited' a Mastercard rule about damaging the brand"
(For the people who don't click the link to read the article.)
The problem isn't the lack of laws, it's the lack of enforcement. Biden's FTC gave us a glimpse of what a working antitrust enforcer could look like, and it caused a bunch of influential billionaires to switch political allegiances.
There's no escaping the politics here. You can't enforce antitrust without hitting the billionaire class directly, and those people know how to influence American politics in their favor. Just look at what happened to the "click to cancel" rule post-Trump, something that is unambiguously pro-consumer and exactly the type of thing the FTC should be doing.
I feel like nobody cares really and none of the companies care, but are all worried because of the massive stranglehold 2 players have (and realistically each has almost entire control).
Mastercard don't care you want porn, or games, or whatever. Neither does VISA. They like money. They want money and want people to move their money so they can siphon off some of it for their own pockets. Almost nobody is going to avoid using a bank because their card provider let some other people buy rude games on steam.
The payment processors don't care. They want you to send money through them so they can take their cut.
Steam doesn't care. The people making the games don't care. They all just want to sell stuff.
The only thing that impacts this really is chargebacks, which iiuc are much more common with adult stuff.
But payment processors can't guarantee what mastercard or visa will do, and players like steam (and they're huge, this is not about tiny store issues) can't guarantee what payment processors will do and given the potential downside - blocking all sales - people need to be careful.
While I can see how these situations come up, it's also absolutely insane as an end result because I just want to give *my money* to someone else. I've ended up using crypto before for buying things, not for ideological reasons, but purely because I could buy them and then give them to someone else for the "flagged as risky" goods/services because I couldn't pay for things using my money and my card.
For a while my old bank would block all Steam payments on both debit and credit - calling them confirmed that this was their new policy. I swiftly closed the account and moved to a competitor so I could spend my money again.
What's stopping a large, profitable company like Valve from starting its own payment processor? Surely the technology part of it can't be an impossible hurdle.
Lots of outrage at the card companies, but strangely, no outrage at the laws that actually caused this. One is the Australian law to remove that type of content and the other is the US law that says the payment processor can't participate in illegal transactions.
I'm glad the Mastercard-Visa duopoly is finally getting some attention, these companies shouldn't be allowed to exercise the financial control they do. Payment infrastructure is not a free market - you can't just choose to pay via some other processor if they turn you down, they ARE the processors. Therefore, they should be under intense scrutiny when they refuse.
Dumb question: what if Steam only takes cash or crypto payment for these games, and leave them on the market? Cash is loaded from debit card and can be used for buying any games, while crypto apparently always works for everything. Would they still be on the hook?
If there was a law that mandates that payment processors have to accept all transactions, then there'd be no reason to cite "brand damage" because Mastercard could just point out that they're not in control because of the law, and no other processor could censor that content either.
Unfortunately, laws like EU AML law go the opposite direction, where banks are allowed to close accounts only if they deem them "too risky".. this is not good.
The payment processor censorship issue backs up a point I made elsewhere about companies being involved in politics: they shouldn’t be, and shareholders should be screaming with rage that these companies have inserted themselves into these discussions on purpose.
They’re payment processors, for crying out loud. Their entire grift is taking a slice of every transaction processed, ergo, the only restriction they should ever have in processing payments is whether or not the transaction is legal under the law, full stop.
If they don’t like processing payments for pornography or adult content (including games), then don’t be a payment processor. They’re a business, not a person, and therefore their “preferences” regarding content are irrelevant.
Because it's a critically acclaimed movie that will draw defenders if it's banned now. If the activists went all in right away they'll lose and they know it
I really hope Steam will start to accept Bitcoin (via Lightning possibly) over this. Due to its decentralization, it is censorship free by default. And if Steam accepts Bitcoin, that would be a massive boost for the liquidity aspect of BTC: You could basically sell your BTC to anyone who wants to make a Steam purchase, making it similarly fungible as Amazon gift vouchers.
Before getting all worked up, I would advise people to look at what games exactly were banned, and see if it’s a case of power abuse or simply a case of “we can all agree that rape and incest games are disgusting and have no place in an entertainment web site visited by kids”.
> Mastercard's Rule 5.12.7 relates to "illegal or brand-damaging transactions," and states:
> A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks.
I didn't expect they had such clear rules expliciting they can ban any kind of transactions they don't like or would make them look bad, regardless of the legality of it.
There already was a time when Steam managed to free people from need to use funny pieces of plastic in their lifes... They've done that with CDs, they can do it again with Cards.
I kind of wonder if there had been misinterpretations as to the results of previous campaigns against Japan.
English in Japan is more of a customer support tool than a language. Proficiency is improving in some places, but on decline at large, below already atrocious status quo. This means the size of English-speaking audiences for actually Japan-centric news is small and not the first priority, not small && more important. Extremely little of whatever happening in Japan appear on mainstream English social media, let alone regular mainstream media.
If that much was not obvious to whoever pulling strings on this ongoing thing, I think there may be a chance that lack of observable responses after their earlier actions led to a misplaced confidence that gaming is a tiny top-down market and consumer resistance is nonexistent.
The responses were significant enough that it elected an equivalent of senate for third term and got former PM Kishida make a hand-wavy assurance on video even just few days before this one. It was almost certainly just a lip service, but also not nothing. How would anyone interpret that as a situation safe to escalate further?
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 69.3 ms ] thread"Mastercard finds out there are a lot of gamers out there, makes an attempt at damage control." would be more appropriate.
So I do actually believe Mastercard when they say this, but holding them accountable anyway is probably for the best. They're likely the single group with the most influence over the regulators.
"Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down, but Valve says payment processors 'specifically cited' a Mastercard rule about damaging the brand"
(For the people who don't click the link to read the article.)
Could also hit the iOS-Android bird with the same stone!
There's no escaping the politics here. You can't enforce antitrust without hitting the billionaire class directly, and those people know how to influence American politics in their favor. Just look at what happened to the "click to cancel" rule post-Trump, something that is unambiguously pro-consumer and exactly the type of thing the FTC should be doing.
Mastercard don't care you want porn, or games, or whatever. Neither does VISA. They like money. They want money and want people to move their money so they can siphon off some of it for their own pockets. Almost nobody is going to avoid using a bank because their card provider let some other people buy rude games on steam.
The payment processors don't care. They want you to send money through them so they can take their cut.
Steam doesn't care. The people making the games don't care. They all just want to sell stuff.
The only thing that impacts this really is chargebacks, which iiuc are much more common with adult stuff.
But payment processors can't guarantee what mastercard or visa will do, and players like steam (and they're huge, this is not about tiny store issues) can't guarantee what payment processors will do and given the potential downside - blocking all sales - people need to be careful.
While I can see how these situations come up, it's also absolutely insane as an end result because I just want to give *my money* to someone else. I've ended up using crypto before for buying things, not for ideological reasons, but purely because I could buy them and then give them to someone else for the "flagged as risky" goods/services because I couldn't pay for things using my money and my card.
Unfortunately, laws like EU AML law go the opposite direction, where banks are allowed to close accounts only if they deem them "too risky".. this is not good.
They’re payment processors, for crying out loud. Their entire grift is taking a slice of every transaction processed, ergo, the only restriction they should ever have in processing payments is whether or not the transaction is legal under the law, full stop.
If they don’t like processing payments for pornography or adult content (including games), then don’t be a payment processor. They’re a business, not a person, and therefore their “preferences” regarding content are irrelevant.
https://www.amazon.com/Streetcar-Named-Desire-Blu-ray/dp/B07...
Why is Mastercard processing money for this movie that contains a rape scene?
Same deal with GTA and GOT
> A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks.
I didn't expect they had such clear rules expliciting they can ban any kind of transactions they don't like or would make them look bad, regardless of the legality of it.
English in Japan is more of a customer support tool than a language. Proficiency is improving in some places, but on decline at large, below already atrocious status quo. This means the size of English-speaking audiences for actually Japan-centric news is small and not the first priority, not small && more important. Extremely little of whatever happening in Japan appear on mainstream English social media, let alone regular mainstream media.
If that much was not obvious to whoever pulling strings on this ongoing thing, I think there may be a chance that lack of observable responses after their earlier actions led to a misplaced confidence that gaming is a tiny top-down market and consumer resistance is nonexistent.
The responses were significant enough that it elected an equivalent of senate for third term and got former PM Kishida make a hand-wavy assurance on video even just few days before this one. It was almost certainly just a lip service, but also not nothing. How would anyone interpret that as a situation safe to escalate further?