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Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

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11–20 of 967 posts

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#11
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.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#12

What can be done to loosen card companies' grip on this? It has been a constant problem now for decades.

Likely nothing.

The simple fact is, Visa/MC don't want to deal with porn because the number of chargebacks and fraud from porn purchases is significant and a huge outlier compared to most other charges. Their crusade against processing charges for adult material isn't about purity, it's simply business.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#13
post #8
post #2

Considering their volume, I find it hard to believe that Valve couldn't find another, more lenient payment processor with similar fees.

Adult content has a high chargeback rate and high fraud rates so payment processing for adult content has higher fees.

Which makes less sense when you consider Steam will refund you game if you dont want it.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#14

What can be done to loosen card companies' grip on this? It has been a constant problem now for decades.

Bitcoin was supposed to solve this.

And you could indeed use Bitcoin on Steam for a while!

But then the blocks got full, fees and wait times skyrocketed, and in response to the customer backlash Steam removed Bitcoin.

Meanwhile Bitcoiners were (and still are) only focused on number go up instead of other, more productive, use cases.

Such a waste.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#15

What can be done to loosen card companies' grip on this? It has been a constant problem now for decades.

Likely nothing. The simple fact is, Visa/MC don't want to deal with porn because the number of chargebacks and fraud from porn purchases is significant and a huge outlier compared to most other charges. Their crusade against processing charges for adult material isn't about purity, it's simply business.

I can't imagine people are risking their steam accounts to ripoff a $5 adult game

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#17
post #2

Considering their volume, I find it hard to believe that Valve couldn't find another, more lenient payment processor with similar fees.

They could support a stablecoin like USDC and start pushing people to that. No censorship and lower fees. Valve broke ground with Steam, they could do it again.

Re: Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

#20
post #17
post #2

Considering their volume, I find it hard to believe that Valve couldn't find another, more lenient payment processor with similar fees.

They could support a stablecoin like USDC and start pushing people to that. No censorship and lower fees. Valve broke ground with Steam, they could do it again.

nah. USDC funds can be frozen by Circle on demand/request.
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