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

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

#181

Post by Razengan »

rib3ye wrote: post #132
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am genuinely curious who can actually threaten Visa (I do not think it is Valve). Amazon, Walmart, Target and then increasingly unsure.

Likely Apple currently has the deepest finance industry roots.

Honestly, with how prevalent iPhones and Androids are today, specially among newer humans, if Apple and Google made a payment system that just transferred money between iPhone/Android, it could practically replace cash & cards for a lot of people.

In some countries the vast majority of payments are done via phone apps for national payment systems already, bypassing Visa/Mastercard etc. entirely. Even kids pay for candy by phone.

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

#182

Post by Am4TIfIsER0ppos »

neuroelectron wrote: post #38
astura wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You need to be more specific. Conflating "adult content" with porn is both problematic is masks the real issue. A large majority of games Valve sells are adult content. But as you can imagine grand theft auto is not causing a lot of political backlash, despite the objectionable content.

You say that but the same censors behind this also got GTA5 pulled from retail stores

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

#183

Post by ijk »

maxbond wrote: post #161

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…

One factor is the ongoing campaigns from number of moral crusading groups who lobby them to cut off payment processing for things they don't approve of. NCOSE has been working for decades on the project, and targeting credit card companies has been a successful tactic for them for a decade or so.

[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/visa-and-mastercard-ar...

[2] https://www.newsweek.com/why-visa-mastercard-being-blamed-on...

[3] https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstreams/761eb6c3-9377-...

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

#184

Post by superkuh »

eddythompson80 wrote: post #100
throwaway071625 wrote: post #58

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. https://bsky.app/profile/steamdb.info/post/3lu32vdlsmg27 Wondering if this will be a slippery slope towards pulling more anodyne stuff.

Specifically incest, rape, and child abuse-themed games.

Ah, like a video game version of "Game of Thrones"? None of the payment processors had any issues with taking money for that series. And that was live action.

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

#185

Post by markdown »

maxbond wrote: post #161

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…

It's not just games.

Payment processors ban many things that are completely legal, even foods and dietary supplements. It's ridiculous. They have too much power.

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

#188

Post by ijk »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #124
egypturnash wrote: post #108

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?

I am genuinely curious who can actually threaten Visa (I do not think it is Valve). Amazon, Walmart, Target and then increasingly unsure.

Other payment processors, mostly. So other credit card companies (e.g. JCB [1]), government run payment services like Pix in Brazil [2], theoretically crypto, etc.

[1] as a random example: https://archive.kyivpost.com/technology/japanese-payment-sys...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pix_(payment_system)

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

#189

Post by eddythompson80 »

superkuh wrote: post #184
eddythompson80 wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically incest, rape, and child abuse-themed games.

Ah, like a video game version of "Game of Thrones"? None of the payment processors had any issues with taking money for that series. And that was live action.

Yep, those games were exactly the same thing as Game of Thrones.

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

#190

Post by Diti »

UltraSane wrote: post #151
throwaway071625 wrote: post #58

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. https://bsky.app/profile/steamdb.info/post/3lu32vdlsmg27 Wondering if this will be a slippery slope towards pulling more anodyne stuff.

Visa and Mastercard generally don't like anything with incest, rape, and/or underage participants.

But they are strangely okay with murder.
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