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Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

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Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#61

Post by gs17 »

badsectoracula wrote: post #13
righthand wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major problem is the payment processors though. Unless you defeat that duopoly or only accept cash how do you stop this exact situation? There are the FedNow tokens and ACH which could help but it still requires quite a bit of cost to begin even that route. My customers are going to want to use their cards to pay too.

Yeah and it isn't just you accepting cash. Let's say you decide to go with cash (or, more realistically, manual bank transfers) and even get some host like 1984 that'd go to the court for you, but what stops Visa/MC to go directly at your host and tell them to either drop your site or they'll drop them?

In theory, if you went "full crypto", there's probably options like Filecoin and web3 domains (I'm not in that space enough to know what the current versions of these are) that could make something "uncensorable" by Visa/MC, but it also would limit its reach heavily.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#62

Post by spicymaki »

8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: post #44

What sort of leverage can a group like this realistically have on Visa and Mastercard? Can they really make a dent in their top line?

Ideological alignment with the party in control of the US executive, legislative, and judicial branches gives groups like these quite a bit of leverage.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#63

Post by madaxe_again »

gs17 wrote: post #53
neonate wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the subhed: "Even games that have nothing to do with sex or abuse have been caught in the dragnet."

Detroit: Become Human has abuse as significant element to its story. It came under attack from the "National Association of People Abused in Childhood" when it came out, and also from Collective Shout.

By their own logic that association should disband, as their existence could remind people of their traumatic childhood experiences.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#64

Post by gs17 »

jacobsimon wrote: post #58
mwill wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These conservative groups aren't pressuring Steam and Itch directly, they're targeting payment processors. I don't think it's realistically viable to compete with Steam (or Itch) without access to Mastercard and Visa. (For anyone thinking crypto: we have a different idea of what it means to be either "realistically viable" or to "compete with Steam")

Maybe a silly idea, but here’s a solution to prevent financial censorship: make the game free. Or monetize via another way—ads, subscriptions, credits. There’s actually a lot of options for Steam if they aren’t being pressured directly to remove the content.

> if they aren’t being pressured directly to remove the content.

The problem is that they aren't being told "we won't let people buy this through us", they're told "this needs to go entirely or no more credit cards for you".

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#65

Post by sketchysandwich »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #60

My free speech red line is criticism of govt and leaders. Ban all the porn games ya want, I don't think they're very valuable. When did pornography become protected speech?

In what world is artistic expression not free speech? Just because you don't like it doesn't mean its not protected.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#66

Post by some_random »

righthand wrote: post #22
some_random wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is being pushed by an Australian Feminist organization, not the American Religious Right.

You may want to take a look at how feminist that organization actually is.

There is a huge sex-negative feminist school of thought, just because you don't like it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#67

Post by madaxe_again »

mwill wrote: post #17
magicmicah85 wrote: post #3

This is an opportunity for an entrepreneur to create a censorship-resistant platform, though, I don't know how you do it profitably when CSAM and other potentially criminal content needs to be reviewed.

These conservative groups aren't pressuring Steam and Itch directly, they're targeting payment processors. I don't think it's realistically viable to compete with Steam (or Itch) without access to Mastercard and Visa. (For anyone thinking crypto: we have a different idea of what it means to be either "realistically viable" or to "compete with Steam")

Just get people to mail you cash. Sounds stupid, but that’s how I built my first ecommerce business in the 90’s, and it was a pretty normal way to pay for stuff online. Cash, money order, bank cheque, whatever.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#68

Post by numpad0 »

FirmwareBurner wrote: post #5
magicmicah85 wrote: post #3

This is an opportunity for an entrepreneur to create a censorship-resistant platform, though, I don't know how you do it profitably when CSAM and other potentially criminal content needs to be reviewed.

CSAM means material of actual kids, meaning actual victims from the real world have been harmed/abused. Weird video games on the porn side, are only fictional 3D models made of pixels, so no humans are being harmed. When I used to kill cops in GTA Vice City as a kid, 20 years ago, I wasn't killing actual cops(duh!). Has society lost their collective marbles since then, and can't differentiate what's a real crime and…

> are only fictional 3D models made of pixels, so no humans are being harmed

I'm beginning to wonder if that's exactly what these religious cults are having issues with.

If we think about it, liberalism came to existence partly as antithesis to medieval church ideologies. Maybe principles such as freedom of speech and freedom of thought within liberalism used to be specific reactionist smite against whatever religious bigotry around back in 1400s-1600s, and stressing what everyone thinks as the most liberalist, neutral, and rational take on these topics is what they find insulting.

Not that I necessarily care, but I do want to know if there's any good ways to get them up to at least year 2000 and beyond. It's 2025 after all.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#69

Post by pfisch »

jacobsimon wrote: post #58
mwill wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These conservative groups aren't pressuring Steam and Itch directly, they're targeting payment processors. I don't think it's realistically viable to compete with Steam (or Itch) without access to Mastercard and Visa. (For anyone thinking crypto: we have a different idea of what it means to be either "realistically viable" or to "compete with Steam")

Maybe a silly idea, but here’s a solution to prevent financial censorship: make the game free. Or monetize via another way—ads, subscriptions, credits. There’s actually a lot of options for Steam if they aren’t being pressured directly to remove the content.

F2P games are very different in design from regular games(and far worse imo)

You can't even realistically have a F2P game that requires a high spec machine because of how the market works.

Re: Steam, Itch.io are pulling ‘porn’ games. Critics say it's a slippery slope

#70

Post by sketchysandwich »

mvieira38 wrote: post #51

It's unfortunate because there really isn't anything anyone can do except wait for regulation or try raising awareness/usage of crypto payments or cash by mail

how do all these other adult sites get away with charging premium subscriptions?
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