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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

#191

Post by IncreasePosts »

RankingMember wrote: post #115
can16358p wrote: post #105

What is wrong with these people who try to block certain content? Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. No one, including governments or payment processors, should be in the position to decide whether a platform can sell something or not. I wish there was a payment processor who was brave enough to say a big fucking NO to censorship.

The Puritanical origins of the US reverberate to this day. While coming for "freedom of religion" sounds like a noble origin story, the context was that they wanted the freedom to practice a much stricter, restrictive form of religion than that allowed by the Church of England.

This sounds like a just so story. There were all sorts of groups who set up shop in America, and all contributed to its success and influenced the culture.

Virginia was the most populous colony during the revolution, did English planter society just disappear and the Puritans made it all the way down to the South?

What about the Quakers in Pennsylvania?

Dutch society in New York?

Poor Scots in Appalachia?

And, in any case, this campaign started in Australia. Were there a lot of Puritans there?

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

#192

Post by csours »

The problem with slippery slopes is that the world is made of them. You can't leave the slippery slope, at BEST you can choose which slope you're sliding down.

Another way to think of this is 'long tail risk'. Some subset of people out there will develop real life problems from: porn, sex work, alcohol, weed, drugs, gambling, other 'moral' issues. It is difficult to meaningfully address both the median user and the problematic user.

See also decrim.

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

#194

Post by simion314 »

Aurornis wrote: post #179
can16358p wrote: post #105

What is wrong with these people who try to block certain content? Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. No one, including governments or payment processors, should be in the position to decide whether a platform can sell something or not. I wish there was a payment processor who was brave enough to say a big fucking NO to censorship.

When the Steam removals came up on HN, several people linked the list of games pulled. It looked more like they were targeting incest games (which is a genre I didn’t know existed) rather than the generic “porn games” that keeps showing up in headlines. There could be more developments or a different story for Itch.io, but last time this story was circulating it appeared that journalists were avoiding talking about s…

Those games are legal, also in some USA states you canmary your cousin so why the fuck don\t this puritans do not go for incest inreal life first then handle virtual stuff.

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

#195

Post by huslage »

RankingMember wrote: post #115
can16358p wrote: post #105

What is wrong with these people who try to block certain content? Don't like porn? Don't buy it. Simple as that. No one, including governments or payment processors, should be in the position to decide whether a platform can sell something or not. I wish there was a payment processor who was brave enough to say a big fucking NO to censorship.

The Puritanical origins of the US reverberate to this day. While coming for "freedom of religion" sounds like a noble origin story, the context was that they wanted the freedom to practice a much stricter, restrictive form of religion than that allowed by the Church of England.

The actors in this are Australian, by the way.

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

#196

Post by xxs »

magicmicah85 wrote: post #14
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.

Cryptocurrency is the only way I see this working.

So, you don't see it working at all.

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

#197

Post by varelse »

kingkawn wrote: post #187
dzonga wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

are you saying the puritans were the taliban equivalent of christianity. & want to bring back laws that sex would only be used to 'recreate' not recreation.

Yes that’s exactly what they were and are today

[dead]

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

#198

Post by qualeed »

crinkly wrote: post #190
qualeed wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, what do you imagine as the better alternative? I guess every publisher could just sell direct to customers on their own website, but that wouldn't address this issue at all (it would make it even easier for payment processors to abuse their duopoly), while also severely damaging the discoverability of games. And, considering that companies can already do this if they want but still choose to sell via a p…

Well we have a couple of problems on the table at the moment. Stop Killing Games is a good exemplar of one so I won't go there. But the other is "what happens if Steam goes evil?". Remember Google's old motto? The only solution is you download stuff and it remains runnable and usable without any connection or authorisation to any service. The distribution of it can remain wherever and you can go via a side channel if…

>The only solution is you download stuff and it remains runnable and usable without any connection or authorisation to any service.

I agree, but that could still be done even when using a centralized distribution platform. I would say those are two separate issues. I think (not positive) that's the whole premise of GOG, isn't it?

>If the payment processor shuts your revenue down you can move elsewhere.

Not really, though. If the payment processor stops doing business with your company, your shit out of luck. Instead of pressuring steam or whoever, they just pressure you directly. The single (well, double) point of failure always chains up to the payment processors.

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

#199

Post by axus »

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.

"Citizen's United" wasn't _wrong_ about money being a type of speech, that shouldn't be censored. Only wrong about who the first amendment is for.

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

#200

Post by TulliusCicero »

FranchuFranchu wrote: post #126
madaxe_again wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can't realistically target anyone outside the US with this.

You can't even realistically target people inside the US with this. How many people are gonna mail cash to buy digital games? Gimme a fucking break.

Yes, a small business in the 90s may have been able to make it work, but it's not the 90s anymore.

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