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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

#161

Post by maxbond »

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 to sanctions.

Some of these games seem completely abhorrent, and probably illegal in more restrictive jurisdictions, but not the United States. And I've not seen any suggestion they're funding terrorism or something. So I'm perplexed.

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

#162

Post by jandrese »

raincole wrote: post #71
bobsmooth wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no other payment processors.

There are no other payment processors that can replace Visa/Mastercard*. There are other payment processors in India/Japan/China/Brazil/etc. But none of them is internationally adopted like Visa/Mastercard.

Is it the case the Mastercard/Visa will reject a site that has such content even if you can only purchase it using ValveBucks or PayPal or something? That seems plausible.

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

#163

Post by freddie_mercury »

miningape wrote: post #92
Hizonner wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are some things that should not be normalized in society. That attitude has recently become normalized, and I find it Concerning(TM).

Yeah, who gets to decide whats too far? There's a similar issue with free speech - the moment you ban certain speech the door to banning your political opposition opens.

> There's a similar issue with free speech - the moment you ban certain speech the door to banning your political opposition opens.

There is TONS of speech that is banned, even in America. There isn't a single place on the planet that has no limits on speech.

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

#164

Post by o11c »

xyst wrote: post #112

credit card companies (Mc?) did the same with mindgeek. No due process. Just revoked their access to CC networks. mindgeek then wiped all _unconfirmed_ content regardless of whether it was revenge porn or not.

That one must be defended, since it was abuse of real people happening at scale and with full knowledge thereof, and PornHub's status-quo response was at best "do nothing and hope it goes away". Mind, the Justice Department also went after them (and won), so we can't even resort to "CC networks shouldn't be the ones enforcing this." At what stage of a court case is it appropriate to expect third parties to start breaking their business relationships with the defendant?

The weird part about the first-world sexual liberation mindset (usually said about feminism, but not limited thereto) is that it actively ignores how massively abusive sexual liberties very often and easily become.

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

#165

Post by cool_dude85 »

krustyburger wrote: post #159
cool_dude85 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the people who disagree: would you really be interested in seeing Child Grooming Simulator 25 on steam? I think we can almost all reasonably agree that at least this sort of content should not be sold on there.

Won’t somebody please think of the children?

When we start saying "no content restrictions besides illegal stuff", your hyperbolic question becomes legitimate in a way that it's not when we're talking about Doom.

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

#166

Post by ls612 »

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…

This is one of the ways the government can censor people despite the first amendment. It’s absolutely by design. The regulators “express concern” about certain financial activity and then the companies remove it.

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

#167

Post by AdieuToLogic »

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.

> I am genuinely curious who can actually threaten Visa (I do not think it is Valve).

Visa is a clearing house whose members are banks. Think of it like a payment router between issuers (banks) and processors (banks).

Only sponsored organizations can directly use the "Visa rails", where "sponsor" is defined as a bank, a bank subsidiary, or an entity previously sponsored by one of the other two.

This is also the case for MasterCard and Discover. "Traditional" American Express is different though.

> Amazon, Walmart, Target and then increasingly unsure.

Those merchants use banks or one of their subsidiaries for processing credit card transactions. Most large merchants do as well in order to minimize their discount rate as well as other transaction fees. Smaller merchants often use ISO's or VAR's for business specific reason, knowing both ultimately transact with a bank or one of a bank's subsidiaries.

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

#168

Post by mulmen »

raincole wrote: post #152
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?

Practically impossible. To replace visa/mastercard you need to have thousands of banks support ValveCard across the world. It's hard to imagine how it's going to happen. Players will not switch to another (probably foreign) bank just to buy Half-Life 3. They'll pirate it. By the way, Gabe has a very famous quote: > Piracy is a service problem. He knows it very well that if it's hard for players to buy something they'…

Why does ValveCard need to work anywhere other than Steam? Privacy.com manages to issue card numbers somehow. How does that work?

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

#169

Post by Sniffnoy »

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…

At least at one time, part of the answer would have been Operation Choke Point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point

However, that's clearly not all that's going on -- it doesn't seem like the government is still doing this.

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

#170

Post by loeg »

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.

Only the USG.
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