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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

#191
Look. Ignore the content. Why the fuck do we allow credit card companies have a say in how we spend our money?

Fraud? Abuse? Fine, let me put cash onto a card and if that card gets stolen, oh well, my loss. Mastercard should have no say in what what speech is considered acceptable outside of their offices. We don't care what execs at a water company think? Why do we care about the people at Mastercard?

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

#193
post #2

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

Controversial games being restricted to purchase only with Steam Points. The credit card is only ever charged to buy points, which can then be used to purchase items on the store. Similar to fortnite.

Or similar to DLSite and Fantia, where it didn't work.

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

#194

Look. Ignore the content. Why the fuck do we allow credit card companies have a say in how we spend our money? Fraud? Abuse? Fine, let me put cash onto a card and if that card gets stolen, oh well, my loss. Mastercard should have no say in what what speech is considered acceptable outside of their offices. We don't care what execs at a water company think? Why do we care about the people at Mastercard?

It's because Visa got sued, lost, and it was found out they knowingly processed payments for illegal adult content, so they basically avoid the sector entirely now. Economist had an article about it maybe two years ago and came to much the same conclusion you did. IIRC, the failure in their mind was government not stepping in to make a law so things are less ambiguous in the future. Now payment processing cos get to gate keep people's speech, which means everything is basically a civil suit away from getting blacklisted.

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

#195

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…

If I remember correct from the hot money podcast https://www.ft.com/content/762e4648-06d7-4abd-8d1e-ccefb74b3... part of the problem for the credit card companies is figuring what are the boundaries of legality. Countries have very different laws. Things like representing homosexuality or age of consent are very different and credit cards feel that it is a risky business because of that.

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

#196
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Privacy.com manages to issue card numbers somehow. How does that work?

Through Visa and Mastercard

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

#197
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

By not working outside the US.

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

#198

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…

If I remember correct from the hot money podcast https://www.ft.com/content/762e4648-06d7-4abd-8d1e-ccefb74b3... part of the problem for the credit card companies is figuring what are the boundaries of legality. Countries have very different laws. Things like representing homosexuality or age of consent are very different and credit cards feel that it is a risky business because of that.

This makes little sense with even the tiniest amount of probing.

This is a solvable geo regulation issue, solvable like many other geo regulatory issues

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

#199
post #132

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.

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

> Likely Apple currently has the deepest finance industry roots.

Apple used a very large bank headquartered in the US for its credit card processing as of about ten years ago. Given that the cost of change is significant once these processes are put in place, it is likely this remains the case.

Note that this is not the same as what Apple Pay supports.

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

#200

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…

My guess is it's simply a chargeback risk. It's the reason casinos and adult sites have trouble getting credit card processing and are charged much higher basic rates, even under the best of circumstances when the casino or adult site is operating entirely within the law in the jurisdictions it allows.

Punters run a lot of chargebacks on casinos, and people whose spouses catch a XXX video or game on their card statement will lie and run chargebacks too.

In the case of Valve, a lot of chargebacks would drastically increase the processing rates demanded by the payment providers for all transactions across the board, not just those related to adult games.

There's probably a great market opportunity here for a game store focused on adult games and willing to take on that risk.

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