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Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

pcgamer.com

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Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#301

Post by zamadatix »

master-lincoln wrote: post #235
harvie wrote: post #140

There already was a time when Steam managed to free people from need to use funny pieces of plastic in their lifes... They've done that with CDs, they can do it again with Cards.

Yeah, that was when Steam freed the users from actually owning any game and instead gave the users limited licenses for using games. I am looking forward to the day when they shutdown and everybody realizes this.

The real loss was in the inability to sell the 90% of titles I no longer care about owning, but that's already true immediately after purchase.

Steam shutting down and taking your library with it really doesn't change much except you lose that nice delivery platform with good integrations (achievements, workshop mods, multiplayer integration, automatic updates) for games you're active in. For the 90% you were never going to touch again it wouldn't be noticeable, outside the annoying reminder you were never able to resell them. The other 10% just reverts back to "pirate it" which is about here on my scale:

"find that legal physical copy to play with" < "pirate it" < "click button on Steam"

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#302

Post by monkeyelite »

guywithahat wrote: post #298
dec0dedab0de wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the mint should maintain a payment processor, and the post office should maintain an official email address for everyone. these are basic things we need to exist in society, we should not be at the whims of private organizations.

I cannot think of anything worse than an official post office email I have to maintain. Do you not remember how many government sites would simply shut down after business hours because they couldn't figure out how to do on-call? Have you ever used US-treasury direct? This site would be slow, the code base would be unmaintained, it'd get enormous amounts of spam you have to sort through to get some important tax docu…

> US-treasury direct

Ok but this one is good. And it works because it’s a tool they need to generate revenue

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#303

Post by coredog64 »

monkeyelite wrote: post #302
guywithahat wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot think of anything worse than an official post office email I have to maintain. Do you not remember how many government sites would simply shut down after business hours because they couldn't figure out how to do on-call? Have you ever used US-treasury direct? This site would be slow, the code base would be unmaintained, it'd get enormous amounts of spam you have to sort through to get some important tax docu…

> US-treasury direct Ok but this one is good. And it works because it’s a tool they need to generate revenue

It's better now, but during the era of the on-screen keyboard it was atrocious.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#304

Post by creer »

mschild wrote: post #36
logicchains wrote: post #21

What's stopping a large, profitable company like Valve from starting its own payment processor? Surely the technology part of it can't be an impossible hurdle.

Adoption. You'd have to onboard hundreds/thousands of banks and terminal providers so they accept/give out your card. I excpect the underlying technical stuff isn't that hard compared to getting people and companies to actually use it.

> You'd have to onboard hundreds/thousands of banks

It's perhaps a good idea. It's likely that not very many banks and terminal makers and payment processors really matter. It would be a little delicate because the ones that matter would be pressured or at least would feel pressured NOT to participate on threat to their currently main business.

And the project doesn't have to become mainstream probably, just accepted "enough".

A better reason is that it's not really Valve's battle. They have plenty of other business. They don't need to fight this war. A company like OnlyFans, yeah perhaps they do - but they are likely much smaller.

Valve is in a situation that helps: they charge separately for each item. Some that the credit card networks are okay with and some that they are not. So they could support two regimes on their site: some items could only be paid through the Valve new card network (and gift cards and bitcoin), while other items could be paid through all the above plus the legacy credit card networks.

Valve (and/or OnlyFans) then gets paid for trying to enter the very lucrative payment network business. And gets to use these separate charges / two regimes of payments to distribute content that would be too dangerous within the current single payment framework.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#306

Post by krainboltgreene »

alexvitkov wrote: post #127
krainboltgreene wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but also the crypto option has been tried and absolutely doesn’t work.

It really hasn't. Everything has been tried with crypto, except actually buying things with it.

This is literally wrong. It's even googleable.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#307

Post by ranguna »

f6v wrote: post #260
polytely wrote: post #216

I wonder if Valve could (threaten to) become their own payment processor if this becomes too big of a threat. They are one of the few companies on earth with enough money to attempt it. If I remember correctly a big part of Valves heavy investment into linux was Microsoft wanting to lock windows down more, and now in 2025 gaming on linux is a viable alternative to windows.

Well, you can buy Steam gift cards for cash in underdeveloped markets like Germany. Can’t imagine how else would it work.

You can't buy gift cards in other underdeveloped markets like Japan, Camboja, the US, Mexico, etc?

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#308

Post by Maken »

nemomarx wrote: post #218
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This text is also consistent with Valve making a determination, checking with payment processors and not being told no. (Versus the payment processors reaching out to Valve first.) Like yes, there is a problem with Mastercard. But I want to know this isn’t Valve having complied with some activists trying to cover their tracks.

As far as it goes, collective shout claimed Valve didn't respond to them and that's why they complained to MC visa about it. They even mention how many calls they made to them to get the complaint heard. So everyone would have to be pretty invested in this show for it to have originated from Valve?

Which means Collective Shout didn't have any legal weight behind their demands.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#309

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

pchangr wrote: post #231
p_ing wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no meaningful attention, here. Until it is on the US Gov't radar, this 'attention' is just a collection of upset redditors furiously posting forum messages which will fissile out in a few months, at most. Besides, it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA.

Germany actually uses their own card system .. or cash. They are very much against visa/mastercard due to their “high commission fees” and “privacy concerns” Girocard charges a 0,3% fee vs visa/mastercard 3% See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girocard

Unfortunately, that's not enough to shake the MasterCard/Visa stranglehold. Even if all of Valve's German customers used Girocard and Steam sold those particular games only in Germany, they would still have to yield to pressure from MC and Visa because losing them would cost them many more of their global customers.

It's not enough to simply have an alternative to the credit cards, that alternative has to be in the pockets of 90% of your user base before you'd be willing to lose the method of transaction they currently rely on.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#310

Post by krainboltgreene »

littlecranky67 wrote: post #124
krainboltgreene wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but also the crypto option has been tried and absolutely doesn’t work.

Can you elaborate? If crypto is the only viable option to pay for something, I would agree due to the low amount of people familar in dealing with crypto. If it is an additional option, what part of it is not working?

https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail...
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