Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

391–400 of 953 posts

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

#391

Post by ronsor »

pnw wrote: post #362
RankingMember wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Collective Shout group pushing for the censorship is Australian, not American. Most people are unaware of Australia's long history of censorship which continues to this day.

Australia was a prison colony, after all.

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

#392

Post by solumos »

dandellion wrote: post #328
gspencley wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so sure you can point the finger at the USA for this. I ran an online porn website for almost 20 years. For 15 years it was my primary source of income. I'm in Canada which, compared to the USA is extremely progressive. In 2022, after a decade of doing business with a certain bank as this business, never having hidden anything about what we did, my wife and I received an urgent, signature required, overnighte…

All this makes me think of war on drugs and other similar failed attempts at regulation, and of the article "the optimal amount of fraud is non-zero". The stronger the zeal to prevent porn the more expensive it gets to do so, and the more they cause legit companies like yours to close, the more profitable it gets to do it illegally. Just cranking on the symptoms without looking at the cause often has the opposite eff…

Yep, similar to how banning Juul led to the proliferation of foreign-made vapes[0]

[0] - https://apnews.com/article/fda-vapes-vaping-elf-bar-juul-80b...

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

#393

Post by codedokode »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #119
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.

Presumably, the belief of Collective Shout is that there is a causal link between acting out incest, rape, and sexual violence in games and acting on those behaviors in real life. What would you do if you harbored that belief?

Why they don't go after alcohol? I am not an expert, but I guess most such crimes happen due to alcohol usage.

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

#394

Post by zer0tonin »

pfisch wrote: post #69
jacobsimon wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's quite a few F2P games requiring high spec machines, Throne & Liberty for example.

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

#395

Post by fc417fc802 »

bko wrote: post #389
knappe wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I've seen video games cause people to destroy their lives. What else should we arbitrarily ban based on this criteria? It doesn't seem to hold up to much scrutiny.

I'm not saying we should ban anything. Sure video games can be unhealthy. Maybe I'm weird but I would much rather prefer my son plays video games 8 hours a day than watches adult content 8 hours a day. Let's stop pretending like they're comparable.

> Maybe I'm weird but I would much rather prefer my son plays video games 8 hours a day than watches adult content 8 hours a day.

Isn't it the end result that matters? Presumably you'd like your son to become a functional adult. Neither of the scenarios you describe there sound like that to me (excepting perhaps "professional competitive gamer" but somehow I suspect most parents don't really approve of that outcome either).

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

#396

Post by baobabKoodaa »

broof wrote: post #322
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no, weird stuff in games? Or even... morally grey actions in games? How awful!

Child rape is morally grey now?

Not my words. Look upthread.

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

#397

Post by amelius »

Don't we have something like net neutrality but for money transfers?

And besides, why do payment processors even know/care what their customers use their money for as long as it's legal?

If you want to ban porn, fine, but do it through the law, and don't let every company make their own laws. Especially if they are a quasi monopoly (have power).

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

#398

Post by potato3732842 »

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.

A couple of the groups that founded what would become US states were decent. Of course those decent groups got outcompeted by the authoritarian weirdos because live and let lives types and insular communities don't see the need to grab state power.
Post reply on HN