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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

#461

Post by mitthrowaway2 »

creer wrote: post #341
reginald78 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC the rule Mastercard cited was so vague that trying to workaround it almost seemed potentially pointless. It was basically a blanket "we think it makes MasterCard look bad so we end our relationship". Anyway, debit cards are still Visa/mastercard so using them as cash has the same problem. I was thinking they could just use Steam gift cards but since those are often themselves purchased in stores or with credit c…

That bitcoin decision was a long time ago. Long enough that it can be reversed. Other sites take bitcoin and manage it.

It's not about gaining a way to handle transactions without MasterCard. It's about losing MasterCard (or any other third party intermediary that follows their rules), and all of the accompanying customers who are accustomed to paying online with a credit card instead of going to a corner store and buying a Steam Card using cash.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#462

Post by socalgal2 »

weberer wrote: post #126
kmfrk wrote: post #17

Full title that doesn't fit in the HN headline: "Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down, but Valve says payment processors 'specifically cited' a Mastercard rule about damaging the brand" (For the people who don't click the link to read the article.)

It was Mastercard's rule, but any one of the companies in the payment network could have brought it up to Valve. The whole system is set up so one transaction has to go through up to 6 different companies, and they all have to abide by each other's rules. The US Internet Preservation Society explained it recently: >Each of these companies maintains its own terms of service and each of them can block a transaction by…

I'd be interesting to know if Valve is big enough to start their own payment system. Yea, I know it would be hard but their customers have libraries of games in their system and Valve has lots of good will. Valve could also offer discounts ($X off if you use ValvePay). It would take years. They'd have to drop the adult games now, start ValvePay, promote it until the majority of their customers used it. Then put the games back and tell Visa and MC they can eff-off.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#463

Post by IanCal »

simion314 wrote: post #440
IanCal wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t say it was an excuse given here, have you tried reading the whole comment? It’s not very long and shouldn’t be hard to understand. If it is I can help explain it.

We are not on reddit here, have you paid attention? Now seriously, you brought some old excuse here for some very inteligent reason, explain please? Do spouses will read that the guy bought something from Steam and she will then conclude the dude is playing very adult games? The excuse does not work as far as I can see, so explain your thoughts or explain why you are just pasting random excuses and then act like a re…

Read the whole comment because that statement is not an excuse, it is simply a nod to how it differs from other payments. The rest of the comment explains why I think the situation arises like this. It really isn’t hard to read so try and if you think your understanding clashes with my explanation of my comment feel free to assume I’m bad at making a point and read it in good faith.

I clearly don’t understand your issue with what I wrote, and won’t with more accusations of being like a redditor.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#465

Post by charlieyu1 »

efitz wrote: post #371
rob74 wrote: post #351

So... Mastercard's statement is very clear: > Put simply, we allow all lawful purchases on our network. But their "Rule 5.12.7" is... not so clear: > A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks. Well, whic…

We need Congress to make a law here in the US that businesses involved in facilitating financial transactions in the United States are considered “common carriers” and must not discriminate against, cancel or disadvantage any customer or legal transaction, without a court order. We can write language to allow booting people for fraud, hacking, etc if “legal” + “court order” are insufficient.

I won't trust the Congress. Far left and far right are both pushing for more censorship

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#466

Post by strbean »

jauntywundrkind wrote: post #388
wcarss wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My local city runs a water heater rental company. It provides water heaters more or less at cost to residents because we have exceptionally hard water here and they need to be replaced every ten years or so. It's a well run, valuable public program, and its cost is minimal. The US Digital Service made a number of good web services for the US federal government while it lasted. They didn't close at night. There are ma…

Largely opinion here, but the glaring issue with many modern governments is that they don't do. They get some consultants to come in, make some requirements, then shop for a contractor. IMO, governments should do a lot more themselves, should own infrastructure/utilities outright & ongoingly. Particularly hard in today's climate where so so many people are empowered to say no, or to come in and add their own pet comp…

It's telling that in order to interact in many ways with the IRS online, you have to verify your identity using a private company (ID.me). Identification of citizens and residents has to be on the short list for core competencies of any government, but we outsource even that.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#467

Post by charlieyu1 »

tdb7893 wrote: post #252
EliasWatson wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of problem that Bitcoin was designed to solve.

Isn't Bitcoin impractical for these sorts of transactions (slow, high fees, no privacy, etc)? People always say Bitcoin was designed to solve this sort of thing but whenever I've looked into it it's been fairly impractical for use in most day-to-day transactions.

Yes. Thankfully 15 years later we do have crypto solutions addressing previous crypto problems

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#468

Post by strbean »

digitalPhonix wrote: post #432
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…

> Don't forget the USPS bans competitors from being cheaper than itself That’s a disingenuous take. USPS legally cannot be undercut on certain types of postal services but in exchange they must serve EVERY permanent address without price discrimination. No private company has to do that, nor would any sane profit maximising company want to.

It's also a necessary protection because, for some ass-backward reason, we force the USPS to operate in the black instead of funding it with taxpayer money.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#469

Post by charlieyu1 »

khalic wrote: post #130

Before getting all worked up, I would advise people to look at what games exactly were banned, and see if it’s a case of power abuse or simply a case of “we can all agree that rape and incest games are disgusting and have no place in an entertainment web site visited by kids”.

We should ban GTA for promoting all sorts of crime including murder and have no place in an entertainment web site visited by kids.

Re: Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down

#470

Post by uyzstvqs »

reginald78 wrote: post #93
rs186 wrote: post #64

Dumb question: what if Steam only takes cash or crypto payment for these games, and leave them on the market? Cash is loaded from debit card and can be used for buying any games, while crypto apparently always works for everything. Would they still be on the hook?

IIRC the rule Mastercard cited was so vague that trying to workaround it almost seemed potentially pointless. It was basically a blanket "we think it makes MasterCard look bad so we end our relationship". Anyway, debit cards are still Visa/mastercard so using them as cash has the same problem. I was thinking they could just use Steam gift cards but since those are often themselves purchased in stores or with credit c…

It would take a lot of effort for Mastercard/Visa to stop physical retailers from selling Steam gift cards. Beyond gift cards, there's also systems such as PaySafeCard, which lets you pay with cash at a physical store and spend it online at any merchant who accepts it using a code.

And for crypto they can just accept Monero. Steam accepted Bitcoin years ago, but stopped due to high fees and network congestion. Monero fixes that + makes it private like cash, and has been the de facto cryptocurrency for years now.[1]

[1] Random example https://xcancel.com/NanoGPTcom/status/1951300996329537625#m

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