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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

#591

Post by louthy »

ChickeNES wrote: post #588
louthy wrote: post #507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, it doesn't help anyone to generalise. Europe has a wide demographic. But, one thing that doesn't happen is its attitude to sex affecting worldwide commerce or other worldwide issues. Here in the UK religion and sex are not part of the national conversation. A politician mentioning their love of god would seem weird to us. The only way it enters the national conversation are when right-wing religious zealot…

Yeah when I went to the UK and tried to view adult content using a prepaid SIM, it was blocked and required verifying that I was an adult, and this was done at the ISP level. And I know for a fact that the UK has much stricter limits on kink and BDSM in adult content as well. What gives with people claiming it's just the US?

> required verifying that I was an adult

Log in to your account and toggle the “I want porn” option? It’s annoying, but not onerous.

> And I know for a fact that the UK has much stricter limits on kink and BDSM in adult content as well.

I know what you’re referring to, but don’t know the full details. I believe it’s around violent porn (rape, etc). We certainly have a “think of the children” brigade. I still think the discourse is significantly more civilised than that of the US, which feels like it’s approaching virtual civil war levels. When these subjects are debated, it's usually in parliament and doesn't turn into some societal ideological divide.

I think some of the policies you mention are more artefacts of the politicians not understanding the technological future we’re in, rather than ideology. Many of them think they can make the internet a safe space for kids through policy. It’s naive, for sure, but usually not dogmatic.

> What gives with people claiming it's just the US?

It’s not just the US, but when the people standing outside of UK abortion clinics harassing women are funded by US ‘pro life’ religious groups then you know there’s a problem. Puritanism is a US export.

The vitriolic political divisions in the US, which leads to all sorts of fringe issues becoming mainstream (trans rights, for example), is leaking out into the rest of the western democracies, poisoning the debate everywhere.

The Visa issue is just one more of these puritanical US exports.

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

#592

Post by cindyllm »

grues-dinner wrote: post #590
PicassoCTs wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sexual self-denial always was the driving force behind the western cultural success. You can not have hyper-specialization and rule of law, without some members of society sacrificing a "normal" life. From the monk in the monastry to Turing hyper-focused on an enigma there is clear line. Its a ugly recipe, but its working, unlike all those other societies out there, who are currently eating themselves. A judge doesn'…

> Turing hyper-focused on an enigma I don't know if he had major active relationships specifically while working on Enigma (other than the short engagement to Joan Clarke in 1941), but Turing famously did have sexual relationships since the discovery of one eventually led to criminal prosecution of both him and his partner, his chemical castration and eventually possibly suicide. Paul Erdős might be a better example,…

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

#594

Post by coffee_am »

Jimerty wrote: post #460
atemerev wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US obsession with sex (both positive and negative) is something else. Here in Europe, sex is a normal part of human life. Not a center of everything, nor a sin to be avoided. Sex art is normal. Sex games are fine. There are no moral crusaders here, because sex is moral. We tell sex jokes at work and nobody faints. We are constantly perplexed why American culture is so different from other Western cultures in that…

>Here in Europe No, Europe is not a monolithic bloc, stop treating it as such, stop saying here in Europe or European here. You'd get annoyed if a yank generalised all of europe with a not take so don't do it yourself. State what country/countries you're talking about because social attitudes and norms vary massively across this continent!

Of course one can generalize using the colloquial "Here in Europe". And generalization is useful -- one cannot go into all the complexity and details all the time, at some point one has to summarize/generalize an argument.

Yes, Europe is not a monolithic bloc, but there is a large fraction that is less sex focused, it's a fair generalization and comment to express that.

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

#595

Post by nulbyte »

SJC_Hacker wrote: post #241
miiiiiike wrote: post #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?

Because they are on the hook for fraudulent transactions, until they get to merchant to refund. Otherwise they wouldn't care. Which is why some merchants get effectively blacklisted if they have too many fraudulent transactions

No they aren't. Fraudulent card not present transactions are fully on the backs of merchants. The networks and banks don't lose a dime of them. In fact, they make more money now, charging additional fees when disputes are filed, and additional fees when they are challenged.

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

#596

Post by 9dev »

legacynl wrote: post #585
9dev wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since many people in Germany neither trust the banks nor the government anymore, acting this way is very rational. Speak for yourself, this is either heavily overstated or a fringe opinion, luckily. Most people definitely do trust both government and banks to a sensible degree, even if they don’t like some decisions. Some people like you apparently also don’t appreciate the immense freedom of SEPA transactions. Sur…

> And above all else, we have a working democracy and not an oppressive regime? This whole debate often feels very disconnected and overblown in Germany. Well as you can see from the US currently, a country that is now free and democratic, might not continue to do so in the future. But once you've given up the ability to use cash because you didn't need it then, how are you going to get it back when you do need it?

Not a single western democracy has really turned yet, so I’m not convinced this is imminent danger.

Besides, I’m not advocating for the abolishment of cash, but against dramatic claims of an evil scheme to control and spy on citizens. That’s a right-wing narrative in Germany, but nonsense nonetheless.

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

#597

Post by maxlin »

yunesj wrote: post #302

If Valve limited credit card purchases to PG games, but let customers purchase other games via crypto, then payment processors couldn’t complain about alleged high chargeback rates or association with adult content. I imagine payment processors wouldn’t love this solution, but at that point they’re just asking for full editorial control, and we should resist.

Not necessary. They could just keep almost everything as-is with normal credit card processors, but for adult stuff, just use the same kind of processors other adult sites use. Those have a lot worse rates from what I hear, but still way more accessible than crypto

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

#598

Post by legacynl »

arrowsmith wrote: post #407
simpaticoder wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GP highlights a classic observation: America's nearly unique cultural contradiction, where nudity and sex are considered highly offensive, while gore and violence are widely accepted.

This really isn't unique to America.

In the "western" world it is.

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

#599

Post by fn-mote »

cornholio wrote: post #405
ijk wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One factor is the ongoing campaigns from number of moral crusading groups who lobby them to cut off payment processing for things they don't approve of. NCOSE has been working for decades on the project, and targeting credit card companies has been a successful tactic for them for a decade or so. [1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/visa-and-mastercard-ar... [2] https://www.newsweek.com/why-visa-mastercard-being…

It's easy to dismiss all such campaigns as religious prudes and moral crusaders, especially on a site with the demographics and political leanings of YC News. But often time such campaigns are waged by former victims of trafficking. It's well documented that trafficking, prostitution and pornography are closely interlinked - this modern notion of a fully liberated "sexual worker" controlling their careers, choices an…

I’m willing to listen if you’re willing to provide sources.

Otherwise, your claims run counter to more credible sources I have read. (Which I am not willing to search up for this post.)

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

#600

Post by maxlin »

AraceliHarker wrote: post #306

The games that got banned this time, even before considering their depiction of incest, are often of such poor quality that it's difficult to even call them 'games.' Valve itself should have removed them from Steam long before payment processors had to step in. Defending these kinds of games is like equating Blue is the Warmest Color with a random PornHub video, simply because they both contain sexual acts. If Baldur…

Removing and having something exist with the whatever amount of visibility it is able to earn with its quality are entirely different.
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