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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

#731

Post by aaaja »

pipes wrote: post #426
Aeolun wrote: post #282

I think it’s hilarious we allow stuff like Postal or Soldier of Fortune without a question, where the whole focus is on going crazy and murdering a whole bunch of people. But try to show a sensual human body, instead of one that’s ripped into small pieces, and oh my god, this is going too far!

The difference I see is that the player is getting sexual pleasure from what is being simulated in porn type games. I.e. they are trying to simulate the feeling of doing that in real life. Where as in violent games like soldier of fortune I doubt most players are trying to achieve the feeling of brutally killing another human being.

Yes and often with pornography it involves the abuse of women and girls, and depicting this as a positive action. It's probably not the main reason why payment processors are banning and restricting purchases, but it should be.

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

#732

Post by aprilthird2021 »

bornfreddy wrote: post #612
Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #609

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some of these games seem completely abhorrent Why would you consider those abhorrent while games where you can slaughter people, or commit all kinds of crimes like any random GTA, are widely considered normal? I'll never understand American morals. What's clear is that we need non-US payment processors so that the values of a given culture aren't imposed worldwide.

Say what you want about crypto, but it does solve this problem at least.

It doesn't "solve" the problem, it's just not regulated the same way. If governments decided to extend the same regulations to crypto transactions, what recourse would a person have?

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

#733

Post by martin-t »

lxgr wrote: post #711
martin-t wrote: post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ethically or morally unacceptable What does that mean? For example if something can be shown to cause actual harm to innocent individuals, i find it morally unacceptable. But some people will tell you anything banned by their favorite fairytale or their upbringing is morally unacceptable.

That's a complicated question I'd like to see settled via legislation and in courts interpreting (and sometimes overturning) these laws rather than in a private corporation's compliance and/or PR department.

It definitely should not be determined by corporations because they not elected and almost untouchable by the individuals affected.

The state is a less bad alternative but bad (unintentionally harmful) and malicious (intentionally harmful) decisions are generally not punished either.

When people set rules which affect others, they should also be held accountable.

And in general, rules limiting a person's behavior should only exist when that behavior can be _proven_ to be harmful.

They should be determined by individuals capable of critical and logical thinking and without anything personal to gain from the rules.

They should not be determined by individuals who have antisocial traits or who are indoctrinated into various belief systems which are founded on preferential treatment (such as religion).

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

#734

Post by Der_Einzige »

PicassoCTs wrote: post #503
herbst wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just one of the ways the US forces it's weird morals onto the world.

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'…

This BTW is 100% the reason why americans still perform circumcison and still radically cling to it.

Men must have their sexuality attacked and stymed from the very beginning of birth, or else they will waste their brain power on promiscuity. That's the only thinking anyway that explains why over half this country still circumcises.

Kant and I think Newton were famously virgins and a whole lot of moral crusaders in this world get extremely angry at the idea that people in this world have enjoyable sexual relations. A lot of people want a lot more sexual frustration to exist in this world, as it's good for capitalist exploitation.

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

#735

Post by nebul »

eloisant wrote: post #693
sigmoid10 wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Credit cards are much less heavily relied on in Europe than in the USA. Europe basically runs on debit cards that every kid can have and where the fees are minuscule. There are countless banks providing the service and everything is highly regulated. On top of that, Europe still curbed Visa and Mastercard several times for antitrust behaviour. And the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money launde…

I'm not sure which European country you're talking about, but in France most transaction are now done by card. Yes it's mostly debit cards, but they're still handled almost exclusively by Visa and Mastercard. Many banks have tried to start other electronic payments independent from those 2 (for example Wero) but it doesn't really get any traction. So I don't see how the duopoly is any less powerful here.

I think France is a bit of an exception because there's the CB network[1]. Most cards here are either CB/Mastercard or CB/Visa and a lot of stuff uses CB by default if I understand it correctly. According to their website the network accounts for 65% percent of national transactions[2] but I'm not sure of how to interpret their wording.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CB_Bank_Card_Group

[2] https://www.cartes-bancaires.com/cb/chiffres/

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

#736

Post by kaibee »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #85
pazimzadeh wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because "anti-abortion/pro-life" removes a right from women. Trading the rights of a developed adult for the rights of a hypothetical future person. What does ancapistanism have to do with it? Is there a non-religious reason to be against the right to choose abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy?

> Is there a non-religious reason to be against the right to choose abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy? Of course there is. It's not hard to construct an argument to that effect either. For example: let's agree for the sake of argument that a newborn has moral rights, and that gametes do not. It doesn't make much sense to give the fetus moral rights only based on its physical location, therefore at some point betwe…

> Therefore, by induction,

One grain of sand is a small amount of sand. Two grains of sand is a small amount of sand. Therefore, by induction, any amount of grains of sand is a small amount of sand. The Sahara contains a small amount of sand.

This is fun.

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

#737

Post by harrison_clarke »

yorwba wrote: post #536
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money washing and other illegal activities is pretty well established. They even killed the 500€ bank note, because it was almost exclusively used by criminals and most normal people never even touched one, much less used one for legit transactions. At least in Germany in particular older people prefer to pay cash if possible - this gives the banks also…

> At least in Germany in particular older people prefer to pay cash if possible Sure, but that's for small, everyday amounts. For values upwards of 500€, I think the familiarity of paying cash would be swamped by the nervousness of carrying way too much money with you, what if it gets stolen? > this gives the banks also less leverage with respect to abhorent fees The only time my bank has ever charged me a per-transa…

and even if you do want to carry that much cash, surely you'd want a fatter wad with smaller bills, right?

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

#738

Post by amelius »

kergonath wrote: post #720
amelius wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Following your argument ... then don't choose Steam, there are plenty of alternatives! /s https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Traitor...

No, you misread. I have a commercial relation with Steam and I am happy for them to chose what game they sell and what game they don’t (and as a matter of fact I buy more games on gog than on Steam). I don’t have a relation with Visa and I object to them exercising any control over what I can or cannot buy.

When I buy an Apple phone, it is my phone and Apple should not be able to exercise any control over who I do business with on said phone.

However, I get the eerie feeling that I didn't buy a product even though I paid for it and I subscribed to some service instead.

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

#739

Post by generic92034 »

natbobc wrote: post #614
aleph_minus_one wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And the idea that physical money primarily aids social fraud, money washing and other illegal activities is pretty well established. They even killed the 500€ bank note, because it was almost exclusively used by criminals and most normal people never even touched one, much less used one for legit transactions. At least in Germany in particular older people prefer to pay cash if possible - this gives the banks also…

A vocal minority are freedom loving. A significant number are hooked on consumer debt. I feel like any sweeping generalization is going to be wrong… especially when referencing the USA which is basically 50 countries and has a population exceeding all of Western Europe.

> especially when referencing the USA which is basically 50 countries and has a population exceeding all of Western Europe.

So, you compare the whole USA to only a part of Europe? Why is that?

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

#740

Post by harrison_clarke »

can16358p wrote: post #639

I'll never understand what is these payment processors' problem with adult content. If someone wants to sell something and someone else wants to buy something, it should be nobody else's business to police it as long as two parties are settled. That's why I want to see crypto take over and get rid of the middleman and regulators.

i think it's a mix of conservative/religious lobbying (getting them ire from the government), and chargebacks by embarrassed customers with post-nut clarity being common
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