Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games • Hacker News Board

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

#781

Post by pqtyw » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 5:42 PM UTC

saghm wrote: post #768

pqtyw wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Church of England Doesn't mean that continental Europe wasn't full of puritanical nutjobs. Calvin himself ran a dystopian theocratic state\hellhole in Geneva yet hardly anyone references that when talking about conservativism in Switzerland. > Even 120-130 years after the point There was a significant generational backlash towards puritanism and a push towards pluralism/secularism by the late 1700s. IMHO Second/Thi…

> Calvin himself ran a dystopian theocratic state\hellhole in Geneva yet hardly anyone references that when talking about conservativism in Switzerland. I'm not familiar with Swiss politics, but if there's a significant Christian element to it, it seems like it would be pretty reasonable to wonder about whether the historical basis for this is related to Calvinism. If it's not significantly Christian, then it's not s…

Not inherently disagreeing with you at all. I'm not just sure whether we should look as far back as the 1600s. Yes some American colonies were founded by religious extremists.

But the divergence between US and Europe didn't happen until the late 1800s if not the early 1900s.

e.g. according to the census of 1851 ~40% of people in Britain were regularly attending religious services. No hard figures for the US from the time but from what I can find the proportion in the US was comparable. Except while mid 1800s was pretty much the peak in Britain in US it kept rising and reached its highest point in the 1950s while in UK religious participation had almost reached current levels by then.

IMHO the rise of political secularism, socialiam and the near societal collapse across much of Europe during and after WW1 and WW2 had a much bigger impact than whatever happened 400 years ago.

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

#782

Post by high_na_euv » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 5:45 PM UTC

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.

In Poland there is Blik which got huge traction

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

#783

Post by kergonath » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 5:49 PM UTC

noduerme wrote: post #574

kergonath wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nonsense. If you want us to believe this you need to show that Steam with erotic games is more of a risk than Steam without them. Comparing Steam with things like “adult merchants” like Onlyfans or a porn streaming service does not sound very appropriate.

It's not nonsense. I've hosted, moderated and managed sites that were only obliquely related to porn or gambling, and you wouldn't believe the level of rejection for running ads or getting payment processing that they are faced with. And I ran a casino for 4 years. I coded it and I ran it 24/7, and believe me, I did everything by the book. The CC companies do not give a shit as long as they make money. Chargebacks co…

> I've hosted, moderated and managed sites that were only obliquely related to porn or gambling, and you wouldn't believe the level of rejection for running ads or getting payment processing that they are faced with. And I ran a casino for 4 years. I coded it and I ran it 24/7, and believe me, I did everything by the book. The CC companies do not give a shit as long as they make money.

It is not really comparable. Steam is not a casino, and it is largely the same platform with or without perfectly legal porn. The presence of a few (not even that popular) adult games does not change the overall demographics that much, or the risk profile. I am not even ready to accept without proof that the risks are higher than with all the other, non-porn shovelware.

Sure, if Steam turned into an adult-only platform, then the risk profile could change significantly. But that is not what happened.

Also, as many people pointed out, Steam really does not incentive customers to ask for chargebacks. All the available information points to Valve managing its platform quite well for everyone involved.

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

#784

Post by deadbabe » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 5:50 PM UTC

Nevermark wrote: post #304

deadbabe wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a bit of a strawman. The market for people who get addicted to gruesome gore and are willing to pay money to see it is several orders of magnitude smaller than people willing to pay to see porn or OnlyFans. There is simply far more risk with adult content as a result and a lot more chargebacks from disatisfied customers with a post nut clarity.

So grotesque violence appeals to fewer people, but banning gets focused on material more people find acceptable, even desirable? This really is a culture/posture driven issue. It is not as if many people think (emphasis on "think", as in being honest, reasoning carefully and being scientific about evidence) that banning sexy curves in a video game is going to impact the prevalence of sexy curve imagery, or "save" any…

What a gross endorsement of Jeffery Epstein.

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

#785

Post by nix0n » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 5:52 PM UTC

harrison_clarke wrote: post #737

yorwba wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

The Euro uses larger bills for larger amounts, so if showing off the cash is actually something you want, a single €500 note would have worked well.

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

#786

Post by Dylan16807 » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 5:53 PM UTC

kbelder wrote: post #759

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

"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 between conception and birth the fetus gains moral rights. No matter what point n we choose, the objection "why is one day earlier any better" seems pretty persuasive. Therefore, by induction,…

> although I don't back it up all the way to conception, just to a point in early pregnancy where it seems overwhelmingly clear the fetus has no attributes which could reasonably demand respect for rights.

Sounds like you're not actually using that deeply flawed argument then. You're making the distinction that not every day has the same effect.

And could you estimate how many weeks you put that point at?

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

#787

Post by dahart » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 5:53 PM UTC

presentation wrote: post #211

maxbond wrote: post #161

Why do payment processors do stuff like this? Is there some regulation that requires them to? I get that they don't want to process fraudulent transactions, but I'd think the response to a higher percentage of fraud from some industry would be to charge them more. It doesn't make sense to me why they would be concerned about the content of games, as long as everything is legal and the parties concerned aren't subject…

The USA is extremely litigious, rules are decided not by the legislature usually but instead by people suing each other to establish case law, and anyone with a bone to pick could sink you in legal fees and proceedings at a whim. So probably people who don’t like the idea of adult content can use the courts to make payment processors’ lives painful and they decide to just forgo that business. US courts are too easy t…

This is an oft-repeated misconception. Germany is almost twice as litigious as the US. Sweden and Austria are also more litigious than the US.

> anyone with a bone to pick could sink you in legal fees and proceedings at a whim

This is FUD, not reality. While it’s “possible” for anyone in any country to try to sue, it simply doesn’t happen in the US more often than elsewhere. The relatively high number of US lawsuits are filled with corporate litigation, contract disputes, bankruptcy filings, car accidents, and appeals, among many other things, and not people suing each other for minor grievances.

“Coffee spills, Pokemon class actions, tobacco settlements. American courts have made a name for themselves as a wild lottery and a money machine for lucky few lawyers. At least in part, however, the reputation is unfounded. American courts seem to handle routine contract and tort disputes as well as their peers in other wealthy democracies.

“More generally, Americans do not file an unusually high number of law suits. They do not employ large numbers of judges or lawyers. They do not pay more than people in comparable countries to enforce contracts. And they do not pay unusually high prices for insurance against routine torts.

“Instead, American courts have made the bad name for themselves by mishandling a few peculiar categories of law suits. In this article, we use securities class actions and mass torts to illustrate the phenomenon, but anyone who reads a newspaper could suggest alternatives.

“The implications for reform are straightforward: focus not on the litigation as a whole; focus on the specifically mishandled types of suits.”

http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/olin_center/papers/pdf/R...

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

#788

Post by pqtyw » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 5:54 PM UTC

vladms wrote: post #763

pqtyw wrote: post #673

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm talking about the export of puritanism Sure, technically its government imposed domestic puritanism which isn't exported. I agree its a completely different thing. > The topic was about puritanical beliefs in the US and how its export affects the world Yes, US has its quirks but it's not that exceptional as you are implying. e.g. when it comes to banning/regulated video games Australia is inarguable much more r…

So how does the US deal with age restricted games? I find this much more related to actually willing to implement a rule, rather than having rules for the sake of it (like the US buying alcohol rule - it is forbidden for people under 21 to drink but 40% of the people between 18 and 21 drink ?! source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_consumption_by_youth_i... ).

Not sure I get it. And it's different in Europe?

e.g. 20% of all 15 year old in the UK have at least one drink each week:

https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/sta...

Despite the legal age being 18.

Also what does this have to do with anything? e.g. adult-only games are simply unavailable on Steam in Germany. It doesn't matter at all how old you are.

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

#789

Post by guywithahat » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 5:58 PM UTC

tester457 wrote: post #119

guywithahat wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The same post by steamdb is on twitter too, they are a steam game tracker and database.

I mean it's just a joke, bluesky has earned a reputation for cp and other illegal or inappropriate content

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

#790

Post by creer » Sat, Jul 19, 2025, 5:58 PM UTC

JimDabell wrote: post #382

creer wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems disingenuous. (1) in this case, this is a not a tiny fly-by-night wannabe game company. (2) which is good for paying back (or never seeing) the money of chargebacks. For a new company, the risk of chargebacks might rest on a credit card company (for a little while anyway). But not for a long established one.

> That seems disingenuous. Why are you assuming bad faith? There’s no indication parent is being insincere at all.

> Adult content is considered a high risk merchant category

> It has nothing to do with any sort of puritanical premise.

But I have no problem with the parent poster. I'm here hoping for conversation. The argument though is one we hear now and then and like I point out, how can it make sense? Like many things, it looks more like a vaguely possible, plausible explanation or chain of arguments... which on closer look doesn't fly. How can Valve, a long established, apparently solid merchant, be a serious risk for the credit card infrastructure? Should there be chargebacks, they can handle chargebacks. This is not limited to Valve. Many of us have run into the issue. The credit card infrastructure goes out of its way to refuse solid business.