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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

#81

Post by Mindwipe »

Ancapistani wrote: post #77
ranger_danger wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that it's not just the processor, but Visa/Mastercard themselves have rules against certain types of merchants/products... they really have a monopoly on credit cards in general so you have to play by their rules.

You're right, but it's slightly more complicated than that. My understanding is that payment processors are obligated to follow the policies of Visa/MasterCard, AmEx, and Discover, but that those parties' policies don't explicitly ban these specific things for sale. Instead, they "strongly encourage" processors to ban them in their user agreements under the implicit threat of their risk level being increased, which i…

MasterCard have a specific restricted list that bans an awful lot of things in any adult context.

Some of how to interpret that is left up to the processor, but it is broadly under MCs and to a lesser extent Visa's control.

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

#82

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

kevingadd wrote: post #11

It's interesting that Valve sort of put themselves in this situation by opting not to police their store anymore. I'm personally a fan of fewer restrictions on content in video games and fewer "gatekeepers" but it's kind of inevitable that people would get upset when you chose to allow people to sell games like "Sex With Hitler" and "Pimp Life: Sex Simulator". Deciding to allow that content on your store and simultan…

What does "police" mean? They don't allow illegal content, that's policing no? You want more policing like morality police?

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

#83

Post by pazimzadeh »

Ancapistani wrote: post #75
raincole wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a "pro-life feminist" What. Seriously what? I thought pro-choice is a core tenet of feminism?

Why would it be? I live in a red state in the South. I'd say about 2/3 of the women I know well enough to be confident of their politics to that degree of detail would describe themselves as both feminists and anti-abortion/pro-life. If you want to put a name to it, they're basically second-wave feminists with a few third-wave beliefs tacked on. The real lesson here is that politics are nuanced, and the US party dich…

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?

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

#84

Post by dmix »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #83
Ancapistani wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be? I live in a red state in the South. I'd say about 2/3 of the women I know well enough to be confident of their politics to that degree of detail would describe themselves as both feminists and anti-abortion/pro-life. If you want to put a name to it, they're basically second-wave feminists with a few third-wave beliefs tacked on. The real lesson here is that politics are nuanced, and the US party dich…

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?

Well social/religious conservatives often think the child has rights even during pregnancy so it's not as simple as the mothers rights.

The libertarian view tends to much more favour the parents rights to make choices for their children if I remember correctly, and obviously favour the option where the government isn't deciding for them.

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

#85

Post by bigstrat2003 »

pazimzadeh wrote: post #83
Ancapistani wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be? I live in a red state in the South. I'd say about 2/3 of the women I know well enough to be confident of their politics to that degree of detail would describe themselves as both feminists and anti-abortion/pro-life. If you want to put a name to it, they're basically second-wave feminists with a few third-wave beliefs tacked on. The real lesson here is that politics are nuanced, and the US party dich…

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 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, the only point for assigning rights which can't be argued against in that way is at conception. Thus, we should disallow abortion so we aren't depriving the fetus of its rights.

I'm not saying that's a bulletproof argument. Indeed the argument doesn't even need to be correct for my point. My point is that nothing about that argument requires any religious belief whatsoever. So it is possible. I'm also quite certain that a cleverer person than I could construct a better argument which still doesn't require any religious dogma. This is an ethical topic, not a religious one. Obviously religion has a lot to say on ethics, but that's no reason to believe that secular arguments against abortion can't exist.

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

#86

Post by nkrisc »

bji9jhff wrote: post #59

It is sad that in 2025 this needs to be repeated: fiction is not real. This statement imply that: * Simulated violence is not violence. * Simulated sex is not sex. * Simulated sorcery is not sorcery

And yet it is possible to make simulations extreme enough I would not opposed to banning them. There are some things that should not be normalized in society.

It shouldn’t be payment processors doing it unilaterally, I’ll grant that. But I’m not (and I’m sure a great many more of a silent majority) wholly opposed to the outcome.

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

#87

Post by [deleted] »

wmf wrote: post #21
timpera wrote: post #2

Considering their volume, I find it hard to believe that Valve couldn't find another, more lenient payment processor with similar fees.

It complicates things to have some games that can be purchased with credit cards and some games that can only be purchased with crypto.

[deleted]

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

#88

Post by kingo55 »

lawn wrote: post #14
bobsmooth wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bitcoin was supposed to solve this.

And you could indeed use Bitcoin on Steam for a while! But then the blocks got full, fees and wait times skyrocketed, and in response to the customer backlash Steam removed Bitcoin. Meanwhile Bitcoiners were (and still are) only focused on number go up instead of other, more productive, use cases. Such a waste.

There's now Ethereum, Base and Solana featuring US dollar stablecoins and significantly cheaper fees. If you want to go a step further and eliminate the stablecoin issuer's counterparty risk you could even pay in the base asset of ETH. Shopify allows payments from crypto now, so Steam should try it again.

Good luck censoring purchases on ETH.

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

#89

Post by Hizonner »

nkrisc wrote: post #86
bji9jhff wrote: post #59

It is sad that in 2025 this needs to be repeated: fiction is not real. This statement imply that: * Simulated violence is not violence. * Simulated sex is not sex. * Simulated sorcery is not sorcery

And yet it is possible to make simulations extreme enough I would not opposed to banning them. There are some things that should not be normalized in society. It shouldn’t be payment processors doing it unilaterally, I’ll grant that. But I’m not (and I’m sure a great many more of a silent majority) wholly opposed to the outcome.

> There are some things that should not be normalized in society.

That attitude has recently become normalized, and I find it Concerning(TM).

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