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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

#861

Post by chmod775 »

Why not just make it not purchasable with that payment option/store credit?

In many countries Steam supports plenty of alternative payment options that do not use VISA or mastercard.

Thinking about it, if a platform as enormous as Steam just completely stopped accepting VISA and mastercard, they'd a) probably still be fine b) VISA and mastercard would probably cave - few companies will prioritize outworn politics over literally billions of revenue. In fact I'd expect these two to be the last to do that. Valve would be more the type to put principles first. Too bad they didn't this time.

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

#863

Post by bigyabai »

johnb231 wrote: post #801
MrMetric wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bad-faith argument. Incest can also be between adult same-age siblings or cousins (and not everyone considers the latter case to be incest). Also, I don't insult or look down on sick or disabled people. Why are you?

[flagged]

Consider that not even a hard-line Christian puritan would agree with you in-principle. If publishers were forbidden from selling literature depicting incest, rape or genocide then the Old Testament would be removed from shelves. Clearly society has a tolerance for some of it.

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

#864

Post by wglb »

Ygg2 wrote: post #454
tptacek wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because, in expectation, they're going to lose money.

Sure, but why?

Disputed charges by the user. I know of one payment processor that specifically seeks out these high-risk businesses. Consider one of many possible scenarios would be that of a spouse who is alarmed at a charge to a clearly risque service and says "What the heck is that??" and the offender says "What the heck I don't know. Cancel the charge!"

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

#865

Post by mango7283 »

choo-t wrote: post #791
mango7283 wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I pointed out earlier, it's also valid that they are savvy enough to pick their battles and divide and conquer - you can't take down a critical mainstream success like GOT or GTA, but you can go after fringe games with content most people would be uncomfortable publicly defending.

The very same group did try to take down GTA V : https://www.collectiveshout.org/prostitution_survivors_call_...

Sure, but GTA is still on steam.

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

#866

Post by fragmede »

AngryData wrote: post #410
fragmede wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is such small potatoes compared to the results of everything going on right now though

I don't think so, it is death by a thousand cuts which is why we are in such a shitty place right now. Out rights have been attacked on all side for decades, little by little, but all together it is a huge loss.

the problem of Visa and Mastercard being against porn just seems like a such a small cut next to the US President forcing a comedian off the air for making critical remarks

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

#867

Post by slt2021 »

bgnn wrote: post #847
slt2021 wrote: post #829

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VISA/MC duopoly have like 60% margins, they are essentially a rent seeking feudal lord on the entirety global commerce. Pure leeches, that are now engaged in censorship

It shouldn't ve hard to replace them but any other new service (like Wise) end up issuing a Visa/MC card. Why can't we have an open protocol which works between any machine with NFC?

the problem is over time they erected a giant moat that is regulation and captive customer base.

I dont understand how anti-trust regulation lets Visa/MC duopoly exist (at least with current rates), they must be heaviest donors to politicians.

and once you understand how 2-3 big corporations establish oligopoly and engage in rent seeking, protected by mountains of regulations, and share some of their wealth with politicians - you understand how American extractive institutions work.

The only hope is some giant like Apple/Google completely unseat visa with their own secure payment solutions that gets around VISA/MC card system

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

#868

Post by mango7283 »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #804
mango7283 wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really should be obvious that the natural objection to "if they banned this then why not X" is "they haven't gotten around to it yet" and that the reason they can be more successful is also that they have put their money where their mouth is and also named themselves, something a counter petition will probably struggle with.

Trying to connect the dots here. GP mentioned also banning true-crime podcasts and you comment to that was "they haven't gotten around to it yet"? How defensible do you feel this position is?

1) Why haven't they banned porn game X when they banned porn game Y? -> it's just a matter of time, they've already established that they can pressure to get game x banned, they'll get to game y eventually - also, note that it should be obvious it's much easier to rally support to ban "niche incest/non-con game X" than to rally support to ban "borderline mainstream harem game Y". This is what I was referring to specifically.

2) Why haven't they banned all porn games then they banned porn game X? -> it takes a lot more effort to move the needle here. It's not for lack of trying or lack of will, it's that it's obviously much harder to get traction when you've expanded now to an entire category that includes borderline mainstream titles that will finally get defenders willing to put in the same effort as them.

3) Why haven't they banned GTA when they've banned porn game X? -> First, they've tried!. 2nd, again, same principle -> activists aren't stupid, they know they can win the battle one game at a time, and that they can't win it in one gigantic decisive swoop (conveniently enough though, you can leverage this as well to ensure you have a nice long runway to continue to do your activism and keep it as a wedge issue to push at for a nice long time)

4) Why not ban true crime podcasts when they've banned porn game X? -> see again, look, many. many people listen to true crime podcasts, and many people have also objected to them as exploitative. but why does porn game x get banned and true crime podcast Z not? because, well, duh, again, the amount of effort needed to move the needle on something many people enjoy is that much more! i don't think they don't want to, mind you, but again, it's going to take a lot more effort to get to true crime podcasts when they have a thousand other porn game XYZ's they can to work on

And lets not pretend people aren't also trying to get books banned, again, it's being done at a more selective pace, book by book, not category by category. Why is banned and not ? well, who is published by a mainstream big publishier and who is published by a niche publisher that doesn;t want to get the whole hammer on them?

Repeat at nauseam.

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

#869

Post by mango7283 »

jncfhnb wrote: post #777
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…

I can’t tell what your argument is here. BG3 does feature an incest sex scene. You can fuck the drow twins. Are you saying that BG3 should be ok because it’s a good game? Or BG3 is only ok because it doesn’t show much of the incest sex?

They're saying that if things have come to the point that activists can successfully pressure a AAA title like BG3 to be delisted from steam, then they'll worry.

What do BG3 and the title in question have in common? "incest" (though, not non-con, I don't think BG3 has such)

What does BG3 have that the other title doesn't? Critical acclaim and the support of the mainstream. THis is the same issue with GOT.

Why does BH3 have critical acclaim and mainstream support and the other title doesn't? Is this a difficult topic to grasp?

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

#870

Post by Ancapistani »

xcrunner529 wrote: post #346
Ancapistani wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. My personal belief is that life begins at conception. As a result, I’m opposed to abortion in all cases. … but I’m also an anarchist, and therefore believe it is emphatically not the state’s role to make these types of decisions for people. I don’t think there is a “right answer” here in terms of policy. Some large portion of the people will see it as a violation of their rights no matter how extreme or nuan…

There is no unique dna at conception. I know this is fun to repeat but it really shows you ignore science. .

I didn’t say there was?
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