- cross-posted to:
- gaming@beehaw.org
You must log in or # to comment.
A rare L for Steam.
Not exactly their fault, but I wonder what changed that made them start caring.
Not a fan of porn games (which aren’t available here anyway), but that is not a good sign.
Why would they even cater to payment providers? They should not be able to determine whether you bought a porn game or a regular game, just that it’s something on Steam.
Payment processors don’t know which game you bought. That’s not the concern.
Their concern is that the store they do business with provides services to content they deem inappropriate. Frankly, I’m surprised they allowed this much for so long given the past.
Why credit card processors are puritans, I have no idea. But MC, Visa and PayPal have historically always been super anti-porn.
They act puritan to help facilitate business in more restricted cultures like China or Vietnam. Allowing everything that is allowed in the most liberal countries wouldn’t loose them their marketshare in those countries. Disallowing it though, that opens those foreign markets with minimal negative effect to their processing volume. How many people are going to blame visa for this? Most will just blame Steam who is just conforming to the standards the processors set.
Wouldn’t that still falls under steam responsibilities? If China doesn’t like porn games, they would/should go after steam allowing the sale of such games in their market, not Visa which has no means to know what games you purchased
That is exactly why I don’t understand why they have an issue with it.
They do not know if someone is using the store to buy porn games. So why care? Their concern should be profit, not national driven policies.
They care because someone could see that it is possible to buy porn games in the steam interface (they could even make screenshots of a steam checkout page with both the name of a porn game and the visa/MasterCard/PayPal logos visible at the same time) and that would RUIN, RUIN I say, their good reputation… 😑 Because bank’s and payment provider do anything to keep their good reputation with the important people… advertisement companies and other Mc Scrounges
Payment providers are run by fuckin’ puritans…
Hey if you want to goon and not pay might I suggest F95zone a wonderful porn game forum with a very good search system. I think it’s the dot to that’s the proper site, but it’s hard to think right now because everything hurts for no fucking reason.
I didn’t know this till I heard a podcast series about this, but the global rulemakes for porn are Visa and Mastercard. They decide what “goes too far” and remove a site from their service if they don’t like it, effectively cutting off all revenue streams and killing the site. They did this with porn sites and threatened OnlyFans. There are a bunch of rules they’ve written for the industry (e.g. fingering an orofice with4 fingers was acceptable, but when the thumb goes in then it becomes “fisting” and this used to be unacceptable), but many rules are unwritten and have to be guessed.
I think this is the podcast series for anyone interested (although I heard this a long time ago and I’m not sure if it was a different series and I’m not going to listen again to confirm).
yup they did this a LONG time ago with porn sites and DVD sales. I used to work in that industry as a web developer in the early 00s. Third party billers specifically set up for the porn industry thrived because of this.
there were many silly rules like you said, no fisting, at most two fingers in the asshole, Incest was “OK” as long as it was “step-” whatever BUT you could get away with it if you laid the ground work initially and say “step-mom” or whatever and then later on just say “mom”. Step-Dad was…hit or miss if you could get away with it. Scat was a no go BUT piss was ok IF it was from Europe, sorry US folks, you’re not allowed to piss on each other and film it in the good ol United States according to Visa and Mastercard. Finally some stuff like gang bangs or “abuse” porn was fine AS LONG as the girl at the end of the video has a mini interview claiming what a great time she had while covered in jizz. Visa and Mastercard needed to ensure this lady enjoyed herself.
fucking really dumb rules and I would have LOVED to be a fly in the room when Visa and Mastercard lawyers came up with these things.
I…
This is gold!! I’d love to read more about it!! It’s very fascinating how payment system can control the type of content that is available for consumers
It was pretty wild. I wish I still had the list of visa/MC “no-nos”
I mean honestly the US government was more lax. all they wanted was us to ensure we were following the 2257 stuff and documenting all the talent.
surprisingly though American Express was a lot more “liberal” with this stuff. guess those dudes were just kinkier.
Does this mean they got rid of that one game where you drug your sister/wife repeatedly so a guy in the hallway doesn’t kill you?
12 Minutes that’s what it was called !
I thought you were talking about Crusader Kings III
Does it count as repeatedly when its in a time loop?
I would argue that since the game requires you to do it multiple times to figure out what’s going on, yes it does count as repeatedly.
This is why cryptocurrencies were created. getmonero.org
No, they were created to facilitate pyramid schemes and scams.
That’s true for all non precious metal currencies.
Not originally, but they became the very evil they sought to fight against. Some are still holding onto the good fight, most just see it as a virtual online casino.
Cool, I’ll keep transacting privately and uncensored with minimal fees, no middle man and predictable inflation with my pyramid scheme and you’re free to stick to your surveilled, censored, ever inflating FIAT.
What actual items or services are you buying with crypto? Trading and buying other crypto doesn’t count, neither does selling the crypto
If you haven’t bought illicit drugs from a darknet market, you’re doing crypto and possibly life wrong
My VPN, VPS, phone bill, bunch of games and license keys, steam points, sms verification services all directly for crypto. I also buy gift cards to grocery stores, takeout delivery apps and the local equivalent of Amazon all for crypto and use them to do most of my shopping. Other things I used it for is donating to foss projects I use and some just for fun penny gambling/predictions. Once I even got paid in crypto for some freelance work I did. If you count the gift cards most of my spending is done in crypto, usually monero.
Have a look at monerica.com and xmrbazaar.com if you’re looking for places to spend your crypto.
Buying gift cards, which are in fiat currency, defeats the whole point lol
Obviously I’d prefer to pay in crypto directly but some of the stores I shop in don’t accept it yet. In person I can pay in cash but shopping privately online is a different story. Gift cards are the next best option, and thanks to them I can use the self checkout scanner and online stores without my purchasing history being tracked. It also allows me to store my savings in a hard asset that can’t be easily confiscated, frozen, inflated or stolen, that I can permissionlessly spend whenever I need to, that no one knows how much of or if I have, that if needs be I can flee the country with in an instant without worry that it will be sized or lost. And it gives me the freedom to not be at the mercy of the banking system and just take their debit card fee, debit card issuance fee, debit card replacement fee, transfer fee, deposit fee, overdraft fee, underdraft fee, too little money fee, account having fee, fuck you what you gonna do fee…
“Gambling/predictions” I bet most of your crypto goes there, eh? And no, I’m not clicking a link that says “money america” or “bazaar”
“Gambling/predictions” I bet most of your crypto goes there, eh?
No, I’m not rich enough to be wasting money and don’t really enjoy feeling like my heart is going to jump out of my chest, gambling with literal pennies once in a blue moon is more of my style.
And no, I’m not clicking a link that says “money america” or “bazaar”
No worries, I’ll post some screenshots for you.
Screenshots
Those literally look like scam sites. How fucking dumb can cryptobros be???
On the one hand, oh noz, the incest games. Who will live without the low effort AI goon crap?
On the other hand, why do the payment companies get to dictate what sales are made? It’s my fucking money, or my fucking store. It’s not the job of the payment processors to determine if I’m buying illegal goods, just that the money goes from me to the store.
It’s been like this for a while in the porn industry. In an interview a while back, Bree Mills says she gets more limited by payment processors than the government (though that might be switching).
Ever wonder why every faux-incest video goes out of the way to say everyone is a step family? Step father, step daughter, step mother, step brother, all somehow living in the same house, over 18, and no blood relation? The first amendment protects them from the US government, so that’s not why. Credit card companies are why. The old Taboo series was distributed differently back in the day. Can’t make that anymore.
This also applies to some of the more extreme BDSM stuff, like blood play or scat. Won’t find them on kink.com.
Yeah, processors and web hosts both play a huge role in policing content. The beasiality and lolicon websites haven’t been disappearing for the last 15 years because moral awakening. It’s been the web hosts shutting down websites because they violate some local law and it interfered with there profits.
Well in germany doing porn that implies incest or csam even if the actors are not related or over 18 can still get you jail time
CSAM sure, but is incest porn really mentioned in the StGB? There’s 173 StGB, but that is for the actual act and not pretending.
Well after a bit of research it seems i was wrong with incest porn. Even the act is not punishable as long as it is not vaginal sex
I was surprised to see that you are correct. 173 StGB only mentions “Beischlaf” and that is indeed only vaginal intercourse. You learn something new every day.
Sup babe, wanna netflix and Beischlaf?
deleted by creator
The payments can become a legal liability for the processors. I believe there are federal laws that have penalties for anyone who facilitates transactions for certain prohibited goods or services. It’s the same reason cannabis shops have such a hard time getting payment and banking services.
The payment processors have very little incentive to take risks here. As others have noted, there isn’t much competition pressure.
EDIT: I went to find a source, and found the cannabis analogy isn’t right. Seems that Visa and MasterCard really are the primary censors of the porn industry. This archived FT article went in depth. https://archive.ph/zXKuD
It’s not even legal risk. It’s brand risk.
There’s a difference with cannabis shops because that’s actually still federally illegal. As such, the required business accounts and tax documents required to use a national payment processor are often not forthcoming. It’s a low level regulation that you can’t generally tell a federal bank you’d like an account to store the proceeds of a federal crime.
With porn, the legal standards and protections are pretty well established. As long as the company is in possession of the required tax documents and business accounts, there’s no legal risk beyond the standard due diligence they need to do for every customer. Visa isn’t generally liable if a tire shop is discovered to be breaking a non-financial law. What processors don’t want is to have their brand attached to something that they worry could make them look bad.
Not really. In the US, the first amendment protects a lot. Just like with YouTube censorship, capitalism has created a more restrictive regime through financial pressure than the government does. This has affected the porn industry, as well (see another comment in this subthread on that).
They are just testing their power, make you get used to it. Someday they will make pressure for some ideology. Whenever there’s a morality argument in place prepare to get fucked.
As a form of protest, we should all start scooping up incest porn games.
Found Jamie Lannister’s account.
I’m in a similar boat. I actively dislike incest/fauxcest porn and porn games. I don’t find it “naughty taboo” but gross and often fetishizing straight-up abuse. I’m not sad to see such games and videos, that I can never quite filter out because they are never consistently tagged, go. I am worried that they will try pulling the same shit as Tumblr and OF.
Why shouldn’t the payment processors get a say in the payments they process? Illegal or not, why should they be forced to process payments that facilitate things against their beliefs?
Steam could pursue other payment processing possibilities instead of acquiescing to their demands.
Because they’re functionally a utility. If they want to throw their weight around they should be forced to compete with a public option
Steam could pursue other payment processing possibilities
Imagine you can’t use visa or mastercard. What other fucking payment card acceptance system are you going to use for payment processing in under 30 seconds?
Why shouldn’t the payment processors get a say in the payments they process
Because it’s none of their business what I buy. If a store is a reputable business that isn’t defrauding me, and are a legal entity, then whatever they sell to me or I buy from them should only matter to me and the seller.
Illegal or not, why should they be forced to process payments that facilitate things against their beliefs?
So half the market can get nuked once the CEO decides whatever faith du jour they have disallows whatever?
Imagine you can’t use visa or mastercard. What other fucking payment card acceptance system are you going to use for payment processing in under 30 seconds?
This is one of the few places where I think cryptocurrency could be useful. It ain’t much, but there it is.
Incorrect! Bitcoin transactions take 10 FUCKING MINUTES.
There are countless other cryptocurrencies than Bitcoin
And literally not a single one of them is useful for the purpose of quick, efficient, and secure transactions.
Blockchains are slow and inefficient by design, since they need to build consensus. On any sufficiently popular blockchain, transactions are either fast or secure, never both.
The “fix” that the crypto industry has come up with is to re-invent banks, except with even more crime and virtually no regulations. Now you’re just entrusting FTX with your coins to enjoy “immediate” transfers, how could that possibly go wrong?
getmonero.org 1 minute average confirmation time, private by default. Eth average confirmation time is 6 seconds and right now it’s doing 16 transactions per second, not counting L2s. Blockchains are way more secure than a centralized database controlled by a financial institution that can freeze or deny you the right to use your money or fat-finger your life savings away with no recourse.
The costs are much worse than the time imo.
Bitcoin has lightning or you could use a chain with faster blocks.
Lightning Labs launched the Lightning Network in 2018 with the goal of reducing the cost and time required for cryptocurrency transaction. Specifically, the bitcoin blockchain can only process around 7 transactions per second (compared to Visa Inc., which can process around 24,000 transactions per second). Despite initial enthusiasm for the Lightning Network, reports on social media of failed transactions, security vulnerabilities, and over-complication lead to a decline in interest.
I’m not really that familiar with LN, to be honest. It looks like there’s almost $500 million in the network available for transactions (source), and according to this report, there were about 6.6 million transactions in August of 2023.
Not MasterCard or Visa levels, for sure, but also not a 10 minute wait for a transaction to complete either.
How many fingering minutes is that?
Imagine you can’t use visa or mastercard. What other fucking payment card acceptance system are you going to use for payment processing in under 30 seconds?
Amex. Discover. Diners Club. Venmo.
and will they accept me selling incredibly controversial pervert games that disgust even the most perverse?
I don’t know. Visa and MasterCard did for 20 years, so maybe. I don’t really care either way. I’m not going to judge people who play “Interactive Sex - Daddy Daughter Incest Volume 4” but I’m not going to go to bat for them either. I can think of way better hills to die on.
sure, we’re both on the same page, but pointing out non-alternative alternatives isn’t exactly a contribution to a discussion.
I feel it was a good answer to the question posed
Imagine you can’t use visa or mastercard. What other fucking payment card acceptance system are you going to use for payment processing in under 30 seconds?
These payment processors are businesses. They provide a service. Like valve does. It seems to me like you’re making an argument for valve, but not for these other businesses which only differ in the service they provide.
If your point is “our society is too dependant on a small selection of payment processors and we need better options,” that’s a separate discussion and one I don’t think I’d disagree with.
Yes, Valve and Visa/MasterCard differ massively in their service. Valve operates a store within a specific industry, Visa/MasterCard process payments across our whole society.
It should be clear to anyone that payment providers must be held to a much stricter standard and have certain requirements of neutrality imposed on them. If not then in the best case you risk destroying the “free market” part of free market capitalism, worst case you’re weakening democracy by letting unelected, unaccountable people decide what is and what isn’t legal.
There’s also no choice. Which payment processor and credit card do I choose so that I can buy any legal pornography I want? How do you even get a card that’s not.visa or MasterCard for.l general use? I’ve only ever had one of those
Well I find it a bit ironic to invoke the “free market” while simultaneously asserting they should not be free to choose who they go to market with. Isn’t the point of the “free market” that if Visa or Mastercard won’t facilitate the needs of the market, someone else will?
Payment processors should be following the most free speech laws there are, because they have de facto monopolies. If they do have a choice though, if they don’t want to support porn, then they could choose not to be a payment processor.
Ideally they should be nationalised, or perhaps internationalised.
Well I think bottom line is that’s the rub, the burden to become a payment provider is high… which it should be, but that’s because we need pretty damn good regulations on them (as obviously if their security goes to crap, the consiquences are insanely high).
In addition it kind of is a small group by design because, we can’t have it as a large group. If we have a nice even spread across 50 payment processors, then either everyone needs 50 credit cards, or every service that needs to be paid needs contracts with 50 payment services.
Because it’s not their fucking money! If someone is selling a thing, offers to sell it to me for money, and I give them money, I get the fucking thing! The processors can fuck right off with their Victorian bullshit.
Because they’re a financial institution, not an individual. They don’t have beliefs.
Arguing that corporate “beliefs” (image management) and interests take priority over societal order is ridiculous.
We regulate banks and financial institutions all the time. We regulate businesses all the time.
They should suck it up and treat businesses with legal activities and proper tax documents as just another business. Kinda like how we have laws that say that public shipping companies need to generally treat all customers the same. It’s why they don’t typically ask what’s in the box aside from questions related to operational characteristics. Porn doesn’t spontaneously ignite and threaten an aircraft, but lithium batteries can.
Arguing that corporate “beliefs” (image management) and interests take priority over societal order is ridiculous.
Good thing I’m not arguing that.
why should they be forced to process payments that facilitate things against their beliefs?
You’ll excuse me for thinking this means you think corporate beliefs are more important than the social benefits of neutral financial institutions.
To answer your question again without assuming anything about your opinion: they should be forced to process payments because they don’t have beliefs, it’s better for society if financial institutions only look at the business relevant portions of a business, and a legal obligation is perfectly sufficient to protect their business interests in reputation management. All the same reasons we don’t let shipping companies refuse customers for morality reasons.
What if these payment processors have decided it’s bad business for them to process payments for incest porn games?
🙄 On what grounds would doing so operationally impair the platform? Is it illegal? Does it prevent them from servicing other businesses in a timely fashion? Does it cost more money in a way that can’t be reflected in the service fee structure?
Explain to me what reason they would have for objecting that isn’t just a different way of phrasing “morality judgment” or “image management”.Do you also think that a shipping company should be able to refuse to ship products from businesses they don’t approve of, even if it’s functionally identical to something else they would ship?
What about either of those companies refusing service to someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity?People used to say it’s bad business to service gays, blacks, Jews, Catholics, Hispanics and the Irish. At some point we decided that businesses need to shut the fuck up and just do business without judging, or else their service has no place in society.
The free market that businesses love so much exists entirely through the grace and in the service of society at large. If they fail to at least not harm society, why should society extend that courtesy to them?shipping company should be able to refuse to ship products from businesses they don’t approve of
Sure, I don’t have a problem with that. I would use another shipping company.
What about either of those companies refusing service to someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity?
That is not remotely the same thing and a gross false equivalence.
We’re talking about platforming incest hentai games and you’re making a comparison to serving Black and queer people. I don’t think we’re going to see eye to eye on this, have a good one.
financial institutions are just like any other company, the only issue the feds try to protect them
Why shouldn’t the payment processors get a say in the payments they process? Illegal or not, why should they be forced to process payments that facilitate things against their beliefs?
Because they hold an effective monopoly over the payment process.
But they don’t hold a monopoly. And at least for now, they are private businesses. If your argument is that they should be nationalized, that’s a different conversation and I think we’d agree on more.
Because corporate religions are obviously more important than individual religions and beliefs. It goes against my beliefs to pay overdraft fees. Do you think that shit would hold up? They are constantly changing the rules that you have to follow and enforcing their will on everyone whether they use their service or not.
Religion is vile.
I’m genuinely confused about what point you are trying to make.
Edited to add, why doesn’t someone who understands the point better than I do try to elucidate? Instead of just downvoting me for stating that I didn’t understand. Like what does corporate religion mean? I’m so confused.
The banks have their own “ethical code” or “operating principle”’ which invariably are just carbon copies of the board of directors or owners religious disposition. So you get shit where capitalism is enforcing the morals of a deeply depraved peoples onto the entirety of the country and world.
I know incest is gross. But it doesn’t hurt anyone. And for them to come in and say “spending money on that filthy sin is ILLEGAL!!!” because they control the only methods by which that content can be accessed, is literally corporate fascism. It’s “rule by corporation” not cooperation as a democracy should be.
The very idea that ANYONE who supports a free state would support those who control the most wealth also controlling ALL OTHER WEALTH ON THE PLANET by virtue of limiting what it may be spent on, is so egregiously, heinously evil that I wish to personally skull fuck anyone who espouses it.
Things of questionable moral value have been available for sale for as long as money has existed. It’s not like this is new. Payment processors got into this business knowing perfectly well that some purchases may not align with their moral values. In fact, they’ve been profiting off it for decades. They don’t get to suddenly clutch their pearls now.
To be clear, I won’t miss the incest games. I just don’t like the precedent this is setting.
Processors don’t even deserve the right to even learn what morals even are. They are business entities, and shouldn’t have any rights at all, honestly. They’re just there to move money and shouldn’t get any say at all in what that means. None.
Honestly, (to your last point) fuck anyone who is into that shit in any kind of practical way.(if they wanna goon about it, that’s another discussion. But even with adding “step”, it’s kinda close to that vanta black color on the sunniest day.
But if having erotic software keeps them out of their siblings and parents and kids’ beds, then more power to em.
In a world without regulation etc… maybe. Bottom line we’ve given payment processors power. Bottom line we need to buy things in the digital world, unless crypto can actually be stabilized or designed in a way that doesn’t require an unsustainable massive energy waste and polution to use.
There either needs to be a universal good as cash payment processor that anyone can easily use… or we need to force ones that exist to transfer payments without bias.
Because I’m not a right-libertarian who ignores how corporations setup coercive structures all their own in a perversion of free association.
Steam could pursue other payment processing possibilities instead of acquiescing to their demands.
why is valve obligated to serve up this garbage? simply not being party to it is the best answer.
still nothing explaining why valve should be serving up this garbage. just downvotes. weak.
If you mean the games in question, well they aren’t obligated and they’ve clearly chosen they don’t care to bother anymore.
I wouldn’t really care if Steam decided to crack down on porn games, its their store. Payment processors being the ones to force Valve’s hands simply doesn’t sit right.
an unelected duopoly can basically dictate global laws.
definitely dystopian
Dude SWIFT has more financial power and sway than visa and mastercard. They’re the folks who manage the network that allows bank transfers to happen nigh instantaneously. So if they block you, you are fucked.
the network that allows bank transfers to happen nigh instantaneously.
Ah, so I guess Canada doesn’t use them! Haha
Payment processors should not be allowed to dictate what content they allow to be bought and what not. It’s not their job to police people, let me live ffs
Agreed. If it’s not illegal then it should be allowed. Not that I approve of this type of content, but corporations should not be selectively enforcing their morals.
I think platforms should freely moderate and that payment processors shouldn’t even know the legality
So here’s the rub. I agree with you but rules are not universal. They don’t give a shit about the money they’re making now they see the countries whose markets they can’t enter because of various laws and get pissed. So we get held to the most restricted standards that will allow them the most business. It’s bs. Basically since they want to do hypothetical business in like… Vietnam, we have to loose our smut.
Here’s what i think is likely. For one reason or another, they get excessive refund/chargeback requests regarding these types of titles and decided to act as they don’t think it’s profitable.
I don’t think they care what so ever what you buy, as long as it’s profitable for them.
I wish that was the case. It’s mostly just extreme right lobbying groups like Focus on the Family and the Alliance Defending Freedom, the same groups that control the far right, exert colonial control over impoverished African countries, and generally make the world a worse place for everyone. The same groups that manufactured cases to screw up Dobbs, Wedding cake lawsuits, and death penalty laws for LGBTQ citizens of Uganda.
We need to stop these Christians from oppressing us.
I’m already looking into organizing a secularist group, both lobbying in the style of SKG, both uncovering pseudo-secular organizations rebranding christian moralism as “common sense”.
uncovering, documenting, and analyzing them is important. even compiling other’s work on a blog is useful
The NGO called “Collective Shout” is behind this one. They are a feminist organisation against the objectification of women and the sexualisation of girls.
Do you have proof of this? Capitalism doesn’t know any sort of morality or ideology other than that which allows it to extract the most value
If that was as true as you want it to be, chick fil a would be open on Sunday.
None of that is relevant to the other comment’s point that these companies should not have that level of authority to dictate what we can or cannot purchase. If it is legal to purchase, then payment processors should not be allowed to deny the purchase. Period.
I’m not even sure those titles are legal everywhere.
Allowing digital purchase of illegal products can very well be criminal for the payment processor in certain regions.
I mean just look at those titles. “Incest daughter - BDSM”.
Which is why the retailer, Steam, already restricts certain regions from buying titles if they are deemed illegal in that region.
Again, it is not the authority of the payment processors to dictate what people can and cannot purchase. Period. No excuses or justifications will be accepted.
You are still refusing to acknowledge that regional legislation can easily prohibit purchases from sources that facilitate illegal products.
I have never heard of a case where payment processors refuse to authorize payment of a legal product because they don’t like the product.
Do you comprehend how big of a problem it is if a payment processor can’t authorize payments to steam? That’s not something they do for the fun of it. It’s because there are legal hurdles. Everyday they can’t authorize payments is lost revenue, and risk of losing customers.
I’m sorry, but you will just have to source your incest porn games from somewhere else.
I hope that the EU creates a digital currency system that is universal, and for privacy coins to become common. I don’t want to deal with American payment processors, because they want to prevent me from supporting the people who make my life better.
Payment should be a dumb pipe, allowing me and you to uphold the social contract.
I hope too, but likely will be shut down by the US, for “unfair state meddling with the free market”.
The EU is investigating a digital euro, but you won’t be pleased to learn that one of the key reasons is to increase tracking and compliance. Meaning their stated goal is to be able to restrict how the currency is used, by who, when, and on what. The EU is the very last organisation to ever create and maintain an anonymous and agnostic currency. We have that already with monero.
One protest away from being banned from using currency, from purchasing or even getting paid. Why invest in military police when you can just mass ostracise dissenters with one click
Exactly. That level of control scares me.
Ability to pay for anything legal implies accountability. I doubt payment processors are creating these rules because they’re afraid of Jesus.
They just did the math and there’s probably a ton of disputes/chargebacks on certain content.
Should two consenting adults be able to pay each other for whatever the fuck - absolutely. But dumb pipe only sounds really good until you get scammed.
I doubt payment processors are creating these rules because they’re afraid of Jesus
For starters, the biggest owners of both Visa and Mastercard are Mormons, so…
If you can’t buy these games on Steam anymore, where can you buy them?
JAST, Kagura, DlSite, Itch, Patreon, and GOG are some vendors. I recommend JAST and Kagura, since they are dedicated to perverse games. DlSite is good if you want to buy Japanese exclusive games, and then pirate the unofficially translated versions.
Note that from some countries (germany at least) you might need a vpn to access the 18+ parts of DLsite (on that note, both steam and gog have a few porn games delisted if you’re in germany, thanks to some “think of the children” people, but JAST sells them anyway if they have it)
Yeah that even applies to some games that aren’t porn games but just feature nudity like the Fear & Hunger series.
These at least show up when logged in but are there ones that you can’t see at all without VPN?
Piratebay.
either patreon or itch-io. But it does depend on the creator. You’ll find many Japanese games on dl-site for example.
They might sort of have to do this or risk being cut off, given the loss of US Net Neutrality and the new pro-business-rights administration.
We really also need payment neutrality. I don’t like the content that’s being removed, but I really don’t like that visa gets to decide that websites are allowed to show, sell, and everything else. I don’t give half a damn if someone decides to swipe their card at the heroin and machine gun store, visa shouldn’t be the one deciding that they can’t make that transaction
Fully agreed. On the service-provider side, we have ‘safe harbor’ laws: A site isn’t liable for copyrighted user-generated content as long as they have mechanisms to take down items when notified.
Liability-wise: The payment processors should have no fucking insight into what is being sold, only that they handle the transactions. Therefore, they should have no liability, similar to “safe harbor”.
Reputation-wise: I can almost see a history where Visa, for example, used a statement like “we don’t handle transactions for X” as a marketing ploy… but that is way past where we are. There’s no chance of reputational damage to a payment processor for the items for which they handled a payment. Combined with the above, if I say I’m giving $20 to Tim, you give $20 to Tim and take it from me. Done. Not your problem.
As another commenter stated, the payment processor should be a dumb pipe, and anything illegal being sold should be a liability for the seller or buyer. The idea of a moral judgement of the processor is as stupid as a water pipe to your house cutting off the flow if your shower runs too long.
The real problem is the politicians, or lobbyists/influencers, who are sending bribes to each other to gain advantage… but visa doesn’t have a problem handling a venmo transaction for ‘tuition’.
Let me buy horny games until after you block world superpower corruption first. But honestly, don’t even do that. Just handle moving the money when someone send it. That’s your only job.
There is a lot of talk dancing around the issue here. This isn’t an American thing or a Puritan thing. This is purely a capitalism thing. They have been doing this for years. Do you think lolicon got forced off of every major platform for moral reasons? It breaks laws in various counties that the web hosts and payment processors operate in. Wincest porn, CNC porn, Zoo Porn, NSFL stuff. It’s all illegal somewhere. These companies are chasing profits. Those niche topics mentioned above lock them out of expanding into some places. Like China. They don’t give a fuck about the ethics of the content. They care that they’re loosing money by not being able to conduct business in those markets. They care that hosting it makes them a target and possible have to deal with law enforment of some country, fines, or vigilante style attacks on their network. You’ll loose your little family harem video game. They don’t care. They’re making billions processing the main narket. It’s capitalism and the global economy that’s making your platforms more conservative.
“It’s just good business.” It pisses me off.
It’s not unrelated to the puritanical thing. Otherwise they wouldn’t be afraid of losing money facilitating payments for porn.
You’re like the negative photo of a boomer. “Everything I don’t like is capitalism!”
God forbid I pin the actual reason for the complaint that is effecting you and explain why.
God forbid anything be due to a loss of consumer rights due to deregulation caused by conservatives. No, instead it must be capitalism. Everything bad is capitalism. The reason China is a dictatorship is because Capitalism. Israeli ethnic cleansing as well as the prior milleniums of holy war? Believe it or not, Capitalism.
