Steam is cracking down on porn games, to keep Payment Processors happy.
Steam is cracking down on porn games, to keep Payment Processors happy.
102 comments
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While this doesn’t directly affect me, I really hate that a payment processor I don’t even use can dictate what is and is not acceptable speech.
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I can't imagine buying a porn game on Steam. And even if I did, incest holds no interest to me.
Even so, I absolutely fucking hate this crap. Payment processors are killing off content despite the producers and consumers of the content being completely fine with it. This should be a Net Neutrality issue. But I'm not seeing anywhere near the same outrage over it that there was over ISPs doing the exact same thing.
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I remember someone had a reply on something that touched on incest porn and they where like. I see it all the time but when you put in blond big boobed blowjob and the title is mom son its like who cares or such. So much porn seems to just get relabeled when it comes to incest porn. This is now a brother and sister or mom/son or father/daughter. It is wierd how that seemed to just blow up in popularity. I mean I think its been that way for a few years but I swear I did not see so much like pre covid.
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Why do they even get to know which games people buy? It should just show them "Steam purchase" and nothing else.
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Those payment processors can just look at the store and see that it sells smut. Those payment processors do their own due diligence.
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Money laundering and anti terrorism laws would be my guess.
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Agreed, this shit sucks. The credit card companies hold far too much power over what is considered viable commerce.
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This doesn't directly affect me, either, but does anyone know if it applies to all of the Interactive Sex - Futanari Incest DLC, too!? For Episodes 1-4!? Like, if any of my friends have large amounts of FutaCoinz from years of Season Passes, I wonder if they'll still be able to spend them...?
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I don't know if I want to try to find out if that is satire or actual things...
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yarrrr me maties.
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Yeah, but I like paying people to make things, and it’s not their fault. This will ultimately mean less of these things get made. For incest games, that’s no great loss, but I hate the precedent.
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Wonder where they stand on The Witcher I?
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Kind of cuts both ways though, doesn't it? The reverse of this argument is saying that the payment processors must work with Valve no matter what they host. Agree it disagree with them, but don't the payment processors get a say in what they do or do not want to process?
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No, they should have zero say because they have weaseled themselves into a position that is the equivalent of a utility or whatever ISP are classified as. Their only involvement is whether they complete transactions between parties in a legal way.
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I mean, when your service is fundamental enough to the economy, and centralized enough to make just going to an alternative a major hassle, if an alternative without a similar policy even exists, then why should they get that say? The power to effectively ban the sale of certain types of thing, or force media platforms to censor certain types of content, is the sort of power we generally reserve for governments, not private entities that can do whatever they want. Honestly they're important enough these days that they should basically be treated like some sort of public utility in my view.
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Agree it disagree with them, but don’t the payment processors get a say in what they do or do not want to process?
Absolutely not. Power companies don't get a say in what the power they supply their users with is used for, same for water companies and even ISPs. If they really, really want to enforce rules on what they will and will not process payments for, they can accept legal responsibility when they process a payment on a gun someone uses to shoot up a school or what have you. But they cant have it both ways.
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Sure, but there are so few payment processors that even a single one refusing to do business with you can be a real problem for a business. Even Valve, a big and influential company, has little choice but to capitulate to PayPal. Visa and Mastercard have even more power.
There are too many problems with crypto for it to be a viable alternative, but there’s no good way for me to pay a business (when cash isn’t an option) that doesn’t require the involvement of a third party. Limited competition means those third parties have too much power. I don’t know what it is, but there has to be a solution for that.
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Steam: I consent
Adult eroge players: I consent
Payment companies: I don't
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Luckly I. can buy anime porn games straight from source dev. Just checked and my Treasure Hunter Claire is still in my library, so guess this affects only unbought games? But I also bought the game direct too.
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I mean, that's exactly how third party payment systems have always worked. 🙄
I guess you can always try buying your porn game with Bitcoin or something.
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Payment processors and financial institutions sure do seem to hold disproportionate amounts of power.
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Any game featuring most kinds of animal, including people, is evidence that sex occurred. We should ban those too.
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If a game exists, a person made it and that person exists because someone had sex. It's disgusting how people pay to play that sort of filth.
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What goal do the payment processors have for doing things like this, is it just that they like knowing that they have the ability to control what you are and aren't allowed to enjoy? I ask this because normally, when services change their policies, it's done to improve profits. But from what I can tell, the payment processors can only lose money because they are eliminating potential revenue sources.
I will admit that I have no interest in any of the games that were removed, I've never even heard of them before today, but I don't agree with payment processors having the ability to sensor content over some schizo bullshit.
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Porn-related transactions have a higher than average rate of chargebacks. Maybe post-nut clarity motivates people to say "wait hold on I shouldn't have spent that money, I must've been hacked." Or maybe it's people saving face when confronted with a transaction log from their spouse or other family members. Or maybe it's just the type of transaction that actual card fraudsters gravitate towards, so that there really is a higher percentage of unauthorized transactions.
Gambling-related merchants also have a similar problem with payment processors. For many of them, it's just straightforward business concerns, not any kind of ethical issue in itself.
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It could also be the result of government pressure. Which government? No idea, but it may be easier to implement it system wide than try to build a regional filter to ban payments in one country but allow it in others.
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I guess so, most (if not all) governments do like abusing their power.
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payment providers are way to powerful
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Doing the right thing for the wring reason if you ask me. I don't think it was ever a good idea to sell incest games in the first place, but banning them because they make payment processors uncomfortable ? Fuck that.
I don't want payment processors to be the arbiters of what we are allowed to play !
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While I personally have absolutely no incestual relationship desires, the only rational reason be against incest is really because there is the consanguinity issue, which can result in genetic deficiencies. Same-sex incest is for example, legal in Ireland and Germany.
Morally speaking... I too find it icky, but I'm pretty sure this is the result of how we were raised to think of it as being icky. As long as everyone involved able to legally consent, and there is no abusive power dynamic in the relationship, I really don't judge. To each their own! Just don't involve me in it! LOL
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Even opposite-sex incest became legal in Sweden a couple years back. The law previously said "forbidden to have sexual intercourse with a sibling", but they changed it to "forbidden to have vaginal intercourse with a sibling". No idea if it was the (right-wing) government's intention to legalize gay-brother-sex at the same time, but here we are.
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The reason might be a slippery slope or whatever, but there's mountains of disgusting visual novel incest fantasy shit, so much that I had to filter out all sexual content from Steam even though I might enjoy occasional Sex With the Devil or some Genital Jousting.
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What are these games? Steam is littered with these and waifu porno stuff… Not kink shaming here but what’s the attraction?
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I honestly don't get it either... And I have nothing against porn, but some of these just sound and look like cheap copy/pastes and probably with little to no interactivity or gameplay. I'm curious to see how they are now, if only for comedic value.
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The more taboo a topic, the more it gets people agitated, sometimes this is channeled sexually.
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Copy Epic's model of selling "Sbucks" or similar, which you then spend on those games. Problem solved.
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I think it's not that easy. From what I understand, the payment providers enforce that for the whole store, otherwise they don't want to be involved. Quite shitty, but they have enough weight to pull shit like that off.
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We already have Steam Marketplace. You can buy stuff with your Steam Wallet.
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You can literally just "buy" stuff, and put whatever your currency is, in your wallet. so the transaction was already made, to no specific product. How are they able to track that, is utter nonsense. This is just the companies forcing them to do their bidding. I mean if those games have questionable content (and by that I mean pedophilia or zoophilia), I do agree with that, and I feel that is a responsibility from Valve itself, not other companies.
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They want to that bad? Why not remove those payment options for those games? There are a load of other payment options besides VISA and Mastercard...
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Damn it.. I was really looking forward to Brother Mother Buttfucker 2.
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Is that a new song from PSY?
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This has ruined my life.
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You don't realize it yet, but you have been saavvveeeeddddd by these wonnerful deee-sigh-pulls of Jesus! Can I get an "AMEN," brothers & sisters?!?
🙄
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I just want to jack off to video games and feel bad about it after. Why is the world intent on interfering with my tear jerking???
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This is so annoying. Even though I'm not a fan of porn games on the whole, it is extremely irritating that payment systems can decide how and when you can spend your own fucking money. We're not seven, anymore. We can take care of ourselves.
It smacks of the idiotic "babyproofing" of clearly adult spaces everywhere except bars, these days. Antiquated moral panics, just like 1954's lavender scare all over again.
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That’s bad imo
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Rip Sex Villagers
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There is no sex in
SUUS.-
This is not even exclusive to US. Those payment processors actually even tried to shut down some specific japanese dating sites/apps.
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It's funny, Patreon cracked down years ago on Incest content forcing indie porn devs to do *nudge *nudge *wink she's your "Landlady" stuff. I guess paypal just assumed Steam was cleaner until now.
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And then they release an "unofficial patch".
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New market opportunity! Steam has been banned from participating, meaning even a crappy quality platform can now compete. Though, payment processing will be the hitch, I would guess...
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It's easy to say that Valve should make a stand, but wouldn't be able to sell games anymore.
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This explains why I can't buy games right now. I tried to use PayPal and it failed but now my account seems to be blocked from any purchase. Not even direct card. When I asked support they demanded a screenshot of my cart.
Dude, Gabe, I just want to play outer wilds. There's no tits, let alone incest in Outer wilds. I've never bought a porn game in my life. Why am I being punished for a billionaire company's moral panic?
102 comments