Valve are now removing a bunch of sex games from Steam to keep banks and card companies happy
Valve are now removing a bunch of sex games from Steam to keep banks and card companies happy
why do the banks and card companies even get a say? they're just supposed to hold the money. i mean. i know they hold so much more that that and we're just allowed occasionally to hold the money. but still. that they flaunt their power over us is annoying
I find it amusing that the ultra wealthy believe pornographic images would replace an entire human relationship. Really shows how deeply warped they are, projecting they're own callous insanity onto the masses. What a small, sad existence.
I've worked in e-commerce since 2007 and I've seen every type of website/app selling all sorts of products and services. The issue the card companies have with content like this is that they have an incredibly high rate of charge backs. It's the same with gambling sites as well. Usually spouse one will discover the purchase, spouse two will claim they have no idea where the purchases came from, spouse two will say the card/account must have been compromised, then they call the card company to reverse the charges. I don't agree with the process but it is the main reason I've seen merchant accounts rejected when my clients were applying for one.
Because they make 2-5% on the transaction so they'd be making money on literal incest games. If Steam wanted to defend the incest games, they could make an alternative payment pathway that excluded the card system, but they probably also want the incest games gone.
Why do the card companies care?
Because the owners are Christian and think everyone else should be as well.
I think they fear regulation so much that they're willing to be this proactive to keep Congress off their asses.
It's still weird to me that they never seem willing to test the boundaries, though. They've got more lawyers and lobbyists than they know what to do with.
It's not related to Trump/Congress. They almost unironically got OnlyFans to ban sexual content from their own website a few years back due to the militant actions of one fringe puritanical group. They got memed so hard they eventually backed down, but MasterCard&Visa have been acting as World Sexuality Police for a very long time.
I don't think it's a rational financial decision, AFAICT they just have a puritanical leadership. As a cartel they don't have to be maximally financially efficient. Their continued existence is an artefact of the 20th century, and their corporate values reflect that.
Hopefully Wero takes off soon to introduce some competition in the online payment market.
Yeah, as if morals are high on their list of priorities…
Someone else replied and said they are all Christian. lol That must be it.
So when is someone going to make a non christian payment proccesor?
haven't found a tutorial on it yet
Ask AI
that's what crypto was invented for.
and it kind of sucks.
If Valve decides to find another payment processor, that could be a big shift in the market. I hope they do and that it's something European.
Here me out now:
ProtonPay
/s
edit: looked it up that name is taken by a crypto company. I meant valve making one to be clear.
There are a lot of things why we don't like capitalism, but this one I'm gonna love.
This will probably create a void in a market, where there will be companies with names like Horneam, Jizzbuzz, Lusteam, etc
Virtually every payment processor uses VISA/MasterCard in the back-end. For EU users PayPal can be backed by SEPA mandates instead (direct bank pre-authorization), but otherwise VISA/MC is holding payment processors by the balls in virtually every other market. Without Visa/MC, there is no way to bring funds in or out of your account.
The only alternative is to negotiate interconnection with banks directly, but that's a very high bar for broad adoption. It has happened on a small scale (e.g. Payconiq in the Benelux) and the EU is attempting to broaden that to the rest of the continent, but it's a very tough sell because they have to convince every major bank to support the new standard.
This is a textbook case where capitalism isn't the solution because there are only two market actors and a virtually insurmountable barrier to entry.
Pornhub and other adult sites did pivot heavily to crypto after being cut off from traditional payment processors.
Also maybe digital euro and digital yuan might be an alternative to this darkness
Yeah, but we need something like Lustercard, Rizza and Pornpal here, since the problem isn't on content company level.
Meanwhile, at the bank:
Meanwhile I got an email from GOG having a sale on the same today...
Anyone know what types of porn games are being banned? I assume it's those depicting csam and nonconsentual acts.
From what I read on other posts (which is to say, I haven't confirmed it so take it with a grain of salt), it was nonconsensual and incest games