2mo ago

Collective Shout Purge Sees Horror Games In Crosshairs

nmiagaming.com Collective Shout Purge Sees Horror Games In Crosshairs - 尼未亞 | Nmia Gaming

Australian activist group Collective Shout has decreed that horror games are too risque, as the recent push to have payment processors pressure platforms like

Collective shout seems to have expanded its scope: games like cult classic Fear And Hunger have been removed from Itch.io, while horror game VILE: Exhumed has been delisted from Steam just a week after launch.

Gaming @beehaw.org

Collective Shout Purge Sees Horror Games In Crosshairs

nmiagaming.com /collective-shout-purge-sees-horror-games-targeted/

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I don't get why the gaming platforms are removing games instead of removing the objecting payment providers as a payment option for purchasing those particular games.
If visa doesn't want people to purchase game X with Visa, then remove Visa as payment option for buying game X.
- Yeah, that's not what the payment processors are requesting. They aren't saying they don't want to be used to buy this content. They're saying, if your platform hosts this content at all then they won't process any payments. It doesn't matter if the option is removed if the content is still there. They're using their power of monopoly to police content.
  
  Do you have a source of where they are saying that?
  I have seen an article about the Australian political action group that was claiming credit for getting the games banned. The story behind the start of the controversy.
  And I have seen an article about the communication from Steam that they were banning games which were in conflict with the rules of their payment providers. The result basically.
  But I've only seen conjecture and speculation about what went on to get from the start to the result. I haven't seen any article that spelled out exactly what the different payment providers demanded from the gaming platforms, nor anything about what they discussed in between them.
  Edit: after 12 hours there's 4 downvoters and 0 sources. Another victory for vibes over facts.
- Itch has come out and said it's not Visa, it's PayPal and Stripe.
  Removing those payment options would cause a massive loss of revenue.
  
  But removing them from the specific games they object to would not lose any more revenue than removing the games entirely, and reduce the backlash significantly, as long as they could find 1 obscure payment provider to handle the obscure games and keep some form of access.
  
  According to the statement someone else linked now, they will ask devs about whether they comply with the payment processors' terms, and it sounds like those processors will otherwise be unavailable. They just had to blanket remove like this for now because they don't actually have sufficient knowledge about all the games' content.
  We'll see what will happen, and if it turns out devs are getting screwed in the long run, someone will fill the new market niche anyway.
  
  Likely not worth the effort.
  
  If this is true, all gamers who care about this issue of censorship should collectively boycott those payment processors. PayPal should be especially easy to disconnect from since they already suck.
  
  Yeah I already stopped using them years ago haha
- You overestimate the adaptability of the average software stack. I worked at companies where even adding another button to the cart screen was a monumental undertaking
- This is what Steam will probably do in the future, and Itch.io is already looking into it. There's a reason all this garbage hasn't splashed GOG. GOG is based in Europe, where protection laws would slap silly any financial entity trying to pull this stunt on an European company (pressure groups have weaseled censorship and moral panics with other strategies though, just not this one), and they have so many more payment processors that PayPal, Visa and MC would just be dropped entirely and immediately for any of the other dozen or so alternatives. The issue is that in the US and Australia, the three headed shit dragon already lobbied governments to pull the ladder behind them, so no other payment processor could take their place or compete with them, establishing a legal oligopoly of the old money finance club. They won and have this power due to systemic and political failures decades in the making.
- I don't get why the gaming platforms are removing games instead of removing the objecting payment providers as a payment option for purchasing those particular games.
  I think the issue isn't that the payment providers don't want to support the purchase of those games with their card. They want to stop offering their services to a platform that sells those games.
  
  It appears that in the future, Itch will allow creators to opt out of payment providers, meaning that it's probably on a per game basis, not per platform. That Itch and Steam are not making a per game solution now, is most likely because their current software doesn't allow it and they need time to rework it. Itch has promised various changes already, Steam has been mum afaik.
  Source for Itch: "For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account.". https://itch.io/updates/update-on-nsfw-content
  
  Interesting! Maybe it's a similar situation on Steam, but the payment providers demanded the platforms act immediately (or at least too soon for them to make such changes).
  Or maybe Steam gets too many chargebacks on NSFW games and is ok with this? Lol
- And then use what?
  
  A few options include American Express, Discover, JCB, and the Steam Wallet, which can be funded through Steam gift cards.
- I only use Steam myself, so I hadn't checked Itch Io's communication yet. I don't know the platform myself so it's quite possible that I'm misinterpreting this, but to me it appears that Itch Io will allow creators to delist payment options that they are not compliant with: "For NSFW pages, this will include a new step where creators must confirm that their content is allowable under the policies of the respective payment processors linked to their account.".
  Source: https://itch.io/updates/update-on-nsfw-content

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