Steam is cracking down on porn games, to keep Payment Processors happy.

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.

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.

That was kinda what I was alluding to. Apparently it worked before that, but they decided to make up extra rules or turned up enforcement.

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

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).

Found Jamie Lannister's account.

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?

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.

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 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.

Because they're functionally a utility. If they want to throw their weight around they should be forced to compete with a public option

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.

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.

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.

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

I...

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yes. Cub stuff can be banned for all I care.

Hey, no kink shaming!

What happens between two (or more) consenting adults that isn't causing harm to others is none of your business.

Don't like it? Don't do it or watch it or play games themed around it.

And don't be a sad individual who is only able to get joy from shitting on things others like. Because that life only ends in you dying miserable and alone, with nobody to mourn your passing and the last time your name is spoken being by the priest who rushes through a form-letter eulogy to get you sent off to the beyond as quick as possible.

Oh let people enjoy stuff you don't agree with

You don’t have to like it, I’m certainly not into it. Still failing to see how it not being for you justifies puritanical bans

Less vile than those who shame harmless kinks

So?
It's a game with a representation of something that can't even happen. It doesn't even get to the point where you could have a discussion about simulation creating a demand for real that some things have because it's not even remotely realistic.

It's not my cup of tea, but that just means I don't look at it.

It's because you think it's icky and you don't know how to handle those feelings, isn't it?

Fuck off

Thank you for your contribution, it's suitably appreciated.

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

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...

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.

That's true for all non precious metal currencies.

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.

The violent video games though, those are the latest satanic panic I've been aware of thanks to that idiot Jack Thompson

Drawn and CSAM don't go together

I 100% agreed. BUt maybe some people thought it sounded like a good idea.

Eh, it sounds like a good idea that incest games are getting removed.

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)

You know what? I'm going to buy some yaoi on steam out of spite. Spite yaoi.

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.

God forbid I pin the actual reason for the complaint that is effecting you and explain why.

well now we have lightning maybe the time has come to try again.

Having already had an implementation working should hopefully help

i had no idea and i've held crypto in some form or another since 2014. Maybe it wasnt marketed well

Oh, okay. Still sucks, but at least I understand now. Thanks!

They shouldn’t be allowed to do that. They should be required to process any legal payment. Even the icky ones.

I don't have any fear that Gabe will tank steam.

But I will fear what happens after him

It's not about porn, It's about corporations dictating what type of content can be sold. You may not care about porn but what if they were to start going after LGBT stuff or something like that?

Sweet summer child. Porn is the reason we have VHS, porn is the reason we have the internet, porn was doing video streaming before Netflix and YouTube. Porn is one of the greatest motivating forces in this world.

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.