Okay so is Steam enough of a money printer for Valve to say "well fuck you guys, we'll make our own credit card with hookers and bingo"? And hold out Half-Life 3 (only purchasable with the ValveCard) as a carrot?
The article calls out “certain adult games” which is vague. It is interesting to note that most of the delisted games were themed specifically around incest.
This doesn’t seem that odd though, as credit card companies are notoriously shy around controversial content, including adult content and drugs. It’s sort of interesting Steam didn’t introduce a secondary payment option but I can only imagine these games account for a tiny percentage of sales
For those thinking is only related to chargebacks and fraud, it is not.
VISA and Mastercard have been banning a lot of content that is not porn but has political values that are disapproved by certain billionaires and investors. There is a bunch of links I wanted to post about, such as US billionaires bragging he personally called VISA CEO to ban content on PH or japanese politicians mad at the censorship of japanese art with certain values because of these companies. But I am on phone walking home so if anyone else has such links please post.
They've colluded with the US federal government in the past on those issues as well. "Operation Choke Point" was ostensibly about fraud, but included transactions related to firearms in its scope. As a result, several major banks and payment processors dropped legitimate firearms dealers. For a while it got to the point that I was helping a couple of local gun stores contract with "high risk" payment processors that also serve the porn industry and get set up.
To this day if you're on a gun forum and mention that you use Bank of America, people will pile on to tell you horror stories of both companies and individuals having their accounts closed and funds held for weeks or months after completely legal transactions. In one case in particular, they claimed it happened after buying a backpack at a gun store.
Again, these are 100% legitimate and legal businesses. Federally licensed (FFL) gun stores had trouble for years even keeping a working business account. It was clearly not about fraud, at least not in practice.
Politics completely aside, the financial landscape for gun stores today looks a lot like the cannabis industry: a few institutions are quietly known in those communities to allow them to operate, but many choose to do business only in cash and most prefer it if given the option. The porn industry is similar from what I can see.
Try buying a second hand car and you want cash from the bank. Used to be very easy, but now you need to declare what your spending your money on.
You sold your car. O, its over 7 or 10k, well, this is getting reported to the local IRS. Where is that cash coming from, questions, questions?
Over here they are even cracking down on stuff like ebay, amazon because some people run a business on those sites and do not report the taxes. Result: If you make over 3k in the year on ebay, you need to provided your tax number, or ebay closes your account. And above 3k, it get reported to the IRS.
But wait, what happens if your a foreign national from some specific Asian countries and want to open a bank account? Refused, refused, refused... But you need a bank account for a lot of basic things. Well, tough luck. Lets not talk account closing issues.
And that is the EU, and just normal people. Nothing tax evasion, guns, or whatever. Just everybody putting up umbrella's to be sure, not understanding that when everybody does it, it really screws with people.
They are going crazy with this over regulation. Yes, i understand you want to fight black money but the people who get the big amounts will have ways to hide it. Your just hurting the normal people wanting to know what everybody is doing exactly with every cent.
You see this gradual effort to slowly phase out cash. Cashless payment are getting encouraged, cash withdrawals cost your money more and more, more questions regarding origins (so you say f it, and use bank deposits with release approvals).
Its not a surprise that we seen the increase in cryto usage (and the efforts of governments to control that also).
Trump changed banking regulations so that "reputation" can no longer be a reason for banks to "derisk" customers after crypto industry outcry, but the reason to exit customers must be factual money laundering or similar reason. But the change does concern cards, as payments are not under FDIC surveillance.
Of course it's not. Steam already has a very generous refund policy. It's hard to imaging the chargeback rate would be that high even for nsfw games when you can simply refund. Refund takes about 3~4 clicks on steam website; Chargeback takes a phone call with your bank and can get your steam account locked.
And people who laundry money out stolen cards won't do that with nsfw games. They'll do that with CSGO knifes.
And yet it is possible to make simulations extreme enough I would not opposed to banning them. There are some things that should not be normalized in society.
It shouldn’t be payment processors doing it unilaterally, I’ll grant that. But I’m not (and I’m sure a great many more of a silent majority) wholly opposed to the outcome.
I don't know what your definition of "actual" free speech is but there are certainly limits to free speech even in the US[0].
And those are just explicit limits. Try supporting Palestine on a college campus or mentioning women or gay people in any government funded scientific publication, or finding a book portraying pro-LGBT content in a library or a school curriculum that portrays slavery in a way that "makes white people feel victimized" in the South.
The term “silent majority” has a very specific political meaning.
But, in what way do you think those opposing “extreme” content being consumed by their fellow citizens are silent? State governments across the country are clamoring to censor all sorts of things, presumably to satisfy their constituents.
It's a slippery slope. It's not real but can certainly, by definition, create a situation that mimics reality to the point of assisting someone at committing a real crime that they couldn't possibly commit without the simulation.
The slippery slope is in banning speech. If you want to make the claim that simulated sex leads to crimes we have been over this a thousand times with violence in games. There is no connection, you are without a leg to stand on except your own religious indoctrination.
Adult business is legitimate business in many parts of the world and companies using their monopoly to suppress it should be a case for an Investigation.
Denmark has seen a trend where their national card network (Dankort, operating at the equivalent level to Visa and Mastercard) is seeing reduced usage.
Dane here, and I just don't see the point of using Apple or Google pay. Aside from not wanting American tech interfering in, or data harvesting, my finances, it's not any easier to use. I just touch my card to the terminal and payment happens. Some times, or if the amount is over some limit, I have to enter a pin. I cringe every time I see someone contorting their arm to pay with their watch. It's tech for the sake of tech.
Instant payment systems that go direct from bank to bank, assuming the banks, the government or any other intermediaries don't also decide to not allow it.
There's now Ethereum, Base and Solana featuring US dollar stablecoins and significantly cheaper fees. If you want to go a step further and eliminate the stablecoin issuer's counterparty risk you could even pay in the base asset of ETH. Shopify allows payments from crypto now, so Steam should try it again.
Those solutions might work for some people in some countries, but I would argue that it's not acceptable for the vast majority of customers, and they would lose a very significant portion of revenue.
It absolutely does affect me for disproportionately fraudulent activity to exist on the same system I use for routine payments. I don’t want to subsidize cc abusers with the cc processing fees I implicitly pay.
Because those sectors are particularly difficult for processors in terms of fraud and abuse. If your niche is so disproportionately problematic that cc companies don’t think it’s worth it to try to make money off you, then you should find a different solution.
The simple fact is, Visa/MC don't want to deal with porn because the number of chargebacks and fraud from porn purchases is significant and a huge outlier compared to most other charges. Their crusade against processing charges for adult material isn't about purity, it's simply business.
I'm not sure I buy the chargeback angle. It's commonly trotted out as a reason card companies would enforce censorship, but it doesn't make sense with the actions they take. Chargeback fees are paid by the merchant regardless of the chargeback's success, and are supposed to cover the costs of administering it (and then some). The very selective rules applied here are pretty odd from that angle too, if adult content chargebacks/fraud is the issue, then all of it should be the issue, not small niches.
Fraud is likely more realistic of an issue, but that's probably an issue with games in general, not just adult titles.
There are already high-risk merchant accounts with higher fees and cash reserve requirements, but AFAIK companies like Valve aren't being given any options other than comply or be destroyed.
I doubt it. If that were the case, I think they would only be complaining to Valve about the number of chargebacks issued from the Steam store. Not about genres-that-are-correlated-with-chargebacks-in-other-contexts.
Given Valve's generous refund policies, and the fact that a steam store purchase on your credit card statement looks quite innocent, and that the credit card companies didn't complain to Valve about chargebacks but about content, my guess is there are hardly any chargebacks, and this is just about moral purity.
Their generous refund policy, and more importantly their very-non-generous chargeback policy. If you chargeback a Steam purchase, your account is locked.
That's not true, anti-sex work and anti-porn activists have specifically been pressuring payment processors to assume these policies. The processors as the critical control point of this whole thing was identified decades ago and conservative christian think tanks have been pursuing this path since then.
This is part of a long-term plan to de facto ban lgbtq content without having to deal with first amendment protections. First have the payment processors ban explicit content, then have queer content categorized as explicit.
If they continued to carry any of the games that were singled out for removal by Visa and Mastercard, they would not be able to accept credit card payments for anything else in their store. This same drama has played out the same way with countless other online services.
Controversial games being restricted to purchase only with Steam Points. The credit card is only ever charged to buy points, which can then be used to purchase items on the store. Similar to fortnite.
My understanding is that it's not just the processor, but Visa/Mastercard themselves have rules against certain types of merchants/products... they really have a monopoly on credit cards in general so you have to play by their rules.
You're right, but it's slightly more complicated than that.
My understanding is that payment processors are obligated to follow the policies of Visa/MasterCard, AmEx, and Discover, but that those parties' policies don't explicitly ban these specific things for sale. Instead, they "strongly encourage" processors to ban them in their user agreements under the implicit threat of their risk level being increased, which in turn impacts the fees they pay to the credit card companies.
I've not been deep in this world since ~2014, but at that time the only processor I could find that wasn't specific to the porn industry, offered physical terminals, had reasonable (if high) fees, and didn't ban legal transactions in their user agreement was PAI ("Payment Alliance International"). A quick look at their site today shows that they seem to have been acquired by Brinks, so that may no longer be the case.
They could support a stablecoin like USDC and start pushing people to that. No censorship and lower fees. Valve broke ground with Steam, they could do it again.
The problem with that is that you usually end up using traditional payment rails (e.g. a Visa debit card) to "invisibly" buy the stablecoin and then you're subject to their rules and fees again.
God lord you people are still trying to make this happen. Consumers don't want cryptocurrency. It has been irredemably tainted by scammers, grifters, human traffickers, drug dealers and despotic regimes.
Early crypto believer here. My first purchase of Bitcoin was at $0.23. I've been through the ups and downs, used the proceeds to buy physical assets over the years (land, and one vehicle), and lost interest in the "community" shortly after Ethereum gained initial popularity. I still hold some crypto, mostly Bitcoin but also Ethereum, Monero, and a handful of altcoins that don't amount to enough to bother withdrawing.
My hot take take: Crypto still fills a valuable role, and will still "take over" the global financial system both at the individual and institutional level. Whether that's Bitcoin, another coin, or something new created by the institutions themselves is yet to be seen.
You're right that it's "tainted", of course. That's why I think we're in a (hopefully) long slump in adoption. I think that will rapidly change if and when the US Dollar loses its place as the world's reserve currency.
At some point there will be a war or significant political disruption. A large part of the world will want to divest itself of dollars, and none of the state-backed alternatives will be stable enough for their needs. That's when we'll see a shift to crypto - first some international institutions that do business across ideological borders, then the rest of the internationals, then individuals.
Unless and until that happens, things will continue to slowly grow. The boom/bust cycle will keep going, getting longer and lower magnitude over time. There's still money to be made in speculation, but that's not what interests me :)
> At some point there will be a war or significant political disruption. A large part of the world will want to divest itself of dollars, and none of the state-backed alternatives will be stable enough for their needs. That's when we'll see a shift to crypto - first some international institutions that do business across ideological borders, then the rest of the internationals, then individuals.
Sorry how would crypto end up more stable than any candidates for a reserve currency? The only thing even remotely stable in the crypto world are stablecoins which... are pegged to the dollar (the actual reserve currency) which is already unstable in your scenario.
You need to be more specific. Conflating "adult content" with porn is both problematic is masks the real issue. A large majority of games Valve sells are adult content. But as you can imagine grand theft auto is not causing a lot of political backlash, despite the objectionable content.
But is there a good reason to do a chargeback if you can easily refund it? Yes if someone stole the CC and used it buy something on Steam, but is that the concern or that someone buys something with a CC on their own account, and then chargebacks instead of refunding?
The fact that these were specifically incest games makes me think a title was somehow involved in distributing CSAM, which is often why Visa/MC crack down on porn websites.
But it is possible that Visa sensibly and correctly said "anyone who makes or purchases such a game is a despicable scumbag, and we shouldn't assume the financial risk of dealing with them."
That's a pretty wild idea for what someone would be putting on steam as a visual novel. And why would they need to be pressured into removing horrible illegal content?
Or you think one person did that and it made the credit cards decide any story with incest would be the same? That would be ridiculous on their part.
I think the government should be the one deciding what makes someone qualify as a despicable scumbag, not a private payment processor that is essentially acting as a utility provider. I also don't think an electric company should be allowed to shut cancel your electricity if they don't like your mismatched socks.
I live in a red state in the South. I'd say about 2/3 of the women I know well enough to be confident of their politics to that degree of detail would describe themselves as both feminists and anti-abortion/pro-life.
If you want to put a name to it, they're basically second-wave feminists with a few third-wave beliefs tacked on.
The real lesson here is that politics are nuanced, and the US party dichotomy doesn't come close to covering it.
I consider myself an AnCap (shocking given my username, I know), but grew up here surrounded by Republicans. I fit in well enough overall because this is where I developed my "social mask" in the first place. I lived in a community with nearly directly opposite politics (Charlottesville, VA) for a few years and found that I fit in pretty well with that crowd as well.
I share enough with both parties that I can have conversations on things that I agree with them on and connect to the point that they assume that I'm "one of them". Invariably, once conversation turns to other topics I'm accused of being a member of the other party. It's to the point that it amuses me when it happens, and I frankly enjoy being in a place where I can connect with most everyone and serve as a sort of translator: I've spent enough time "in enemy territory" from their perspectives that I can explain the other side's position fairly and with empathy while explicitly not holding that position. It makes for stimulating conversation with little risk of offense.
> Because "anti-abortion/pro-life" removes a right from women. Trading the rights of a developed adult for the rights of a hypothetical future person.
Their perspective is that abortion is killing a human being. Given that, it’s entirely consistent.
> What does ancapistanism have to do with it?
Nothing, other than that I was providing some context on where I’m coming from.
> Is there a non-religious reason to be against the right to choose abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy?
While religion is certainly a factor for a lot of these people, this question doesn’t make sense to me. Is there a non-religious reason to be against killing any person, regardless of age?
The base difference in perspective is that the other side here believes that the fetus is a human being, with all the rights that come with it.
Well social/religious conservatives often think the child has rights even during pregnancy so it's not as simple as the mothers rights.
The libertarian view tends to much more favour the parents rights to make choices for their children if I remember correctly, and obviously favour the option where the government isn't deciding for them.
> Is there a non-religious reason to be against the right to choose abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy?
Of course there is. It's not hard to construct an argument to that effect either. For example: let's agree for the sake of argument that a newborn has moral rights, and that gametes do not. It doesn't make much sense to give the fetus moral rights only based on its physical location, therefore at some point between conception and birth the fetus gains moral rights. No matter what point n we choose, the objection "why is one day earlier any better" seems pretty persuasive. Therefore, by induction, the only point for assigning rights which can't be argued against in that way is at conception. Thus, we should disallow abortion so we aren't depriving the fetus of its rights.
I'm not saying that's a bulletproof argument. Indeed the argument doesn't even need to be correct for my point. My point is that nothing about that argument requires any religious belief whatsoever. So it is possible. I'm also quite certain that a cleverer person than I could construct a better argument which still doesn't require any religious dogma. This is an ethical topic, not a religious one. Obviously religion has a lot to say on ethics, but that's no reason to believe that secular arguments against abortion can't exist.
well, something like this can't be fixed overnight. I think Valve have more than earned a benefit of the doubt with this kind of stuff. I don't know if they are thinking on ways around this issue or not, but I would bet highly that they are. Problem is the credit card companies have them (and everyone else) by the balls because any attempt to continue hosting those gmaes but accept alternative payments for them would be retaliated against and MC et al might cut them off entirely, which would be devastating. I'm not sure there is a good solution to this that doesn't involve change of law/regulation i.e. lobbying
Simulated "immoral" activity could be considered a moral gray area. If nothing else, morality is subjective.
So I think it's reasonable to argue for private, individual consumption of morally subjective material (not least of which is the logistical difficulty of preventing such things), as well as the right to create and sell such things. (You or I might approve of or oppose those things, but that's a different argument from what I make below.)
Aside from that, I don't think Valve or a payment processor is obligated to be a neutral party. Whether it might come from collective consumer backlash or whoever makes decisions for an organization deciding what they will or will not allow to flow through their system, I think they too should have the right to allow or ban things. If publishers and consumers want their morally gray content, so be it, but don't feel entitled to have Steam and VISA along for the ride if they don't want to be.
Hypothetically, Valve might prefer Steam be neutral, because money. But then they have the option to fight their payment processor or look for alternatives, rather than "forcing" their payment processor to be a part of something that the payment processor opposes.
TL;DR when a morally subjective issue involves a lot of parties, every party should have the right to "opt out" if they are morally opposed. (in my opinion)
I think the trouble here stems from the lack of alternatives to the small group of payment processors. The near-monopoly allows their choices to override the choice of all the other involved groups, and almost no viable alternatives exist for Valve to move to if they disagree.
Payment processors banning companies from using them for anything other than illegal use or fraud issues seems like pretty egregious overreach to me.
They shouldn't be able to leverage their nigh monopoly on modern payment processing to choose winners and losers in the marketplace.
They are using pornography as a wedge issue to establish that they get to dictate what companies are allowed to exist in the modern distributed market.
It would be entirely reasonable to legally require them to act blindly towards retailers, with restrictions needing to be based on universally applied financial criteria.
Card payments have become inseparable from modern life.
Regulate them as a financial utility. The electric company or water company can't refuse to hook up a business just because the owner doesn't like that business.
It's interesting that Valve sort of put themselves in this situation by opting not to police their store anymore.
I'm personally a fan of fewer restrictions on content in video games and fewer "gatekeepers" but it's kind of inevitable that people would get upset when you chose to allow people to sell games like "Sex With Hitler" and "Pimp Life: Sex Simulator". Deciding to allow that content on your store and simultaneously not going to bat for it is weird, it's like they decided to just get the porn money while they could as a short-term boost to revenue.
Itch.io still has fewer restrictions but I assume they'll eventually have to clamp down too once payment processors cut them off - they don't have the financial resources to fight it like Valve or Epic do.
Interestingly Nintendo has as of late relaxed their restrictions too, you can find porn-adjacent shovelware on the Switch eShop despite their history of being very censorious. I wonder if payment processors will successfully push them around too or if Nintendo is too big to get pushed around.
> it's kind of inevitable that people would get upset when you chose to allow people to sell games like "Sex With Hitler" and "Pimp Life: Sex Simulator".
The problem isn't some people being upset, it's that a single digit number of companies effectively control the ability for anyone else in the world to do business with them. Those companies get lobbied as much as politicians but with no accountability and any overreach being far less visible. And no freedom of speech rules.
Okay so is Steam enough of a money printer for Valve to say "well fuck you guys, we'll make our own credit card with hookers and bingo"? And hold out Half-Life 3 (only purchasable with the ValveCard) as a carrot?
Link for the petition and its signers.
https://www.collectiveshout.org/open-letter-to-payment-proce...
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Steam-Payment-providers-force-V...
credit card companies (Mc?) did the same with mindgeek. No due process. Just revoked their access to CC networks.
mindgeek then wiped all _unconfirmed_ content regardless of whether it was revenge porn or not.
The article calls out “certain adult games” which is vague. It is interesting to note that most of the delisted games were themed specifically around incest.
https://bsky.app/profile/steamdb.info/post/3lu32vdlsmg27
Wondering if this will be a slippery slope towards pulling more anodyne stuff.
> Themed around incest
> links bluesky
Sounds about right.
This doesn’t seem that odd though, as credit card companies are notoriously shy around controversial content, including adult content and drugs. It’s sort of interesting Steam didn’t introduce a secondary payment option but I can only imagine these games account for a tiny percentage of sales
Specifically incest, rape, and child abuse-themed games.
For those thinking is only related to chargebacks and fraud, it is not.
VISA and Mastercard have been banning a lot of content that is not porn but has political values that are disapproved by certain billionaires and investors. There is a bunch of links I wanted to post about, such as US billionaires bragging he personally called VISA CEO to ban content on PH or japanese politicians mad at the censorship of japanese art with certain values because of these companies. But I am on phone walking home so if anyone else has such links please post.
Yep.
They've colluded with the US federal government in the past on those issues as well. "Operation Choke Point" was ostensibly about fraud, but included transactions related to firearms in its scope. As a result, several major banks and payment processors dropped legitimate firearms dealers. For a while it got to the point that I was helping a couple of local gun stores contract with "high risk" payment processors that also serve the porn industry and get set up.
To this day if you're on a gun forum and mention that you use Bank of America, people will pile on to tell you horror stories of both companies and individuals having their accounts closed and funds held for weeks or months after completely legal transactions. In one case in particular, they claimed it happened after buying a backpack at a gun store.
Again, these are 100% legitimate and legal businesses. Federally licensed (FFL) gun stores had trouble for years even keeping a working business account. It was clearly not about fraud, at least not in practice.
Politics completely aside, the financial landscape for gun stores today looks a lot like the cannabis industry: a few institutions are quietly known in those communities to allow them to operate, but many choose to do business only in cash and most prefer it if given the option. The porn industry is similar from what I can see.
Unfortunately, cash is slowly getting phased out.
Try buying a second hand car and you want cash from the bank. Used to be very easy, but now you need to declare what your spending your money on.
You sold your car. O, its over 7 or 10k, well, this is getting reported to the local IRS. Where is that cash coming from, questions, questions?
Over here they are even cracking down on stuff like ebay, amazon because some people run a business on those sites and do not report the taxes. Result: If you make over 3k in the year on ebay, you need to provided your tax number, or ebay closes your account. And above 3k, it get reported to the IRS.
But wait, what happens if your a foreign national from some specific Asian countries and want to open a bank account? Refused, refused, refused... But you need a bank account for a lot of basic things. Well, tough luck. Lets not talk account closing issues.
And that is the EU, and just normal people. Nothing tax evasion, guns, or whatever. Just everybody putting up umbrella's to be sure, not understanding that when everybody does it, it really screws with people.
They are going crazy with this over regulation. Yes, i understand you want to fight black money but the people who get the big amounts will have ways to hide it. Your just hurting the normal people wanting to know what everybody is doing exactly with every cent.
You see this gradual effort to slowly phase out cash. Cashless payment are getting encouraged, cash withdrawals cost your money more and more, more questions regarding origins (so you say f it, and use bank deposits with release approvals).
Its not a surprise that we seen the increase in cryto usage (and the efforts of governments to control that also).
>You sold your car. O, its over 7 or 10k, well, this is getting reported to the local IRS. Where is that cash coming from, questions, questions?
(I'm not in the US)
I'm curious about how does that happen. Do they reach out to you? Your bank?
Visa/MasterCard porn ban was driven by American extremist Christian organisation called Exodus Cry, which is also anti-gay, etc.
https://screenshot-media.com/politics/human-rights/pornhub-p...
Exodus Cry leader was later fired for sexual misconduct
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/anti...
Trump changed banking regulations so that "reputation" can no longer be a reason for banks to "derisk" customers after crypto industry outcry, but the reason to exit customers must be factual money laundering or similar reason. But the change does concern cards, as payments are not under FDIC surveillance.
Of course it's not. Steam already has a very generous refund policy. It's hard to imaging the chargeback rate would be that high even for nsfw games when you can simply refund. Refund takes about 3~4 clicks on steam website; Chargeback takes a phone call with your bank and can get your steam account locked.
And people who laundry money out stolen cards won't do that with nsfw games. They'll do that with CSGO knifes.
It is sad that in 2025 this needs to be repeated: fiction is not real.
This statement imply that:
* Simulated violence is not violence.
* Simulated sex is not sex.
* Simulated sorcery is not sorcery
[dead]
And yet it is possible to make simulations extreme enough I would not opposed to banning them. There are some things that should not be normalized in society.
It shouldn’t be payment processors doing it unilaterally, I’ll grant that. But I’m not (and I’m sure a great many more of a silent majority) wholly opposed to the outcome.
> There are some things that should not be normalized in society.
That attitude has recently become normalized, and I find it Concerning(TM).
Yeah, who gets to decide whats too far?
There's a similar issue with free speech - the moment you ban certain speech the door to banning your political opposition opens.
From what I can tell, only one country in the world has free speech. Actual free speech. USA.
Its dying fast. The Late Show was just cancelled because it was a massive thorn to the POTUS.
I don't know what your definition of "actual" free speech is but there are certainly limits to free speech even in the US[0].
And those are just explicit limits. Try supporting Palestine on a college campus or mentioning women or gay people in any government funded scientific publication, or finding a book portraying pro-LGBT content in a library or a school curriculum that portrays slavery in a way that "makes white people feel victimized" in the South.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
The term “silent majority” has a very specific political meaning.
But, in what way do you think those opposing “extreme” content being consumed by their fellow citizens are silent? State governments across the country are clamoring to censor all sorts of things, presumably to satisfy their constituents.
It's a slippery slope. It's not real but can certainly, by definition, create a situation that mimics reality to the point of assisting someone at committing a real crime that they couldn't possibly commit without the simulation.
The slippery slope is in banning speech. If you want to make the claim that simulated sex leads to crimes we have been over this a thousand times with violence in games. There is no connection, you are without a leg to stand on except your own religious indoctrination.
Go over it one more time then! AI revenge porn is clearly a good thing?
https://www.pcmag.com/news/take-it-down-act-deepfake-revenge...
Should also ban GTA then. /s
What can be done to loosen card companies' grip on this? It has been a constant problem now for decades.
Regulation and anti cartel laws.
Adult business is legitimate business in many parts of the world and companies using their monopoly to suppress it should be a case for an Investigation.
Denmark has seen a trend where their national card network (Dankort, operating at the equivalent level to Visa and Mastercard) is seeing reduced usage.
They're aiming to reverse that trend.
https://cphpost.dk/2025-06-28/general/new-political-agreemen...
Not all European countries still have these independent networks.
Seeing reduced use partially because only a few banks support using it in Apple Pay. And Google Pay can't support it at all currently
Dane here, and I just don't see the point of using Apple or Google pay. Aside from not wanting American tech interfering in, or data harvesting, my finances, it's not any easier to use. I just touch my card to the terminal and payment happens. Some times, or if the amount is over some limit, I have to enter a pin. I cringe every time I see someone contorting their arm to pay with their watch. It's tech for the sake of tech.
Sincerely, Ted K.
Instant payment systems that go direct from bank to bank, assuming the banks, the government or any other intermediaries don't also decide to not allow it.
Or cryptocurrency, I guess.
Bitcoin was supposed to solve this.
You can get Pornhub subscription with Bitcoin, but not credit card.
And you could indeed use Bitcoin on Steam for a while!
But then the blocks got full, fees and wait times skyrocketed, and in response to the customer backlash Steam removed Bitcoin.
Meanwhile Bitcoiners were (and still are) only focused on number go up instead of other, more productive, use cases.
Such a waste.
There's now Ethereum, Base and Solana featuring US dollar stablecoins and significantly cheaper fees. If you want to go a step further and eliminate the stablecoin issuer's counterparty risk you could even pay in the base asset of ETH. Shopify allows payments from crypto now, so Steam should try it again.
Good luck censoring purchases on ETH.
Exactly. It's really a tragedy that crypto becomes a speculator's tool, and the real problem didn't even get solved.
Use ACH/Zelle/Paypal/etc.
The permanent solution is a federal government operated electronic money system operated as a utility with constitutionally protected rights.
PayPal has also been involved in this.
Those solutions might work for some people in some countries, but I would argue that it's not acceptable for the vast majority of customers, and they would lose a very significant portion of revenue.
in a word, regulation.
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"It doesn't personally affect me so I don't care."
It absolutely does affect me for disproportionately fraudulent activity to exist on the same system I use for routine payments. I don’t want to subsidize cc abusers with the cc processing fees I implicitly pay.
Why do you think it's fair/acceptable to strongarm niche sectors that want to process credit cards just like everyone else?
Because those sectors are particularly difficult for processors in terms of fraud and abuse. If your niche is so disproportionately problematic that cc companies don’t think it’s worth it to try to make money off you, then you should find a different solution.
Likely nothing.
The simple fact is, Visa/MC don't want to deal with porn because the number of chargebacks and fraud from porn purchases is significant and a huge outlier compared to most other charges. Their crusade against processing charges for adult material isn't about purity, it's simply business.
I'm not sure I buy the chargeback angle. It's commonly trotted out as a reason card companies would enforce censorship, but it doesn't make sense with the actions they take. Chargeback fees are paid by the merchant regardless of the chargeback's success, and are supposed to cover the costs of administering it (and then some). The very selective rules applied here are pretty odd from that angle too, if adult content chargebacks/fraud is the issue, then all of it should be the issue, not small niches.
Fraud is likely more realistic of an issue, but that's probably an issue with games in general, not just adult titles.
There are already high-risk merchant accounts with higher fees and cash reserve requirements, but AFAIK companies like Valve aren't being given any options other than comply or be destroyed.
I doubt it. If that were the case, I think they would only be complaining to Valve about the number of chargebacks issued from the Steam store. Not about genres-that-are-correlated-with-chargebacks-in-other-contexts.
Given Valve's generous refund policies, and the fact that a steam store purchase on your credit card statement looks quite innocent, and that the credit card companies didn't complain to Valve about chargebacks but about content, my guess is there are hardly any chargebacks, and this is just about moral purity.
> Given Valve's generous refund policies,
Their generous refund policy, and more importantly their very-non-generous chargeback policy. If you chargeback a Steam purchase, your account is locked.
Can you link a reliable source for this claim? I personally couldn't find anything with substance.
I can't imagine people are risking their steam accounts to ripoff a $5 adult game
Visa charge a fee for processing chargebacks, and this will be a tiny fraction of Steam sales. I doubt it's their concern.
That's not true, anti-sex work and anti-porn activists have specifically been pressuring payment processors to assume these policies. The processors as the critical control point of this whole thing was identified decades ago and conservative christian think tanks have been pursuing this path since then.
This is part of a long-term plan to de facto ban lgbtq content without having to deal with first amendment protections. First have the payment processors ban explicit content, then have queer content categorized as explicit.
Considering their volume, I find it hard to believe that Valve couldn't find another, more lenient payment processor with similar fees.
It complicates things to have some games that can be purchased with credit cards and some games that can only be purchased with crypto.
If they continued to carry any of the games that were singled out for removal by Visa and Mastercard, they would not be able to accept credit card payments for anything else in their store. This same drama has played out the same way with countless other online services.
Controversial games being restricted to purchase only with Steam Points. The credit card is only ever charged to buy points, which can then be used to purchase items on the store. Similar to fortnite.
My understanding is that it's not just the processor, but Visa/Mastercard themselves have rules against certain types of merchants/products... they really have a monopoly on credit cards in general so you have to play by their rules.
You're right, but it's slightly more complicated than that.
My understanding is that payment processors are obligated to follow the policies of Visa/MasterCard, AmEx, and Discover, but that those parties' policies don't explicitly ban these specific things for sale. Instead, they "strongly encourage" processors to ban them in their user agreements under the implicit threat of their risk level being increased, which in turn impacts the fees they pay to the credit card companies.
I've not been deep in this world since ~2014, but at that time the only processor I could find that wasn't specific to the porn industry, offered physical terminals, had reasonable (if high) fees, and didn't ban legal transactions in their user agreement was PAI ("Payment Alliance International"). A quick look at their site today shows that they seem to have been acquired by Brinks, so that may no longer be the case.
MasterCard have a specific restricted list that bans an awful lot of things in any adult context.
Some of how to interpret that is left up to the processor, but it is broadly under MCs and to a lesser extent Visa's control.
Yep, they are a just a modern day mafia. "Would be a real shame if you didn't take down these games. Then we couldn't do business with you anymore."
There are no other payment processors.
In some countries there are other systems. It's high time the modern world adopted something similar like Pix in Brazil.
There are no other payment processors that can replace Visa/Mastercard*.
There are other payment processors in India/Japan/China/Brazil/etc. But none of them is internationally adopted like Visa/Mastercard.
There are national issuers like JCB or UnionPay.
They could support a stablecoin like USDC and start pushing people to that. No censorship and lower fees. Valve broke ground with Steam, they could do it again.
nah. USDC funds can be frozen by Circle on demand/request.
You wouldn’t be buying or holding any USDC in your account. It would be invisible to you
The problem with that is that you usually end up using traditional payment rails (e.g. a Visa debit card) to "invisibly" buy the stablecoin and then you're subject to their rules and fees again.
Would you care to explain the process more? I'd be glad to see a useful application of crypto.
God lord you people are still trying to make this happen. Consumers don't want cryptocurrency. It has been irredemably tainted by scammers, grifters, human traffickers, drug dealers and despotic regimes.
Early crypto believer here. My first purchase of Bitcoin was at $0.23. I've been through the ups and downs, used the proceeds to buy physical assets over the years (land, and one vehicle), and lost interest in the "community" shortly after Ethereum gained initial popularity. I still hold some crypto, mostly Bitcoin but also Ethereum, Monero, and a handful of altcoins that don't amount to enough to bother withdrawing.
My hot take take: Crypto still fills a valuable role, and will still "take over" the global financial system both at the individual and institutional level. Whether that's Bitcoin, another coin, or something new created by the institutions themselves is yet to be seen.
You're right that it's "tainted", of course. That's why I think we're in a (hopefully) long slump in adoption. I think that will rapidly change if and when the US Dollar loses its place as the world's reserve currency.
At some point there will be a war or significant political disruption. A large part of the world will want to divest itself of dollars, and none of the state-backed alternatives will be stable enough for their needs. That's when we'll see a shift to crypto - first some international institutions that do business across ideological borders, then the rest of the internationals, then individuals.
Unless and until that happens, things will continue to slowly grow. The boom/bust cycle will keep going, getting longer and lower magnitude over time. There's still money to be made in speculation, but that's not what interests me :)
> At some point there will be a war or significant political disruption. A large part of the world will want to divest itself of dollars, and none of the state-backed alternatives will be stable enough for their needs. That's when we'll see a shift to crypto - first some international institutions that do business across ideological borders, then the rest of the internationals, then individuals.
Sorry how would crypto end up more stable than any candidates for a reserve currency? The only thing even remotely stable in the crypto world are stablecoins which... are pegged to the dollar (the actual reserve currency) which is already unstable in your scenario.
Price stability is a function of liquidity and velocity. Both would increase, thereby increasing stability.
They also use dollars and credit cards and gift cards.
Adult content has a high chargeback rate and high fraud rates so payment processing for adult content has higher fees.
People say that a lot but I haven't seen actual statistics, and sites that have established low chargeback rates face the same issues.
Also that's not a reason to ban certain genres/kinks, which is what's happening here.
You need to be more specific. Conflating "adult content" with porn is both problematic is masks the real issue. A large majority of games Valve sells are adult content. But as you can imagine grand theft auto is not causing a lot of political backlash, despite the objectionable content.
Which makes less sense when you consider Steam will refund you game if you dont want it.
I don’t think you understand what’s being said. He’s not talking about the ability to refund
But is there a good reason to do a chargeback if you can easily refund it? Yes if someone stole the CC and used it buy something on Steam, but is that the concern or that someone buys something with a CC on their own account, and then chargebacks instead of refunding?
The fact that these were specifically incest games makes me think a title was somehow involved in distributing CSAM, which is often why Visa/MC crack down on porn websites.
But it is possible that Visa sensibly and correctly said "anyone who makes or purchases such a game is a despicable scumbag, and we shouldn't assume the financial risk of dealing with them."
That's a pretty wild idea for what someone would be putting on steam as a visual novel. And why would they need to be pressured into removing horrible illegal content?
Or you think one person did that and it made the credit cards decide any story with incest would be the same? That would be ridiculous on their part.
I think the government should be the one deciding what makes someone qualify as a despicable scumbag, not a private payment processor that is essentially acting as a utility provider. I also don't think an electric company should be allowed to shut cancel your electricity if they don't like your mismatched socks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Tankard_Reist#Collecti...
> a "pro-life feminist"
What.
Seriously what? I thought pro-choice is a core tenet of feminism?
You could have clicked the link embedded in the very text you're quoting, to read an explanation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_feminism
Why would it be?
I live in a red state in the South. I'd say about 2/3 of the women I know well enough to be confident of their politics to that degree of detail would describe themselves as both feminists and anti-abortion/pro-life.
If you want to put a name to it, they're basically second-wave feminists with a few third-wave beliefs tacked on.
The real lesson here is that politics are nuanced, and the US party dichotomy doesn't come close to covering it.
I consider myself an AnCap (shocking given my username, I know), but grew up here surrounded by Republicans. I fit in well enough overall because this is where I developed my "social mask" in the first place. I lived in a community with nearly directly opposite politics (Charlottesville, VA) for a few years and found that I fit in pretty well with that crowd as well.
I share enough with both parties that I can have conversations on things that I agree with them on and connect to the point that they assume that I'm "one of them". Invariably, once conversation turns to other topics I'm accused of being a member of the other party. It's to the point that it amuses me when it happens, and I frankly enjoy being in a place where I can connect with most everyone and serve as a sort of translator: I've spent enough time "in enemy territory" from their perspectives that I can explain the other side's position fairly and with empathy while explicitly not holding that position. It makes for stimulating conversation with little risk of offense.
Because "anti-abortion/pro-life" removes a right from women. Trading the rights of a developed adult for the rights of a hypothetical future person.
What does ancapistanism have to do with it? Is there a non-religious reason to be against the right to choose abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy?
> Because "anti-abortion/pro-life" removes a right from women. Trading the rights of a developed adult for the rights of a hypothetical future person.
Their perspective is that abortion is killing a human being. Given that, it’s entirely consistent.
> What does ancapistanism have to do with it?
Nothing, other than that I was providing some context on where I’m coming from.
> Is there a non-religious reason to be against the right to choose abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy?
While religion is certainly a factor for a lot of these people, this question doesn’t make sense to me. Is there a non-religious reason to be against killing any person, regardless of age?
The base difference in perspective is that the other side here believes that the fetus is a human being, with all the rights that come with it.
Well social/religious conservatives often think the child has rights even during pregnancy so it's not as simple as the mothers rights.
The libertarian view tends to much more favour the parents rights to make choices for their children if I remember correctly, and obviously favour the option where the government isn't deciding for them.
> Is there a non-religious reason to be against the right to choose abortion up to 24 weeks of pregnancy?
Of course there is. It's not hard to construct an argument to that effect either. For example: let's agree for the sake of argument that a newborn has moral rights, and that gametes do not. It doesn't make much sense to give the fetus moral rights only based on its physical location, therefore at some point between conception and birth the fetus gains moral rights. No matter what point n we choose, the objection "why is one day earlier any better" seems pretty persuasive. Therefore, by induction, the only point for assigning rights which can't be argued against in that way is at conception. Thus, we should disallow abortion so we aren't depriving the fetus of its rights.
I'm not saying that's a bulletproof argument. Indeed the argument doesn't even need to be correct for my point. My point is that nothing about that argument requires any religious belief whatsoever. So it is possible. I'm also quite certain that a cleverer person than I could construct a better argument which still doesn't require any religious dogma. This is an ethical topic, not a religious one. Obviously religion has a lot to say on ethics, but that's no reason to believe that secular arguments against abortion can't exist.
if I was doing a couple of billion a year in transactions then the payment processor would be told where to shove it
Okay, then you'd go from a billion a year to zero. Congratulations.
A couple of billion is an insignificant fraction of the $10000bn MasterCard processes every year.
which is relevant how exactly?
merchants don't deal with mastercard, they deal with an acquiring bank
of which there are hundreds
no doubt one of which will be happy to take the business
Mastercard appears to be involved in the pressuring. You can't avoid them.
certainly not explicitly mentioned in the article
and I very doubt it's the case, the card networks simply don't care, given you can buy adult entertainment from millions of websites
the acquirer will care if it pushes up their chargeback rate, but this is normally solved by the merchant by paying a couple of bps more
it's a negotiating tactic, nothing more
https://nationwidepaymentsystems.com/mastercards-policy-on-a...
You clearly think in small terms then. Trillion dollar fish eat billion dollar fish
I guess Gabe's commitment to freedom of speech on his platform extended as far as nazis, but not as far as porn...
well, something like this can't be fixed overnight. I think Valve have more than earned a benefit of the doubt with this kind of stuff. I don't know if they are thinking on ways around this issue or not, but I would bet highly that they are. Problem is the credit card companies have them (and everyone else) by the balls because any attempt to continue hosting those gmaes but accept alternative payments for them would be retaliated against and MC et al might cut them off entirely, which would be devastating. I'm not sure there is a good solution to this that doesn't involve change of law/regulation i.e. lobbying
Simulated "immoral" activity could be considered a moral gray area. If nothing else, morality is subjective.
So I think it's reasonable to argue for private, individual consumption of morally subjective material (not least of which is the logistical difficulty of preventing such things), as well as the right to create and sell such things. (You or I might approve of or oppose those things, but that's a different argument from what I make below.)
Aside from that, I don't think Valve or a payment processor is obligated to be a neutral party. Whether it might come from collective consumer backlash or whoever makes decisions for an organization deciding what they will or will not allow to flow through their system, I think they too should have the right to allow or ban things. If publishers and consumers want their morally gray content, so be it, but don't feel entitled to have Steam and VISA along for the ride if they don't want to be.
Hypothetically, Valve might prefer Steam be neutral, because money. But then they have the option to fight their payment processor or look for alternatives, rather than "forcing" their payment processor to be a part of something that the payment processor opposes.
TL;DR when a morally subjective issue involves a lot of parties, every party should have the right to "opt out" if they are morally opposed. (in my opinion)
I think the trouble here stems from the lack of alternatives to the small group of payment processors. The near-monopoly allows their choices to override the choice of all the other involved groups, and almost no viable alternatives exist for Valve to move to if they disagree.
Payment processors banning companies from using them for anything other than illegal use or fraud issues seems like pretty egregious overreach to me.
They shouldn't be able to leverage their nigh monopoly on modern payment processing to choose winners and losers in the marketplace.
They are using pornography as a wedge issue to establish that they get to dictate what companies are allowed to exist in the modern distributed market.
It would be entirely reasonable to legally require them to act blindly towards retailers, with restrictions needing to be based on universally applied financial criteria.
Card payments have become inseparable from modern life.
Regulate them as a financial utility. The electric company or water company can't refuse to hook up a business just because the owner doesn't like that business.
It's interesting that Valve sort of put themselves in this situation by opting not to police their store anymore.
I'm personally a fan of fewer restrictions on content in video games and fewer "gatekeepers" but it's kind of inevitable that people would get upset when you chose to allow people to sell games like "Sex With Hitler" and "Pimp Life: Sex Simulator". Deciding to allow that content on your store and simultaneously not going to bat for it is weird, it's like they decided to just get the porn money while they could as a short-term boost to revenue.
Itch.io still has fewer restrictions but I assume they'll eventually have to clamp down too once payment processors cut them off - they don't have the financial resources to fight it like Valve or Epic do.
Interestingly Nintendo has as of late relaxed their restrictions too, you can find porn-adjacent shovelware on the Switch eShop despite their history of being very censorious. I wonder if payment processors will successfully push them around too or if Nintendo is too big to get pushed around.
What does "police" mean? They don't allow illegal content, that's policing no? You want more policing like morality police?
Most Japanese adult game publishers had (some of) their games rejected from Steam.
Steam does police their store. It's just that Visa/Mastercard don't approve of how they police it.
The question is: has "kill in the name of Hitler" also been banned, or is that okay with Visa/MC?
> it's kind of inevitable that people would get upset when you chose to allow people to sell games like "Sex With Hitler" and "Pimp Life: Sex Simulator".
The problem isn't some people being upset, it's that a single digit number of companies effectively control the ability for anyone else in the world to do business with them. Those companies get lobbied as much as politicians but with no accountability and any overreach being far less visible. And no freedom of speech rules.