Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down, but Valve says payment processors 'specifically cited' a Mastercard rule about damaging the brand
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Effecting the brand?? Who in their right mine would associate them with anything but payments? That's ridiculous
This is actually ruining their brand. I now associate MC and Visa with Christian oppression
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Ah, I didn’t hear that Valve did the take downs in waves.
But I did hear itch.io took down everything, including things with labels that happen to frequently overlap with porn, but are not in-fact, porn.
I’m interested in seeing reporting on the different stages of take downs. Anyone have a link? My Google fu is failing me.
I don't know that anyone has put together a complete list of games taken down specifically because of this, but you can look at steam-tracker.com and sort by date to see what has been removed recently. It doesn't show why a game was removed, but you can usually infer a lot from the title and cover art.
Also I should clarify it wasn't specifically multiple large waves, there was a large initial group, but the remainder have been slowly trickling in. I'd guess there's someone going through Steams catalog slowly flagging games to remove. The first group was likely an easy keyword search, while the rest are being evaluated on a case by case basis most likely.
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Isn't owning a credit card age gating anyway? I don't think you can legally own a credit card in the UK.
(Edit: Oops I mean until you're 18.)You would think, but I believe the law(s) require verification of a photo ID. I haven't looked too closely into the UK one, but the way the laws are written for a couple of the US states a credit card doesn't meet the requirements. There's also the fact that many of the preview images and videos for porn games on Steam show nudity and/or sex and you can access those without needing to purchase the game (just the birthday question to "verify" your age).
Edit: also steam gift cards are a thing, so you can purchase without using a credit card technically.
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It feels to me like payment processing has a similar function to physical currency. Like all of those security features on the bills are used to ensure the transaction is trusted.
Point being, I've long thought that payment processors are essentially doing a job that should be done by the government.
There are strange gaps where physical services have digital analogues but are completely ignored by the government.
I don't understand why the treasury doesn't process payments or why the post office doesn't issue email addresses, for another example.
Anyways, back to the point, physical currency specifically says that it is valid for all debts. If they applied the same logic to payment processing, then this would never happen.
It is fucking wild that we don't have INTERAC credit cards here in Canada
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Effecting the brand?? Who in their right mine would associate them with anything but payments? That's ridiculous
The astonishingly hypocritical part:
Guess who does payment processing for OnlyFans?
Visa.
And MasterCard.
=D
All you need to verify your id is a credit card!
Then you get all the pr0n you want!
Hope you didn't borrow one from your parents!
No child has ever thought of that before!
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Mastercard has not evaluated any game or required restrictions of any activity on game creator sites and platforms, contrary to media reports and allegations.
Our payment network follows standards based on the rule of law. Put simply, we allow all lawful purchases on our network. At the same time, we require merchants to have appropriate controls to ensure Mastercard cards cannot be used for unlawful purchases, including illegal adult content.
Media contact
Seth Eisen
Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down, but Valve says payment processors 'specifically cited' a Mastercard rule about damaging the brand
Steam and Itch.io are worried about trouble with their payment processors, and Mastercard is not a payment processor.
PC Gamer (www.pcgamer.com)
Mastercard: worried about damaging brand
ALSO Mastercard: torpedos brand harder than the titan submersible implosion -
Nobody on any side has cited any sections of any agreement specifically. The closest we've got is the statement from Stripe who is the payment processor who recently had to turn down business with a womens sexual education charity (despite spending months trying to get to an agreement) and the reason they cited was contractual obligations with banking networks including Visa and Mastercard. They stated they want to be able to process payments for porn companies, and that they're exploring other options, but they couldn't at this time.
From an article posted yesterday
“Mastercard did not communicate with Valve directly, despite our request to do so,” Valve’s statement sent over email to Kotaku reads. “Mastercard communicated with payment processors and their acquiring banks. Payment processors communicated this with Valve, and we replied by outlining Steam’s policy since 2018 of attempting to distribute games that are legal for distribution. Payment processors rejected this, and specifically cited Mastercard’s Rule 5.12.7 and risk to the Mastercard brand.”
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You would think, but I believe the law(s) require verification of a photo ID. I haven't looked too closely into the UK one, but the way the laws are written for a couple of the US states a credit card doesn't meet the requirements. There's also the fact that many of the preview images and videos for porn games on Steam show nudity and/or sex and you can access those without needing to purchase the game (just the birthday question to "verify" your age).
Edit: also steam gift cards are a thing, so you can purchase without using a credit card technically.
If you need to be 18 to own a credit card, then you're old enough to buy those games. And buying with steam gift card doesn't involve MasterCard or Visa for that payment, so it's literally none of their business.
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Would it be possible to build a FOSS alternative to all this?
Does Bitcoin count?
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Does Bitcoin count?
With how volatile cryptocurrency has been in general in the last decade or so, I wouldn't bet on it.
Crypto is ultimately a different form of money, as compared with fiat.
What I think people in this discussion are seeking is an electronic, FOSS , secure network that can facilitate economic transactions of fiat currency.
Of course the two don't have to be mutually exclusive
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Mastercard has not evaluated any game or required restrictions of any activity on game creator sites and platforms, contrary to media reports and allegations.
Our payment network follows standards based on the rule of law. Put simply, we allow all lawful purchases on our network. At the same time, we require merchants to have appropriate controls to ensure Mastercard cards cannot be used for unlawful purchases, including illegal adult content.
Media contact
Seth Eisen
Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down, but Valve says payment processors 'specifically cited' a Mastercard rule about damaging the brand
Steam and Itch.io are worried about trouble with their payment processors, and Mastercard is not a payment processor.
PC Gamer (www.pcgamer.com)
I'd love Valve to spend their extra billions on opening a payment processor. Fuck the big 3.
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With how volatile cryptocurrency has been in general in the last decade or so, I wouldn't bet on it.
Crypto is ultimately a different form of money, as compared with fiat.
What I think people in this discussion are seeking is an electronic, FOSS , secure network that can facilitate economic transactions of fiat currency.
Of course the two don't have to be mutually exclusive
Fiat currency is the problem
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I'd love Valve to spend their extra billions on opening a payment processor. Fuck the big 3.
Honestly, wouldn't be surprised, they have spent god knows how much to push linux to unshackle themselves from Windows and Microsoft
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Is this why it appeared Steam only took down Incest and other spicy things?
Or did all the reporting just read the top of the list, and that had all the incest front loaded?
All of those titles make me really worried about Redemption of Li Wei...
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Have you tried Discover or American Express?
I live miles and/or kilometers away from the three business that accept either of those
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With how volatile cryptocurrency has been in general in the last decade or so, I wouldn't bet on it.
Crypto is ultimately a different form of money, as compared with fiat.
What I think people in this discussion are seeking is an electronic, FOSS , secure network that can facilitate economic transactions of fiat currency.
Of course the two don't have to be mutually exclusive
Does DAI count?
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I'd love Valve to spend their extra billions on opening a payment processor. Fuck the big 3.
The Drip Card from Valve incoming!
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Fiat currency is the problem
It really isn't, in this case. The issue is not the currency being used for the transactions, but rather two companies having a duopoly on processing those transactions that allow them to dictate terms to other people on how they can legally use their money. If there were two similar points of failure in processing cryptocurrency transactions, they would be just as vulnerable to having whoever occupied those two spots throwing their weight around. Sure, I suppose in that situation, companies could take payments to a new wallet easier than they could open new business accounts, and bypass the restrictions temporarily, but it still wouldn't be a viable solution in the long term.
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Mastercard has not evaluated any game or required restrictions of any activity on game creator sites and platforms, contrary to media reports and allegations.
Our payment network follows standards based on the rule of law. Put simply, we allow all lawful purchases on our network. At the same time, we require merchants to have appropriate controls to ensure Mastercard cards cannot be used for unlawful purchases, including illegal adult content.
Media contact
Seth Eisen
Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down, but Valve says payment processors 'specifically cited' a Mastercard rule about damaging the brand
Steam and Itch.io are worried about trouble with their payment processors, and Mastercard is not a payment processor.
PC Gamer (www.pcgamer.com)
Direct link: Mastercard rule 5.12.7 Illegal or Brand-damaging Transactions
Tweet of their attempt to deny responsibility: great opportunity to wreck their brand.
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If you need to be 18 to own a credit card, then you're old enough to buy those games. And buying with steam gift card doesn't involve MasterCard or Visa for that payment, so it's literally none of their business.
So that's kind of missing the point. First as I pointed out you don't actually have to buy anything to see the explicit preview images, so Steam is arguably in violation of those laws. Secondly the issue is that the Visa and Mastercard contracts require companies to be in compliance with local laws. It doesn't matter whether someone is using a Visa or Mastercard to make the actual payment if the purchase would technically be considered illegal (which it arguably could be in some states/countries under the new super strict porn laws).
At the end of the day this boils down to a) terms of the Visa/Mastercard contracts, and possibly b) new anti-porn laws that are putting an onerous burden on services to collect customers IDs in order to prove age. This isn't a question of common sense, in contract law (and law in general) it's about the letter of it and not so much the spirit. Yes, it stands to reason that if you legally own a credit card, and you must be at least 18 to own a card, then you are obviously 18 or older. However that doesn't matter at all when the laws are written such that services must validate age using a photo ID. It also does not account for stolen credit cards (never mind that that's a far more serious situation than the possibility of under age kids seeing some naughty pixels).
This whole situation is stupid and Visa and Mastercard clearly need to make some changes to their terms and conditions, but until they do from a legal standpoint businesses like Valve and Itch.io have their hands tied.
