I understand the principle but why do gamers always choose the worst examples of something to rally behind. The stop killing games petition rallying around The Crew, which lasted 10 years and was a very average game, and now this with getting behind porn games to protest censorship.

Is there really no better examples than those?

We want our pron and we want it now!

And use what instead? Swollen off PayPal is pretty easy because frankly it's an awful service and businesses are better off not using it anyway so they tend to offer other options.

But MasterCard and visa are the only payment options. Everything requires MasterCard or Visa

The goal is to stop them building up any momentum. If the credit companies get used to flexing their power like this, and steam gets used to folding to it, then things will escalate.

Right now it's porn games. Who the hell would defend them. But it won't end there. You honestly don't think they would go after games that mock religion, or are trans positive?

anti-censorship international credit union owned by members that can conduct transactions internally without having to ask for visa or mastercard's FUCKING permission when?????

I'm saying we should build Dual Power and go around them.

Yeah because in your case they didn't have your money. They're only real pain about trying to get money back, they always support businesses never customers.

So if I pay for a product and never receive it PayPal always takes the business's side.

Even Amazon has better customer support.

I understand the principle but why do gamers always choose the worst examples of something to rally behind. The stop killing games petition rallying around The Crew, which lasted 10 years and was a very average game, and now this with getting behind porn games to protest censorship.

Is there really no better examples than those?

I know it's downvote central, but I've been on the "No Porn on Steam" train forever. Ever since the introduction to the service it has inundated so much of the "Top Selling" "New & Trending" etc. Steam is for games, porn is for porn. Super annoying to sift through it when I'm looking for a new game, and I have my age settings so I can see adult games like GTA/Dishonored, not "Super Hentai Bejeweled 3000".

And the easy retort to that is that they don’t apply Chinese censorship globally. Only in China. Regional laws only apply regionally.

I know it's downvote central, but I've been on the "No Porn on Steam" train forever. Ever since the introduction to the service it has inundated so much of the "Top Selling" "New & Trending" etc. Steam is for games, porn is for porn. Super annoying to sift through it when I'm looking for a new game, and I have my age settings so I can see adult games like GTA/Dishonored, not "Super Hentai Bejeweled 3000".

Something like that will kinda work, but using it will flag your transactions if you use it as a business. That's the issue with a lot of these things is that we need to have some kind of balance between privacy and authorities being able to do anything against terrorism etc. And yes you can find terrorists based on transactions.

Cant use the steam wallet when they delist the game.

Yes but the payment processors didn't say "you're not allowed to sell this game with our service" they said "you're not allowed to sell this game period or we walk".

As of July 16, Steam's new guidelines state that game publishers should avoid releasing titles that may violate the terms and conditions of its payment processors. In other words, the storefront is asking creators to not only follow the platform's rules but also submit to potential oversight from companies like MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal.

and from the petition

MasterCard and Visa have increasingly used their financial control to pressure platforms into censoring legal fictional content

Steam is enforcing MasterCard's, Visa's, and PayPal's policies. From Steam's Rules and Policies:

What you shouldn’t publish on Steam: ... 15. Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult only content.

Point number 15 was not there in a Snapshot from February on the wayback machine. If anything, the solution should just be to remove the payment method for those games (which would still hurt the creators substantially).

There is a line that is confusing:

In response to this censorship, some fans have launched a petition on Change.org urging Valve to revert its policies

There may be petitions about reverting Valve's policy, but it's not the main petition against Visa and MasterCard (which is the one they linked).

Is it more about the porn or the shovelware for you? That is to ask: would you play a porn game that is sufficiently story-driven and acclaimed?

That's great, not great that they removed it but a great example of something you can bring up that doesn't hurt the case.

I just really wish people would leave actual porn games out of it. Because that is not going to be helpful to their case.

Someone's drunk the "governments only erode our privacy to stop terrorism" coolaid yeesh.

No I have seen real world examples of criminals being prosecuted because of what people on my field (accountancy) found during our work. That shits there for a reason.

This was company data though, which should be semi transparent anyway

I never said that it can't be effective, I just don't believe we should all suffer a massive erosion in our privacy for it. There are other ways to deal with crime.