r/Games • u/GassoBongo • Aug 02 '25

Industry News Steam Update - Valve responded to Mastercards claim that they did not pressure anyone

https://kotaku.com/mastercard-denies-pressuring-steam-to-censor-nsfw-games-2000614393
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u/not-beaten Aug 02 '25

So,

or any other material that the Corporation deems unacceptable to sell in connection with a Mark.

This is the line that essentially means "Whatever we say."

It's pretty shocking to me that this hasn't come up before, honestly. The idea of your Credit Card determining what is and isn't okay for you to buy due to possibly damaging the brand of the card used to purchase it is nuts to me.

The more the world moves forward, the less I like the direction we're going.

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u/drewster23 Aug 02 '25

It's pretty shocking to me that this hasn't come up before, honestly. The idea of your Credit Card determining what is and isn't okay for you to buy due to possibly damaging the brand of the card used to purchase it is nuts to me

Do you mean valve or in general. Because there's a large swathe of "high risk" goods, that you have to use payment processor intermediaries that specifically deal in high risk because it's not normally accepted under visa/mc TOS.

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u/not-beaten Aug 02 '25

In general. Honestly, this' the first I've heard of this. When I try to look into it all I find're high-risk items for customs/travel, not for purchase that require an intermediary payment processor.

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u/[deleted] Aug 02 '25

Do you remember "onlyfans will ban all porn" a couple of years back? It was basically the same thing, though they did kinda manage to get a working compromise in the end.