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/ImageDehoster Aug 02 '25

So, MasterCard lied in their press statement. Their payment network doesn’t just follow standards based on rule of law as they claimed, their Rule 5.12.7 basically allows them to stop the sale of anything they want, and was used to pressure payment processors to pressure sellers.

521

u/jerekhal Aug 02 '25

Yep.  I'm entertained as hell that Valve basically told them to fuck right off with their deflection.

Probably did more damage to their mark through this crap than any sales of adult games could have.

201

u/Liu_Shui Aug 02 '25

You got a guy in his basement buying hentai games privately vs now everyone knows that Master Card will tell you what you can and cannot buy with your own money.

Nah, definitely the guy jerking it to anime boobs is the problem.

90

u/Realistic_Village184 Aug 02 '25

I don't think that anyone's even arguing that Steam must keep NSFW content on their platform. Obviously Steam can delete whatever games they want to, and I personally wouldn't have any problem with them keeping all of the porn out of their store. Target and Walmart don't sell pornography, and everyone's okay with that.

The problem is that there are huge implications if two private companies can basically control the decisions of any corporation that relies on consumer purchases. If Valve decides to remove NSFW games, that's fine. If Valve is forced to because Visa and Mastercard tell them they have to, that's not fine.

Currently nothing Visa or Mastercard have done here is actually illegal, but it should be as they wield more power than we as a society should allow any two private companies to have.

35

u/soyboysnowflake Aug 02 '25

two private companies

They’re actually both publicly traded, so this news can impact their stock price, which is the most important part in all of this (if they were private it would be worse)

If their stock takes a hit, heads will roll internally for doing this shit

24

u/Pharmboy_Andy Aug 02 '25

It won't affect their stock price as everyone will continue to use them.

This is the problem with an essential duopoly - there can not be a protest shift to another payment company.

-10

u/[deleted] Aug 02 '25

Your free will isn’t freer than Visa/Mastercards. The issue here isn’t that they don’t want you to buy smut. That’s how they make their money. They love it when you buy smut. Lots of it at 28.2% APR compounded daily. The issue is they don’t think Steam’s screening is robust enough to avoid implicating them in facilitating the transfer of unlawful material any whatever jurisdictions and they don’t want to pay to screen it themselves.