Posted by diggan 1 day ago
The reason these credit card companies wield so much power is the modern duopolistic system. "Monopolies are ILLEGAL" they said. Thusly, an array of duopolistic megacorps essentially acting as a monopoly. Something something game theory. Visa and mastercard. Coke and Pepsi. iPhone and Android. Windows and MacOS. Google search and google search. NASDAQ and NYSE.
The answer is to have 10+ actually competing, financially healthy payment processors. At some point the cabal-like duopolistic behavior breaks down.
Steam has a specific return policy that it applies everywhere, the games don't show up on card statements, and Steam will lock your entire account for charging back.
If there's a secret epidemic of people making new accounts specifically to buy and chargeback on adult games, the solution is for the processor to pressure Steam to take measures to reduce fradulent chargebacks (e.g. through minimum account age requirements for adult games), not to censor the platform.
Secondly, I was talking about categorically changing how we treat MC/Visa. If you are going to change their class of operation, something has to give. And it gets complicated.
There was no such evidence presented, all the evidence was that some christian extremists complained.
Sure your wife might see that you have a payment to pornhub and might not like it but you will not get on your credit card report the name of the game you bought from Steam or GOG so this fake excuse does not work like it would have worked with adult sites subscriptions.
But if there is evidence for Steam and GOG let me know, if somehow I missed the news and the chritian extemists were not the one that pressured VISA then also let me know.
If the theoretical angle is stolen credit cards, I am unmoved. The point of stolen credit cards is to launder for durable goods/services. The external value of a digital porn game is $0.
Though, it maybe be more annoying to get your purchase approved because the automated risk system will flag it.
We sell product to people with prior chargebacks with us every single day
1 do we have evidence this is happening more with adult games? You can refund games in 2 hours I think, so it is enough to get that clarity and refund the game or find it is trash and refund it.
2 the evidence points to a Christian Extremist group, so are you guessing here ?
If we are just pulling guesses from our asses I would guess that children that get their hands on the parent credit card could buy a lot of bullshit , then parents find out since the bullshit costs much more than a game and would attempt to recover the money sicn ehte time interval passed. And afaik all single player games can be obtained for free so honestly if someone is in doubt about some adult game they can find a free version somewhere and do not risk getting found out by some partner that spies on their Steam Library content or purchases.
The entire giftcard industry operates with these payment networks just fine despite large chargeback percentages that come from literal stolen credit cards
If the claim that "higher chargeback risk" like that cut you off from the payment networks were true, you would not be able to buy gift cards with credit cards.
When Fandango at Home sells you the movie Shortbus is it more likely to be a fraudulent transaction than when they sell you Shrek?
However, the payment networks do not care. As long as you aren't literally a front for laundering stolen credit cards, they are happy to take your money and very happy to charge you for every single chargeback.
There has NEVER been any evidence presented to support this "porn has high chargeback rates" claim, and other fields that DO have high chargeback rates have no problems taking credit cards.
Maybe they will next, maybe not. What does that have to do with them taking this first step? We have to evaluate the merit of this action, on its own.
Personally, I think that opening Steam's "New and Upcoming" and seeing nothing but low-quality porn games is bad. Bad for steam, bad for gamers, and bad for children.
Is this something that happens when you have a registered account? I don't have a Steam account. I opened https://store.steampowered.com/explore/upcoming/ in a private browser window and I see only one one game out of 20 tagged with "Nudity" / "Sexual content".
I don't think it's "whataboutism" to ask why they don't do something that helps society with that power instead of using it to censor art they find personally distasteful.
I don't see any destroyed industries.
Payment can be processed many ways, games can be bought from multiple store fronts, and there are still pornographic games on steam... so...
Against the censorship of adult content by payment processors
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44679406
Payment processors' bar on Japanese adult content endangers democracy
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44627828
Visa and Mastercard: The global payment duopoly
and yes the censorship is slowly showing its effects:
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/valve-appear-to-be-blocking...
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/steam-is-no-longer-allowin...
https://www.eurogamer.net/queer-developers-speak-out-as-adul...
By similar logic supermarkets should not carry alcohol or tobacco, theaters cannot show 18+ movies (even non-explicit ones), and entire parts of some cities need to be redone because of their red-light districts, because there are some at central locations a kid could reasonably stumble into.
I think just restricting access to this stuff, being discreet about it, and maybe limiting advertisement, is enough. I've lived somewhere with a pretty plainly visible red-light district close to the central train station, yet most people don't even realize it is there. I'd hope something similar could be accomplished for Steam as well.
Finally, at the end of the day parents gotta parent.
Hot take, but parents should, y'know, parent
Every one of these "just shunt the responsibility from the giant corporation with infinite resources to the parents who are already stretched thin" is another link in a long, long chain that is the woes of modern parenting and really in the woes of modern life, in general.
Historically we have typically gated adult content from children via opt-in systems, not opt-out systems, like you're describing - e.g. Adults opt-in to sensitive content, not children opt-out. There is a reason adult stores are separate from Walmarts and that 21+ bars are separate from family-restaurants.
Also these games are absolute garbage, so I'm not sure why everyone is jumping on this issue like we're losing something of significant cultural value... Why is low-quality XXX-slop the line in the sand we're deciding to rally around... This is not a slippery slope to fascism, or whatever make-believe story we're peddling about this situation, its somebody somewhere doing the right thing, for once, and slowing our seemingly inevitable decline into Biff's Casino Future the teensiest bit.
I can tell you Nintendo's parental controls work correctly. Even the eShop doesn't display any content not suitable for younger ages for accounts under the parental control restrictions if configured correctly.
Rather than assuming Steam falls into the same category as other problematic software, I'd suggest checking out Steam's family features before drawing conclusions.
Happy to discuss the specific merits of Steam's parental controls once you've had a chance to look at what Steam actually offers.
Steam’s parental controls are pretty good if used properly.
No, I will not talk to my son about it. Hacker News has unlimited resources, so they should do it for me. I'm already stretched too thin - I have to get to Walmart to buy more wine and ammunition before it closes.
What is your justification for this position?
How does this not reduce to "steam shouldn't sell games that aren't fit for toddlers"?
I really don't understand your logic here. Are you not saying "Steam shouldn't be allowed to sell pornographic games to adults"? Or are you saying it's ok for steam to sell them to adults, but not children? (But that was already the case, even before all of this). If you are saying "steam shouldn't sell pornographic games", how is that like any of the things you said?