Why do they even get to know which games people buy?
Comment on Steam is cracking down on porn games, to keep Payment Processors happy.
GalacticHero@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
While this doesn’t directly affect me, I really hate that a payment processor I don’t even use can dictate what is and is not acceptable speech.
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
lath@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
Because many "players" are refunding after a fap, which is logged and reviewed. Also, suspicious or new transactions are often flagged and reviewed. So a lot of such side content is being pushed in front of the banks and payment processors by horny clients who unwittingly expose their kinks.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
If a large number of refunds came from a single source it seems like Steam would be the one addressing the issue, not payment processors.
deranger@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
The post nut clarity of realizing that buying that porn game was not such a great idea
logicbomb@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Seem like an easy solution would be to have certain transactions be nonrefundable.
I say easy, but I guess it would involve quite a bit of software changes, and then you’d also have to deal with angry customers who ignored numerous warnings that a purchase would be final.
pulsewidth@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s even less consumer friendly. If you purchase a game and it turns out to be shovelware that barely works and has a bunch of gamed reviews on the store page? Oh too bad sap, you got conned this is non-refundable.
Consumers had to fight for games that do refundable, I don’t think we should be quick to consider loopholes.
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Those payment processors can just look at the store and see that it sells smut. Those payment processors do their own due diligence.
slazer2au@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Money laundering and anti terrorism laws would be my guess.
catalyst@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Agreed, this shit sucks. The credit card companies hold far too much power over what is considered viable commerce.
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Kind of cuts both ways though, doesn’t it? The reverse of this argument is saying that the payment processors must work with Valve no matter what they host. Agree it disagree with them, but don’t the payment processors get a say in what they do or do not want to process?
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
No, they should have zero say because they have weaseled themselves into a position that is the equivalent of a utility or whatever ISP are classified as. Their only involvement is whether they complete transactions between parties in a legal way.
CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
I mean, when your service is fundamental enough to the economy, and centralized enough to make just going to an alternative a major hassle, if an alternative without a similar policy even exists, then why should they get that say? The power to effectively ban the sale of certain types of thing, or force media platforms to censor certain types of content, is the sort of power we generally reserve for governments, not private entities that can do whatever they want. Honestly they’re important enough these days that they should basically be treated like some sort of public utility in my view.
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Well as long as they are independent businesses, why shouldn’t they?
If your argument seems to be “they are too crucial to be independent businesses,” I don’t think we’d disagree too much, but the fact is that they are right now.
CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 3 weeks ago
I don’t think that businesses, not being individuals, should actually have the same rights as individuals I guess. I don’t really agree with the idea that a corporation should be able to do whatever it likes by default, simply because I think corporations in general have too much power to be trusted with such.
SleveMcDichael@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Agree it disagree with them, but don’t the payment processors get a say in what they do or do not want to process?
Absolutely not. Power companies don’t get a say in what the power they supply their users with is used for, same for water companies and even ISPs. If they really, really want to enforce rules on what they will and will not process payments for, they can accept legal responsibility when they process a payment on a gun someone uses to shoot up a school or what have you. But they cant have it both ways.
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
Power and water are public utilities (as is internet, in some parts of the world but not all). Payment processing is not. If you want to argue that it should be, we’d likely agree.
SleveMcDichael@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
They may not be de jure be public utilities but they are de facto public utilities. It is essentially impossible to live in society without them, and outside their collusionist cabal there are no real alternatives.
Stovetop@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
In the US at least, they actually do, in many cases. If you are in a drought region, your water utilities can be shut off if you’re wasting it all on watering a lawn or filling a swimming pool, for example. ISPs cut people off all the time for torrenting, sometimes even if it’s not pirated content (though it was ruled not long ago that ISPs aren’t utilities anyways).
GalacticHero@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Sure, but there are so few payment processors that even a single one refusing to do business with you can be a real problem for a business. Even Valve, a big and influential company, has little choice but to capitulate to PayPal. Visa and Mastercard have even more power.
There are too many problems with crypto for it to be a viable alternative, but there’s no good way for me to pay a business (when cash isn’t an option) that doesn’t require the involvement of a third party. Limited competition means those third parties have too much power. I don’t know what it is, but there has to be a solution for that.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
Lol what? They’re being forced to do business with Valve?
Yeah, nah
Stovetop@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
They’re saying that is the reverse argument, not the state of things today. As in, the only solution would be to force payment processors to do business with anyone and everyone.
iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
But that’s the entire crux of this situation. They are threatening to do that, and people are upset about that.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This doesn’t directly affect me, either, but does anyone know if it applies to all of the Interactive Sex - Futanari Incest DLC, too!? For Episodes 1-4!? Like, if any of my friends have large amounts of FutaCoinz from years of Season Passes, I wonder if they’ll still be able to spend them…?
jj4211@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I don’t know if I want to try to find out if that is satire or actual things…
aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
yarrrr me maties.
GalacticHero@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Yeah, but I like paying people to make things, and it’s not their fault. This will ultimately mean less of these things get made. For incest games, that’s no great loss, but I hate the precedent.
Simulation6@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Wonder where they stand on The Witcher I?
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
I can’t imagine buying a porn game on Steam. And even if I did, incest holds no interest to me.
Even so, I absolutely fucking hate this crap. Payment processors are killing off content despite the producers and consumers of the content being completely fine with it. This should be a Net Neutrality issue. But I’m not seeing anywhere near the same outrage over it that there was over ISPs doing the exact same thing.
HubertManne@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
I remember someone had a reply on something that touched on incest porn and they where like. I see it all the time but when you put in blond big boobed blowjob and the title is mom son its like who cares or such. So much porn seems to just get relabeled when it comes to incest porn. This is now a brother and sister or mom/son or father/daughter. It is wierd how that seemed to just blow up in popularity. I mean I think its been that way for a few years but I swear I did not see so much like pre covid.
Zagorath@aussie.zone 3 weeks ago
My theory is that it’s because people who are into it must be really into it, but people who aren’t into it are very good at ignoring the fact that it’s titled like that or that there might be one or two throwaway lines implying it (especially when it’s “step”). So there’s an incentive for uploaders to title things like that and for creators to add a little nod in the video towards it (without adding too much incest roleplay) because it draws in a large audience and actively turns away very few.
jj4211@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Well if you are having to watch on mute anyway, not like you even know the plot…
Of course you miss out on the narrative masterpiece of things like lemon stealing whores …
swelter_spark@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
It’s seemed pretty popular to me since basically the beginning of the internet.
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think it has blown up in popularity because many more people nowadays have divorced parents and grew up in a blended family. I bet many guys have fantasized about fucking their step mom or older step sister and I bet even dads have fantasized about fucking the oldest step daughter who was already an adult when he married her mother.
echodot@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
And what about all the people who don’t live in Alabama trailer parks? Or they’re just so many of them that they provide an industry all on their own.
Justas@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
One theory I heard is that during Covid, the outside world became scary and strangers unattainable. So the only accessible women are the ones that live with you. In many scenarios, people are step-siblings just to explain away why does a shut-in guy have a hot girl in his home.