Make your own payment processor, Gaben. It’s the way.
Then people would have to get specific cards or crypto or whatever that aren’t Visa/MasterCard in order to buy Steam games. That, of course, is if you can get banks to agree to carry “Steam cards”. Either that, or everyone would need to buy Steam gift cards as an exclusive form of payment.
All of these are much less convenient than keeping your existing debit/credit card to pay for Steam games, and less convenience means less sales.
Or you could just transfer funds to a steam card, then with that, buy all you want.
They would have to roughly make their own form of PayPal, alongside their own bank.
If you didn’t know, PayPal technically isn’t a bank, it and Venmo use Synchrony Bank… which is an actual bank.
If they did something like that, it could work, but it would have to be at a similar scale as PayPal, that is to say, massive…
Because doing this would/could basically be the nuclear option:
MC and Visa and PayPal would/could drop them.
So, they’d have to basically develop a massive project, in total secrecy.
… Which is something Valve has arguably done a number of times, they are notoriously opaque as a company.
…
Sort of as you mention, they already have a barebones backend framework to scale up from the steam gift card / user gift card balance system.
I am… uncertain if their backend for that already does or does not include an actual legally defined bank though.
…
Problem is that this would necessitate a massively costly undertaking, as well as ongoing maintenance costs, and Valve is also notorious for basically running on what most other firms would consider a skeleton crew for the size and scope of what they do.
Yeah, but SteamPay is the future
Steam does not have to only accept steampay. Tho? You fear visa and mastercard will blaclist steam?
Steam removed games because visa and mastercard threatened to blacklist it, so yeah. That’s the whole point.
Is that kinda what PayPal is, or was intended to be?
Yes
Just open bank in every country should do.
But we have to oppose CollectiveShout as well, as in destroy them. They’re way worse than I thought
Petitions like this are meaningless unless they come with a viable solution to the duopoly in payment processing that is Visa and Mastercard.
It doesn’t matter what Valve agrees with, if they want to survive as a business they have to ultimately do what the only 2 companies that handle the payment processing tells them to do.
Valve please fix
*Develops an open online payment system that isn’t a scam.
IANAL - Can credit card companies coordinate like this? This seems like price fixing but the other way around. Like one company wouldn’t do this alone cause it would drive customers away so they agree to do it together. Does that coordinated monopolistic behavior have president?
We want our pron and we want it now!
Give me the whole tiddy or give me death
What is a gooner that cannot goon? This is murder.
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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 I have my age settings so I can see adult games like GTA/Dishonored, not “Super Hentai Bejeweled 3000”.
The former belong to the M rated category while the hypothetical latter would belong to the Adults Only category. As others have pointed out, you can hide adult games and still see other games with violence and mature themes. Steam classifies M-rated games and AO-rated games differently.
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steam is for games… no, it isn’t really. steam has been distributing non game software for ages.
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porn games are games so even if steam is for games it should have porn games.
i don’t care for porn games but I’ve filtered them out so who cares what others do with their time
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Certainly there should be better search tools and personal curation on Steam. If you don’t want to see it you should be able to easily filter it.
“I’ll know it when I see it” has gotta be the most vibes way to tell people they’re degenerates.
It’s also the US legal standard for obscenity laws, unfortunately.
After reading the article on gamerant.com, the many comments on here and looking at the petition, I really wonder if actually so many people are delusional and/or are just missing the core point here?! (Or it is just a small crowd with much noise?) IMHO, there are better places in the world to engage and petition for. (Local communities and regional politics, for example.) But if banning that little “funny” child incest game on Steam puts you up the tree, well, …
Are you really that offended? And why, on point? How in the world can you defend publishing (and selling) games - mostly targeted at young folks - which are quite disturbing, derangend and morally wrong in the name of “freedom” or “independence”? And call that blatantly censorship, when there are instead public guidelines by Steam and their partners? Don´t you wish for (young) people to develop good values instead of becoming delusional with child pornography, incest, violence, gore and such? What are your values here?
It isn’t about the actual games being targeted. It’s everything about the implications of having a private company dictate what legal content I can buy with my own money. If they cave to lobby groups once, they will do it again. Next time it might be something you care about instead.
Also games made for adults are targeted at adults, not “young people”. You can’t even really see these games on steam unless you are an adult and explicitly turn on visibility of porn games. The average gamer is well up in their thirties at this point as well.
Alright, I understand your point. But I only partially agree with it. Hear me out: You want a free marketplace to buy whatever you wish, without any dictations? - But any market or shops you can think of has some regulations and dependencies, right? The one who offers the platform dictates what and how it is traded, as far as it has been. And even more if banks or transaction processors are involved, who also have a say. Not ideal, I agree, but the norm. How do you want to technically solve this? By their own transaction service, like some suggest here? Not sure if that helps, because you might create a new monopoly.
And at the same time, we discuss this here, people demand transparency and environmently responsability for all the delivery chains. Like for clothing or food. - Is that not what happens here? The banks as part of the service chain are pushing Valve to implement stricter rulings about critical content. For me, that looks like what people would ask for. Correct me, if I am wrong.
It’s dictated by the law in my country. It’s either legal or it isn’t. The laws are decided through democracy and debated before implementation or changes. VISA doesn’t need to meddle. I have to follow the law, and so do they. We don’t need arbitrary whims on top of that.
Your last paragraph is a false comparison. There’s nothing transparent about what content is currently on the card companies hatelist and what they deem ok. Several LGBTQ related games got hit as well. The transparency in regards to food and clothing is about letting me take informed choices about the products I buy. Cards companies are still letting me buy clothes made by factory slaves and sold via Temu. They don’t care. I have to take that moral standpoint to buy more ethical clothing if I find that the morally correct thing to do. If I want cheap clothing made by slaves I can, with the blessing of my Mastercard. It’s certainly legal.
I’d probably rather buy a porn game made by someone who cared enough about it to make it as a passion project, than a AAA title made with the blood and tears of exploited, underpaid developers to fill the pouches of some overpaid ceo. If ethics is something to value, at least.
@cosmo@lemmy.world, you have solid good points here! - Yes, the laws are democratically set and don’t need extra intereference by VISA, Mastercard or else. It is just my opinion that Valve has been very liberal on his marketplace and not removing critical content themselves. I think, that is what led to the interference in addtion to lobbyist behind the payment processors.
Yeah, my comparison was flawed. But I got the idea across. Right, the transaction process is not transparent, especially not without publishing the “hatelist”. - Especially good point here with the ethical aspect! There seems to be some double standard by VISA etc. about what is acceptable and what is not. I disagree with that, of course, as I still believe in ethical values also when consuming games. ;-) So enjoy you porn game, als long as it has legal themes.
Actually, I am convinced. The article was bad and confused my inital kowledge about the issue. But thank you all for the (mostly) civil discussion. The petition unfortunately is outside my jurisdiction, so I can not sign. But I will keep an eye on the topic.
No worries! The article lacked a lot of important information, absolutely. What worries me a lot is that this activist group also isn’t friendly towards LGBTQ groups and has been trying to get games like GTA banned, as well as Detroit: Become Human, to give a few examples. I find it worrying when these kinds of activist groups gets a fot inside the door, because they sure won’t stop at banning incest games (whether it’s porn or a serious attempt to create a meaningful story about abusive relationships). No one really cares about the porn games that much, I think, but I don’t want potentially good games gone as collateral damage, because some games are trash.
Fully agree, that is worrying and they should not get a foot inside. Better if we would find some safe algorithm or independent moderation to filter the content according to law and ethics. And some independent payment service might also be helpfull, but no blockchain type, please. After all these years, I still don’t understand the hate against LGB… groups. But it surely looks like the hunting the witches, Roma or Jews in the past. The are a distinctive minority and thus a good target, unfortunately.
