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Could someone just make, like, Raunchy Mastercard and just process payments from everyone including all the porn and weird shit that the other mainstream companies don’t want? It seems like the payment processors being puritanical dipshits is a weakness that could be exploited by an enterprising competitor.
But then again, we’re talking about a natural monopoly that has been in place for decades at this point. I wouldn’t expect them to exactly play fair.
One of the great mysteries of the 21st century is how a tiny number of US companies control most of the world’s payment processing, when it’s not a technically difficult problem.
You could implement an entire end-to-end payment processing system in a year with a team of a few dozen competent engineers. The only difficulty is getting banks and retailers to sign up to it, but when the big players charge so much and create so much trouble this doesn’t seem like it should be a tough sell. In most cases literally all you’d need to do is charge 2.4% instead of their 3%.
Why are they doing a comprehensive audit on the content and not doing a comprehensive audit on new payment providers? I sure would be
Because they would basically die off without the credit card processors, I assume.
Yeah so they should shop around now that theirs seems to be problematic
What I meant is that simply excluding Mastercard and Visa would turn away tons of sales and donations, even if they worked with every other payment processor on the planet at once.
They… could. But it would hurt, maybe even kill Itch.
My biggest issue with this situation is: if they can get away with getting games they don’t like being delisted, where does it end? Delisting books with themes or authors they don’t like? Banning the sale of alcohol and cigarettes?
Honestly haven’t thought so far. But Media lacks that, as almost everything is clickbait.
And you got a point. There is questionable stuff. But killing off a whole area is like a bit shot on a small bird
It seemed like every search on Itchio was 70% NSFW results before this move
I mean, crypto is still not the answer so long as it is functionally a speculative asset even after all the proof efficiency improvements… Also it still has centralized points which keyholders could easily leverage.
So can I call the payment providers of the companies I don’t like and complain about them?
Miserable fuckers, the whole lot of puritans…
Yall will hate me for it, but porn games should have never been on the main launcher. That’s just asking for trouble. Steam should have a secondary launcher that is just for the adult games, and keep the two seperate. This shit wouldn’t be happening if these games hadn’t been so accessible to people not looking for that in the first place.
Also lets be honest, some of the shit is over the line. There shouldn’t be multiple “Sex with Hitler” games, because as ridiculous as that sounds, normalizing Nazis and Hitler is a fucking virus that does so much fucking harm when spread. Its not just a “silly joke”.
You might have a point on problematic content for the same reason that satire is difficult to pull off, but the entire category of “porn” is WAY too broad of a line to draw, and neither should be otsracized completely simply for existing.
I don’t think adult content should be stigmatized and quarantined. Why is a game about cutting terrified victims open with a handsaw cool, but a game about licking a clit needs to be isolated?
Adult content is opt-in and age verified on steam.
Making an “adult content” launcher would just give more targeted scrutiny. It’s like saying, “here’s the target for you Puritans to attack the whole company over!”
The only way I can think that kind of obfuscation could work would be to have the adult content launcher run through a secondary company under license to use steam software. But then, there’s still the pay processing issue, and that license could violate the processor ToS anyways.
Can people please stop using the genocide poem to talk about businesses indpendently choosing to moderate porn games on their platforms? The first time that poem was used, over six million people died. Whereas you just can’t goon on itch anymore.
I get why people are unhappy, but no one will die from this. There is no government mandate. This is tone-deaf and offensive for anyone who has or is currently experiencing genocide. People in my country are being rounded up and disappeared. This is in no way comparable and that poem should not be invoked.
Censorship is always the first step. Genocide is the last step. People getting mad when the first step toward fascism is crossed is a very good thing to fight fascism and try to prevent a future genocide. This is exactly what the poem is about : react on the first step, because it will be too late when the genocide starts.
In our administration, censorship wasn’t the first step though. I’m not sure why you think this set of events is the first step. The Trump Administration dismantled the Constitution and Administrative State earlier than this, and ICE disappearing people and Trump making anti-trans EOs predates this as well.
And it really seems like people on the internet care way more about the censorship than the much worse things happening right now.
Also, there are other places to find porn, so is censorship really happening in this case? You could sooner point to Paramount, 60 Minutes, NPR and The Late Show as examples of censorship, which also came after more extreme regime actions.
Yeah they can just start banning media made by and about queer people. Totally fine and won’t hurt anyone or lead to anything worse. That’s certainly not one of the first things the Nazis did…
That’s irrelevant in this case, since the outcry came from payment processing companies and a sex-negative feminist interest group from Australia (not America), with some ties to TERF organizations. Yes, not great. Special-interest groups from other countries should not be able to have this much influence just because they tattled to a payment processing company. But just to be clear: This Australian radfem group is also not affiliated with the people in power in fascist governments, and the poem should not have been used. Yet people are acting like the federal government has struck down itch.io itself, and saying that this is an example of the mounting Halocaust. Fascism is rising in the U.S., but due to other, much more alarming factors and not this one.
I will be much more concerned when elected Republicans start going after a designated porn site, like Pornhub or something, to scrub out the queer content or to shutter it altogether. itch.io was never a designated pornography site to begin with and elected Republicans never set their sights on it.
So when you invoke the genocide poem, you really need to be asking, “Who is the they in this situation?” If it’s not a fascist government, I’m sorry, but it doesn’t apply and it’s offensive to the POCs, disabled, and trans people facing real problems in the U.S. right now.
Finally someone mentions it. It’s just straight up gross to compare. But I will say people getting this mad isn’t as absurd when you have the backstory.
In the context of US; Gay, lesbian, or trans characters existing is enough to label a media under “porn” and states like Florida regularly ban lgbtq+ books using this loophole.
So a lot of people instinctively go on defensive when anyone bans porn.
Also full story wasn’t the business independently chosing to moderate. Another company told them to and game company had to comply.
People are mad an unrelated company out there is trying to regulate what you can’t buy with your money. It just feels weird.
Straight up wholly accurate and applicable. If you don’t understand that basic fact, maybe you need to hear it referenced a few more times…
This morality police crap being carried out by the most immoral bastards on the planet needs to stop.
You realize that you’re defending a game that was literally a rape and incest simulator that was already banned in multiple countries before the payment processor issue occurred, right?
Yeah! Let’s sell pornos out of candy shops too! Fuck morality policing!
No one with a brain is suggesting this. It should be up to the service and government to create rules to allow or not allow harmful content. It should definitely not be a payment processor.
Businesses shouldnt be allowed to refuse service for any reason!
What if you refuse to bake a cake because you have no sugar?
Yep fuck morality policing and anyone who supports it, hope you all rot in hell etc.
Applause for such a brave opinion!
The issue at hand is that it’s being made impossible to sell them at all.
except nowhere on earth is your example happening.
why not?
When did they say “fuck morality policing”, or even “let’s all stop policing morality”?
Either you piggy-backed off a comment to be a whole weirdo. Or you neee to up your reading comprehension.
When did you jerk off last?
Right after I read your comment!
The comment section of my favorite adult Visual novel is already getting panicked.
Eternum is really really good I swear it’s not just porn
Apparently there is some petition? Taking a look now.
Edit: Yup. Go sign it
Makes me wonder if Echo Project will have to worry about any of their games. Echo itself doesn’t have explicit sexual content, but it does have violence involving minors, kidnapping, torture, and suggestions of rape.
Collective shout finacials year: 2024 revenue: 458043 employee_expenses: 107000 other_expenses: 215488 net_surplus: 135555 employees: total_fte: 2 full_time: 0 part_time: 1 casual: 4 volunteers: 15 donations_and_bequests: 389800 government_grants: 0 commercial_income: 0 expense_to_revenue_ratio: "70.4%" average_expense_per_employee: 39400 Leadership - name: Melinda Tankard Reist role: Founder, Movement Director public_socials: - Twitter: @MelTankardReist - Instagram: @collective.shout public_email_address: Not publicly listed salary: Not publicly listed - name: Caitlin Roper role: Campaigns Manager public_socials: - Instagram: @collective.shout public_email_address: Not publicly listed salary: Not publicly listed - name: Renee Chopping role: Campaigns Strategy public_socials: - LinkedIn public_email_address: r******@collectiveshout.org salary: Not publicly listed - name: Lyn Swanson Kennedy role: Campaigns Strategy public_socials: - Instagram: @collective.shout public_email_address: Not publicly listed salary: Not publicly listed - name: Coralie Alison role: Movement Operations Manager public_socials: - Twitter: @CoralieAlison - Instagram: @collective.shout public_email_address: Not publicly listed salary: Not publicly listedThis is exactly like the pearl-clutching we had back in the 1980’s around D&D and music lyrics. At least we moved the goalpost from satanic panic and thinly-veiled racism, over to “art that features sexual expression I don’t understand.”
If history is any indicator, their actions are only going to increase awareness of this kind of stuff.
Fuck religion.
Don’t you just love people that can’t mind their own fucking business?
Bro for real! Like I hate any porn game, as a game. Not as a societal flaw!
So you know what I do? Same exact thing I do about gay sex. I don’t do it, I don’t think about it very often unless there’s a funny joke to be made in a tangential way, and I don’t tell other people that they have to be exact like me.
Ffs, let people do what they want if they aren’t hurting anyone.
They cannot help it. They literally think about it all the time, and there’s no helping people like collective shout or the crazies on the street. The unwashed ones with the “you’re going to hell for gay sex” signs.
I see the same people on the street all the time. And they think about gay sex WAY more than I do, and I’m married to a person of the same goddamn sex, lol.
Some people really need to cut loose. Generally, I’m not pro-drugs, but damn, they need some hard party drugs to reset things and help them get back to a normal life. Go to burning man, get a good job, then go hike the Appalachian trail or something, for Christ sake.
I would argue that instead of party drugs (which I assume is X, coke, alcohol, pot, and so on), I think they need a good ego death trip. I’m talking like twenty caps(or two wavy bois) or an LD50 of LSA.
but if people are watching porn or having gay sex then they’re not making babies to sacrifice to the capitalist meat grinder.
They want people having more babies so the US president has more supply to pick from. It’s not been as easy since he lost his best friend that helped sort it out for him.
“If you sin you’re going to hell, I have to save you from yourself!”
I’m so sick of this. What if we don’t want saving? Just fuck off.
I’ve got friends in both places, and I highly doubt God is gonna give you extra karma or brownie points for converting someone to a made up religion that’s like, maybe 200 years old, lol.
Go gardening. Volunteer at a big cat rescue place. Stop wasting your life preaching something that deep down, you probably don’t even believe in, but is distracting you from something else in your life that could be resolved with therapy.
gamers, unironically, rise up. this isn’t going to end on niche porn games
It’s already expanded. It started as going after “rape and incest” but now it’s all adult games. But a bunch of lgbtq games have already gotten hit. I am beyond furious.
It’s gonna stop once they hit a category that includes big AAA games. Once they start cutting into the revenue of Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed the big developers should take a stance.
I’ve already seen a pretty big YouTuber cover that they are targeting GTA 6 now. It was either moistcritical or mudahar
Shit. Would you provide a source please?
i don’t know if any source has caught up yet, but a few days ago it was indeed just taboo kink games that were being targeted, now it seems all of itch.ios NSFW games are disappearing
I think all games being hit is a temporary measure while they get some sort of new process in place. We’ll see where things land.
Either way, card processing companies shouldn’t be dictating what kind of art consumers can consume, even if I don’t personally agree with the content of some of the worst offenders. If it’s not outright illegal, they can fuck off.
Isnt that addressed in the post?
Here’s one example I came across on Bluesky
Direct link to the game because the creator restricted who can view their posts on Bsky. Only viewable via a link or from their profile now, searching the name only returns a bunch of other dress-up games, but not this one, presumably because of the „Transgender“ tag.
Thanks for the context. Might have been caught up in the crossfire, but very worrying indeed.
Neighbors being kidnapped: I sleep
Taking my fetish games: Real Shit
most of the world isn’t american. we can’t do anything about your government
How do I tell politely in a letter to MasterCard, that if I want to buy a horse dildo it’s only MY fucking business?
buy a horse dildo with bitcoin and flaunt how they didn’t get any money from your transaction? idk man, i’m good at vague ideas, specifics are harder
Since this is caused by activist pressure on the payment processors, perhaps a grassroots activist campaign of our own could change their mind. Especially if we threaten to stop using their services in favor of any competitor that allows all legal purchases.
Hopefully you’re referring to Visa/Paypal, not Itch.
One place that comes to mind is Verotel. I barely know them, but supposedly one of their star attributes is their use for adult businesses. Likely someone else knows them better.
visa have similar restrictions… the issue is that payment processor, merchant, card network, issuing bank, and acquiring bank (and a few more) are all different layers to facilitating a transaction… there are very few card networks in the world, and essentially people pay online using mostly either just visa or mastercard
technically you could probably run a site that only accepts amex, diners club, jcb, discover, etc but it really wouldn’t go well: people want to whip out their card (often their only method of online payment) and just pay and go
you’d also need to find a payment processor that would be comfortable taking on the risk of facilitating transactions around mastercard and visa… they might just cut them off from access to their network. sounds like extortion? yeah welcome to the world of banking, where in any other industry it’d be called a cartel
making things even more difficult is that by law in the US payment processors must offer at least 3 (i think? it might be 2?) “routes” (these things aren’t always straight forward - sometimes there are multiple card networks involved), so you probably have to have a pretty mature payment processor because they’d have to accept several of the alternative card networks
oh and you have to push various stats to the federal reserve which is a massive back and forth bureaucratic challenge even above the technical challenge of interfacing with some pretty awful systems. it often takes over a year to get things sorted unless you’re a “too big to fail” type customer
there are a buuuuunch of other spanners that get thrown into the works, but i’m not sure where the NDA line hits so i’m gonna just leave it there and say trust me, payment processing (distinct from payment gateway) is an absolute nightmare mess
I’m not sure that works, like on a purely game theory level. If gamers start to apply pressure, threaten to stop buying games, the stores need to make a choice:
A. Risk facing the wrath of the gamers, sales are likely to drop. Possibly by a lot, perhaps 15-20%. That could keep up for months before stabilizing.
B. Risk facing the wrath of the payment processors, credit card sales will stop immediately, only alternative payment types get through. Sales drop by 80% overnight, over time some users will seek alternative payment methods, possibly resulting in only 50% less revenue than expected…
While both of those options are bad, one of them is totally fatal to their business.
Those numbers are of course only speculation, but that’s my best guess.
I meant pressing the payment processors, like those prude activists are.
I find it offensive that the only effective way to combat this is to fight fire with fire and also make a big bitchy noise about this like the conservatives love to do. I have better things I would rather be doing with my life. But such are the times we live in I suppose.
In the short term, I think that collectively being Karens about it would be able to reverse the pressure, by steering the monopolists away from oppressing us. Because they are mainly motivated by money.
In the long term, take away their monopoly power.
Any games with even mild nudity is next (like Nier)
Yep, then lgbtq games, then games with guns, then games with blood, so on and so on
Are you sure gun and violence culture is on the chopping block? In the American market?
It absolutely is. We only encourage gun and violence culture in real life, especially by authoritarian figures and their representatives. Allowing such in virtual spaces where no one can actually be hurt or killed runs counter to our patriotic ideals.
The big payment processors won’t let you buy firearm parts
It absolutely is, it’s naive to think these puritans will just decide to stop here
GUNS are you nuts… Murican “morale” apostles might have infuenced the media worldwide, but if you take away guns… you lose Murica!
Collective Shout is Australian.
Activision, EA, Ubisoft, etc. would never let that happen.
