If you read the article, it does not say there has been a second wave or something targetting LGTBQ+ games. It is one person saying their comic was SFW and was delisted.
We should definitely fight back regardless, don’t get me wrong, but as of yet there has not been LGBTQ+ targetting.
The author of the SFW comic should contact itchio and ask why their game was deindexed, since itch did MASSIVE removal of all “adult” and NSFW content beyond what their payment processors asked, as to evade any issue and then reindex according to them.
Again, we should be alert, and we should monitor their firther actions closely, but it’s not time yet to cry wolf with the LGBTQ+ targetting.
I expected potentially shitty management of next gen Valve employees to ruin Steam, not this.
Worst case scenario if it get worse, what will the alternatives be in the future? Since most stores use these processors, would a store need to open up without them, or can the current ones decided to stop using them? I assume Steam won’t pull out even if they could, since it sounds like financial suicide when most of the customers are there for convenience.
GoG has A TON of payment processors available to buyers, at least in Europe.
I know because I checked it yesterday following all this shit about payment processors pressuring game stores to stop carrying NSFW games, as I intend to start using a different payment processor as the one I usually use (as it turns out, one of those alternative payment processors is already integrated in the banking app of one of my bank accounts).
My fucking god. You may or not believe me, but for the past 7 months, I’ve been almost completely unaffected by everything going on. I’m extremely lucky in that sense. This is the first thing that has gotten close to fucking with my life. I guess that I knew something was going to happen that would affect me. It didn’t feel like something that would actually affect me. True, this is still mostly a minor inconvenience, but it’s going to expand to include every M rated or slightly creative or provocative title. We are so fucked. My god.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
is banning porn games on the same level?
no… not even a little, but i think it’s pertinent… these groups keep pushing harder and harder and it won’t stop. it’ll eventually reach you as a person; not just your interests
I do. I legitimately do. But there’s people that don’t, or only care about their own groups. I care, but there’s not much I can do atm besides talk on the internet, which if you look at my comment history, you will see that I do. A lot.
I’m right with you there - freedom of expression is fundamental, I feel, and freedom of autonomy is not only a privilege to us as conscious, self-aware beings, but also a constant. Imagine a couple billion international people being told they can’t have nice things or freedom by a thousand extremely conservative people from one country. This whole thing is a joke, but if it’s any consolation the people will always fight back. We will always find a way to reject the doctrine of some buffoons. Chances are some people are already compiling a catalogue of every game removed from Steam in order for them to be available. The most low-effort controversial titles may not be much of a loss, but everything following them will be.
I think some people are already compiling lists on Bluesky. Maybe it’s time for a new Steam competitor? One that isn’t going to take the art of creators off for “controversial” content. The Itch.io CEO (which I first heard about 2 days ago) said that they’re looking for more cooperative payment processors, so they might be bringing stuff back? No idea, I can hope though.
All for competition but how is bringing a new competitor to the video game platform market going to solve this when the order came from the payment processors?
Well, the marketplaces are the ones that bent if that makes sense. Apparently, Discover and American Express aren’t named. So those could potentially be used.
The extremist group that convinced the payment processor is already targeting horror games next. They will not stop until they can dictate every media choice available
For anyone who wants to help stop them, reach out to their partners who fund them. Most of the orgs would not be happy to know they’re financially supporting a LGBTQ hate group.
These are Australian companies, and are not used to any sort of serious pressure from the public. They will drop CollectiveShout quickly if it looks like bad press for them.
Why the actual apeshit are people giving them death threats??? That won’t solve anything… as much as I hate this group of extremists, that’s the wrong way… open letters, publicity, etc.
Apparently payment processor. Singular. Stripe. Visa/MS never changed it’s policy and still allows NSFW content, they’re not even a payment processor. It feels a bit bonkers now that internet bombed them when they weren’t even involved with this mess and it was just Stripe. On the bright side, itch.io already announced they’re ditching them and are in talks with other payment processors.
Another side note - If it was Visa/MS themselves, they could not switch to other payment processor as all card payment processors work with visa/ms.
Steam is awfully silent, but that’s pretty normal of Gabe, transparency has never really been the strong side for Valve. Then again, steam never mentioned Visa/MS. In fact, they never mentioned any company names, only itch dared to do that, but seeing as both got hit at the same time, you don’t need to be a genius to figure out steam has likely the same problem as itch.io
UPDATE: Valve finally responded. MS now clearly looks complicit in this. There is some serious chain of blame game going, the whole thing seems rotten. What’s seriously worrysome about this is rule 5.12.7 mentions mutilation of a person or body parts, which would potentially also put many shooter games under the ban. Still unclear where Visa stands in this and if they’re involved.
True, but what did Valve actually delist on Steam? I frequent the AO section and everything has appeared to be business as usual in there. I had honestly not even heard about the pressures on Steam until I saw the stuff about Itch.
If I can’t have my lgbtq+ and nsfw games, then I don’t need my non-lgbtq+ and nsfw games. Go ahead and play this game and fuck around and find out. I’ll sell all of my consoles real quick. Fuck this mess.
It was only a matter of time. Well now what are we waiting for ? Let’s go after the easy target, CollectiveShout & end them & then use the example to “convince” payment processors to back off while simultaneously constructing alternatives
There’s a reason why Christ was crucified and it wasn’t for your sins. Christianity is a cult. Time to enter the 21st century people. Even the ancient Romans knew this.
Uhh, I don’t think ancient roman is a good example, unless barbarism, constant expansionism, slavery and patriarchy is your thing, and I’m skipping over a lot of other fucked up shit like forced sex based on status quo. While their culture was indeed rich, they were far from being an example country.
EDIT: Even carthage, the country rome destroyed, would be a better example.
I don’t know, it’s extremely unlike itch.io to be anti-lgbtq+. I wonder if it’s similar to Mouthwashing, which was also delisted, and the creator and many fans complained, but then it turns out it was delisted for unrelated reasons. (We know 100% for sure it was for unrelated reasons because it was actually delisted last year and nobody noticed until now.)
At least in the US, it’s full of regulatory red tape that was designed to pull up the ladder behind the current large payment processors.
Even Musk and his ample bribe money, under the most corrupt administration in decades, hasn’t managed to get full approval for his “X Twitter Money” payment service.
Steam can 100% enter any market they want, especially something entirely digital like online payment processing. That’s pretty closely related to what they do already. They just have to have a reason to want to do so.
Steam makes a reported $3.5 million per employee from commissions alone. Possibly as much at $19 million per head across the board. To put that into perspective, Facebook, one of the most profitable companies on the planet, averages a net income of $780,000 per employee, and Apple at $476,000 per employee.
Steam may not be as large as those companies, but they’re so effectively streamlined. So much of their profits come from existing systems that only need minimal maintenance as opposed to needing to constantly develop new products. It is a well-oiled money printing machine at this point. And nothing they do is based on any sort of speculation bubble threatening to burst at any point.
This is BS. Whatever payment processor they develop will need to interact with all of the major credit card processors: VISA, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express. All credit and debit cards use these four brands as the backing network. There is no way around it.
Nobody is going to add a new credit card brand, not even Steam. Amazon doesn’t do it. Twitter doesn’t do it. Ebay doesn’t do it. Nobody does. If they did, they would face immediate retribution from the VMDA empire. Their payments would cease, and Steam would collapse overnight.
That’s almost surely a result of how Valve works internally for approving projects. They operate with a flat management structure. With no bosses or managers, the employees themselves choose which projects to work on. The philosophy is that Valve only hires the best, and they should operate at their best doing what they enjoy instead of simply being told what to do.
Every employee at Valve is given the freedom to join whatever project they choose, or to create a new one. They are encouraged to work on what they feel if the most important project to the company and what will have the highest direct impact on their customers.
If the Valve employees wanted to make Half Life 3, they would. At this point the joke is that Valve simply can’t count to three. It feels like they want to keep that joke going more than make another Half Life game. Half Life 1 and 2, them Episode 1 and Episode 2, Portal 1 and Portal 2, Team Fortress and Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike 2. Several of these have had other interim releases, especially Counter-Strike, but those were always based on the previous game and not a totally new game from scratch, much like the Half Life Episodes.
Should be feasible, many of my bills allow it. If there’s an issue w/ lag, they could always allow it only for wallet top-ups and people could use that.
But I think the issue is that if they accept these payment processors at all, they need to comply w/ their policies. Completely cutting them off could significantly hurt sales.
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A few days ago there were many here saying the idea of a slippery slope to banning LGBTQ+ games was nonsensical.
Yet, here we are.
It always starts with “Protect the children!!”
Same crowd is who the children need protecting from
If you read the article, it does not say there has been a second wave or something targetting LGTBQ+ games. It is one person saying their comic was SFW and was delisted.
We should definitely fight back regardless, don’t get me wrong, but as of yet there has not been LGBTQ+ targetting.
The author of the SFW comic should contact itchio and ask why their game was deindexed, since itch did MASSIVE removal of all “adult” and NSFW content beyond what their payment processors asked, as to evade any issue and then reindex according to them.
Again, we should be alert, and we should monitor their firther actions closely, but it’s not time yet to cry wolf with the LGBTQ+ targetting.
Thanks for this.
I have zero faith this campaign will stop until we’re back in the stone age.
Future headline:
“Game vendors pressured to stop selling games where women are allowed to vote or express an opinion that doesn’t reflect her husband’s”
It starts with porn, and ends with anti-church content. Everything in between must go.
Haha, it doesn’t end there it just keeps going.
No violence!
I expected potentially shitty management of next gen Valve employees to ruin Steam, not this.
Worst case scenario if it get worse, what will the alternatives be in the future? Since most stores use these processors, would a store need to open up without them, or can the current ones decided to stop using them? I assume Steam won’t pull out even if they could, since it sounds like financial suicide when most of the customers are there for convenience.
Fuck these billionnaire fascists
Anyone got one of them antitrust lawsuits?
If these were EU corporations, they’d be sued into oblivion by consumer protection agencies
GoG is European right? They’ll probably try to go after them too.
And if not, GoG may become the main haven for non-approved content.
Depends. The Polish government has its share of religious nuts. If they get courted on this, Gog may end up forced to comply.
deleted by creator
Is gog Polish? If not, they could just pull the old corpo move of pulling out of markets they can’t operate in without doing it their way
GoG has A TON of payment processors available to buyers, at least in Europe.
I know because I checked it yesterday following all this shit about payment processors pressuring game stores to stop carrying NSFW games, as I intend to start using a different payment processor as the one I usually use (as it turns out, one of those alternative payment processors is already integrated in the banking app of one of my bank accounts).
My fucking god. You may or not believe me, but for the past 7 months, I’ve been almost completely unaffected by everything going on. I’m extremely lucky in that sense. This is the first thing that has gotten close to fucking with my life. I guess that I knew something was going to happen that would affect me. It didn’t feel like something that would actually affect me. True, this is still mostly a minor inconvenience, but it’s going to expand to include every M rated or slightly creative or provocative title. We are so fucked. My god.
is banning porn games on the same level?
no… not even a little, but i think it’s pertinent… these groups keep pushing harder and harder and it won’t stop. it’ll eventually reach you as a person; not just your interests
Oh, I believe you just fine… I’m just not sure this is something you should be bragging about.
Maybe you should also care about things that don’t directly affect you. Just a thought.
I do. I legitimately do. But there’s people that don’t, or only care about their own groups. I care, but there’s not much I can do atm besides talk on the internet, which if you look at my comment history, you will see that I do. A lot.
Then you should tell your previous comment.
I’m right with you there - freedom of expression is fundamental, I feel, and freedom of autonomy is not only a privilege to us as conscious, self-aware beings, but also a constant. Imagine a couple billion international people being told they can’t have nice things or freedom by a thousand extremely conservative people from one country. This whole thing is a joke, but if it’s any consolation the people will always fight back. We will always find a way to reject the doctrine of some buffoons. Chances are some people are already compiling a catalogue of every game removed from Steam in order for them to be available. The most low-effort controversial titles may not be much of a loss, but everything following them will be.
I think some people are already compiling lists on Bluesky. Maybe it’s time for a new Steam competitor? One that isn’t going to take the art of creators off for “controversial” content. The Itch.io CEO (which I first heard about 2 days ago) said that they’re looking for more cooperative payment processors, so they might be bringing stuff back? No idea, I can hope though.
All for competition but how is bringing a new competitor to the video game platform market going to solve this when the order came from the payment processors?
Well, the marketplaces are the ones that bent if that makes sense. Apparently, Discover and American Express aren’t named. So those could potentially be used.
I suppose, but do you really think a company will play with fire like that?
Not really. I can hope.
The extremist group that convinced the payment processor is already targeting horror games next. They will not stop until they can dictate every media choice available
For anyone who wants to help stop them, reach out to their partners who fund them. Most of the orgs would not be happy to know they’re financially supporting a LGBTQ hate group.
https://www.collectiveshout.org/partners
These are Australian companies, and are not used to any sort of serious pressure from the public. They will drop CollectiveShout quickly if it looks like bad press for them.
Why the actual apeshit are people giving them death threats??? That won’t solve anything… as much as I hate this group of extremists, that’s the wrong way… open letters, publicity, etc.
You need to make them shovel their own grave.
Who is giving them death threats? Where did this even come from.
I’ve been clicking through their website. They’ve postet screenshots on there
Source?
Apparently payment processor. Singular. Stripe. Visa/MS never changed it’s policy and still allows NSFW content, they’re not even a payment processor. It feels a bit bonkers now that internet bombed them when they weren’t even involved with this mess and it was just Stripe. On the bright side, itch.io already announced they’re ditching them and are in talks with other payment processors.
Can you post a source for this?
https://itch.io/t/5149036/reindexing-adult-nsfw-content
https://support.stripe.com/questions/prohibited-and-restricted-businesses-list-faqs
https://www.thegamer.com/steam-gaming-industry-visa-payment-processors-adult-games-banned/ (scroll down to Visa’s statement)
Another side note - If it was Visa/MS themselves, they could not switch to other payment processor as all card payment processors work with visa/ms.Steam is awfully silent, but that’s pretty normal of Gabe, transparency has never really been the strong side for Valve. Then again, steam never mentioned Visa/MS. In fact, they never mentioned any company names, only itch dared to do that, but seeing as both got hit at the same time, you don’t need to be a genius to figure out steam has likely the same problem as itch.ioUPDATE: Valve finally responded. MS now clearly looks complicit in this. There is some serious chain of blame game going, the whole thing seems rotten. What’s seriously worrysome about this is rule 5.12.7 mentions mutilation of a person or body parts, which would potentially also put many shooter games under the ban. Still unclear where Visa stands in this and if they’re involved.
https://kotaku.com/mastercard-denies-pressuring-steam-to-censor-nsfw-games-2000614393
True, but what did Valve actually delist on Steam? I frequent the AO section and everything has appeared to be business as usual in there. I had honestly not even heard about the pressures on Steam until I saw the stuff about Itch.
What? I’m not sure if that’s true, you seem to be the only person thinking this. Source?
https://infosec.pub/comment/17258261
If I can’t have my lgbtq+ and nsfw games, then I don’t need my non-lgbtq+ and nsfw games. Go ahead and play this game and fuck around and find out. I’ll sell all of my consoles real quick. Fuck this mess.
It was only a matter of time. Well now what are we waiting for ? Let’s go after the easy target, CollectiveShout & end them & then use the example to “convince” payment processors to back off while simultaneously constructing alternatives
There’s a reason why Christ was crucified and it wasn’t for your sins. Christianity is a cult. Time to enter the 21st century people. Even the ancient Romans knew this.
Oh, I have some pretty advanced sins
Can I subscribe for advanced sin stories
Once I put a hat on a goat
Uhh, I don’t think ancient roman is a good example, unless barbarism, constant expansionism, slavery and patriarchy is your thing, and I’m skipping over a lot of other fucked up shit like forced sex based on status quo. While their culture was indeed rich, they were far from being an example country.
EDIT: Even carthage, the country rome destroyed, would be a better example.
SHOCKER.
Fucking fundamentalists
Headline is misleading reagarding LGBTQ+ games:
Still, even one person having that delisted for being LGBTQ+, is a telltale sign.
I don’t know, it’s extremely unlike itch.io to be anti-lgbtq+. I wonder if it’s similar to Mouthwashing, which was also delisted, and the creator and many fans complained, but then it turns out it was delisted for unrelated reasons. (We know 100% for sure it was for unrelated reasons because it was actually delisted last year and nobody noticed until now.)
Sounds like Valve should set up a payment processing system.
At least in the US, it’s full of regulatory red tape that was designed to pull up the ladder behind the current large payment processors.
Even Musk and his ample bribe money, under the most corrupt administration in decades, hasn’t managed to get full approval for his “
XTwitter Money” payment service.Steam can 100% enter any market they want, especially something entirely digital like online payment processing. That’s pretty closely related to what they do already. They just have to have a reason to want to do so.
Steam makes a reported $3.5 million per employee from commissions alone. Possibly as much at $19 million per head across the board. To put that into perspective, Facebook, one of the most profitable companies on the planet, averages a net income of $780,000 per employee, and Apple at $476,000 per employee.
https://www.pcgamer.com/gaming-industry/valves-reported-profit-per-head-from-steam-commissions-is-out-there-and-at-usd3-5-million-per-employee-it-makes-apple-and-facebook-look-like-a-lemonade-stand/
Steam may not be as large as those companies, but they’re so effectively streamlined. So much of their profits come from existing systems that only need minimal maintenance as opposed to needing to constantly develop new products. It is a well-oiled money printing machine at this point. And nothing they do is based on any sort of speculation bubble threatening to burst at any point.
This is BS. Whatever payment processor they develop will need to interact with all of the major credit card processors: VISA, MasterCard, Discover, and American Express. All credit and debit cards use these four brands as the backing network. There is no way around it.
Nobody is going to add a new credit card brand, not even Steam. Amazon doesn’t do it. Twitter doesn’t do it. Ebay doesn’t do it. Nobody does. If they did, they would face immediate retribution from the VMDA empire. Their payments would cease, and Steam would collapse overnight.
And yet we’re still waiting for hl3
That’s almost surely a result of how Valve works internally for approving projects. They operate with a flat management structure. With no bosses or managers, the employees themselves choose which projects to work on. The philosophy is that Valve only hires the best, and they should operate at their best doing what they enjoy instead of simply being told what to do.
Every employee at Valve is given the freedom to join whatever project they choose, or to create a new one. They are encouraged to work on what they feel if the most important project to the company and what will have the highest direct impact on their customers.
If the Valve employees wanted to make Half Life 3, they would. At this point the joke is that Valve simply can’t count to three. It feels like they want to keep that joke going more than make another Half Life game. Half Life 1 and 2, them Episode 1 and Episode 2, Portal 1 and Portal 2, Team Fortress and Team Fortress 2, Counter-Strike and Counter-Strike 2. Several of these have had other interim releases, especially Counter-Strike, but those were always based on the previous game and not a totally new game from scratch, much like the Half Life Episodes.
https://medium.com/@dperciv1/welcome-to-flatland-valves-unique-culture-8372e63d664e
Couldn’t they just start accepting ACH to get around the payment processors? Or is that overly complicated?
Should be feasible, many of my bills allow it. If there’s an issue w/ lag, they could always allow it only for wallet top-ups and people could use that.
But I think the issue is that if they accept these payment processors at all, they need to comply w/ their policies. Completely cutting them off could significantly hurt sales.
I buy my games using steam wallet.