Lol I’m on the visa line with Visa now, they have a prepared statement about this.
They are trying to say they only ever block purchases unless it’s illegal.
They explicitly said they DO NOT moderate purchases unless it is illegal multiple times. I kept challenging her and saying it’s not illegal, yet they moderate, but she told me she can only read the prepared statement and repeated it multiple times. She then told me I would have to email them to “share my perspective” and then hung up on me.
I love how facts are just rendered to perspectives now.
It’s a common tactic of fascists. If you point blank refuse to accept reality and just keep repeating the same lie over and over maybe people will believe it. Of course it doesn’t really work. The people that were going to believe you already believe you, and the people who don’t believe you, will never believe you. Sadly despite the fact that it doesn’t work, they keep doing it.
But it does work.
If they keep you busy arguing about what’s real they never have to discuss actions or resolutions.
I could not have worded it any more succinctly. This is what capitalism + the internet has done to us.
That is true, these are perspectives. Nobody knows the truth, only a projection if it upon their world.
It’s just that by that they are claiming that it’s their perspective which decides what will happen.
In other words, they are saying “so whatcha gonna do”.
Good thing what they say doesn’t matter, since goal is to tie up the lines.
I support this but I find it fascinating the steam this can build and quick activism with guides and yet I never see any of this stuff when it comes to political policies
Threats to the bottom line is the thing that motivates companies faster than anything else.
Why are we not calling the CEOs and other MBA/c-suite goblins directly?
If anyone has the GPUs to self-host LLMs to spam the shit out of them, it’s gamers. Gotta get on an easy-to-self-host project to distribute to the community 😄
you can probably use the tts tools from hume.ai
I think the limiting factor would be getting your number blocked. Maybe someone could get a bunch of VoIP numbers?
I just called visa and got the send an email spiel. I didn’t have time to do more time wasting, but it’s clear from the person I talked to they are getting lots of calls.
The person in the screenshots getting the supervisor and escalating is a top tier time waster, great work!
is there any EU law that prohibits this itch/steam situation and the mastercard email contact information?
Would this not fall under collision?
I guess in the UK, Competitive Markets Authority may be interested if all companies in a space are colluding preventing effective competition.
Not sure if they have teeth though.
Great
Time to cancel some cards
There has to be an option where digital payment is concerned that allows an intermediate step that anonymizes transactions so one hand doesn’t know what the other is doing.
This bullshit really makes me not want to see digital currency at all now, of any kind.
I just learned about one, because of all this. A newer one. Gnu Taler
https://www.taler.net/en/index.html
Also, crypto, technically. Its got a lot of baggage though, and hoops and all that.
Wow. Imagine being able to buy a video game online with a credit card, without having to drive to the department store to buy it! You don’t even have to move from your seat! How draconian THAT would be!
Who has complained about that?
Couldn’t you just buy it on GOG or something? Steam sucks anyway why expend the effort
Talk about completely missing the point. Money processors have no business telling us what we can buy or where.
You’ve missed the point entirely.
Please enlighten me.
gestures at the rest of the thread
Not my job.
Hey now, why stop these people FROM CHANGING THE WORLD?! The stakes are too high gramps!
You are right, let’s all do absolutely nothing when corporations inch themselves into controlling every aspect of our lives.
They came for our porn!!!
Do you support incest and rape video games being globally banned from sale? I mean, I can kind of get it, its fucked up porn.
But I don’t like the idea of fictional smut, even if of particularly morally questionable type of porn, gets globally banned (as long as its just fictional obviously).
What people jork their peanits/flick their bean to as long as no one was actually harmed in its production is none of my or your business.
Obviously, there is also the chilling effect of letting this censorship slide and the anti-democratic nature of payment processors being the ones enforcing this. But I suspect those are unconvincing to you and you are happy this stuff is harder to get now. Am I wrong?
That’s their excuse but they are banning all adult games not just the incest and rape ones.
Fictional isn’t the same as not real.
Fiction is definitionally not true or is made up.
Cool, I didnt expect you to understand my point.
Nothing like a gaming platform that won’t let you refund your purchases after 2 hours of playtime.
I think you are confused about this it works. Steam absolutely does refunds after 2 hours of playtime, it’s just that if you have less than 2 hours it’s mostly automated and you don’t need a reason for the refund.
My bad.
Still, that gives them the discretion to turn you down.
Better than no refunds?
I’m looking for something a bit more reasonable. GOG lets you do it within 30 days regardless of playtime I think.
Maybe you should call and stop pay with their services
It’s impressive how much people get riled up about not getting porn. I don’t blame them but I also don’t see this as activism, I doubt anyone really spending the time on this cares about possible future censorship that others who are not them may face, they just want to buy their porn.
I don’t want Christians dictating what I can and cannot do.
This is not about the porn. If you think about it for more than 3 seconds it becomes obvious how this is about the power finance institutions have over morals and society and how religious groups leverage moral panics as a way to weasel in harm and destroy minorities by associating immorality with marginalized groups. Just like pro-life anti choice has nothing to do with saving children, but is about hurting women and controlling their uteruses. Terfism has nothing to do with feminism but is about hurting trans people. Drug wars weren’t about protecting the youth but about destroying the rights of Hispanic and black communities. And a long list of etcéteras.
This is about defending fundamental rights that will get trampled under the guise of moral and religious righteousness. It’s about power and control. Porn is just the scapegoat. Several LGBTQ+ games were also hit, many which didn’t even have anything to do with sex, just because of this incident. That’s how it begins and it was completely intentional, the cruelty is the point.
I just sum it up to a failure of capitalism . The fact that two companies have so much power over this without having to pass any laws or legislation is really the worrying part. I just hope people continue to fight even after this one thing is resolved. Otherwise it will happen again because that’s how capitalism works
If these games are so important the devs can release them free somewhere else. Steam and itch aren’t the only place to find games, and sounds like there’s room for a new market just for these games if they are as popular as it seems.
Porn games were not the only games delisted. Many non-porn non-sex games were removed. Including LGBTQ+ games, and even award winning AAA games. There’s no rational argument but only moral outrage and FUD. This was not a financially motivated decision, capitalism cannot solve the problems it created. You can’t use commercial alternatives to dispel the damage done by this decision and again, this is not about the porn. To assume it is just about the porn is to fall for the distraction tactic. For example, the point of screaming “save the children … by murdering all trans people” is in hopes that you will get distracted enough by the first part that you’ll turn a blind eye to the second one. To excite your amygdala with enough outrage and adrenaline that your pre-frontal cortex can’t perceive that the intentions and the actions don’t follow logically from each other. You are being manipulated.
This isn’t about porn games. They removed Detroit: Become Human.
If you think this will stop at porn games, then you’re a fool.
Maybe they reversed it in that case after outrage… I’m basing it on the reporting:
https://www.polygon.com/news/615910/itchio-steam-sex-adult-games-delisting-pulled-vice-controversy
In this case, the furor is driven by the knowledge that Collective Shout isn’t merely against games like No Mercy. It’s also waged a campaign against titles like Detroit: Become Human, Quantic Dream’s adventure game that is decidedly not an “adult” game, and titles like hentai puzzle/dating sim Huniepop. The worry is that, by bucking to pressure from groups like Collective Shout, platforms like Steam pave the way for more extreme censorship measures.
So maybe it was a separate campaign regarding Detroit?
they will go for games that have violence, horror and dark humor next.
- UK would like to disagree.
- France would like to disagree.
oh I see so you’ve decided what’s going on and are now angry about that.
I’m sorry that your story version of me is letting you down. I’m not really sure what I can do about it though.
First they came for the porn…
Ya I feel really conflicted about it but I do think the outcome in the long run is good.
I’ve never bought a porn game nor ever played one, but I just think it’s stupid that such large companies fold to a lobby organization and start moderating the sale of products.Christian fundamentalist activists are persistent and organized, and it’s effective. I think it’s bad how a small minority is able to dictate the lives of other people and I like how people get riled up because I hope it will remind the people in charge of those large corporations that catering to extremists is a bad decision.TLDR: Idgaf about the games, I just hate it when religious zealots dictate the lives of others.EDIT: I might have been wrong about “Collective Shout” and didn’t look into it enough before forming an opinion.
EDIT 2: Yeah, I don’t think “Incest Daughters BDSM” deserves saving. They seem to be primarily targeting rape and incest games, and I can definitely understand that you want to see rape games gone from if you’re an organisation like this. Article However, I still don’t know how accurate their own article is, I might check out more sources/perspectives when I have time.
EDIT 3: My initial assessment seems to be correct, a large amount of games are affected and the “policies” seem to be enforced with a disregard for accuracy. The organization also seems to be more extreme.
How about Detroit: Become Human? Because they removed that as well.
It might be because of child abuse themes and the portrayal of robot sex workers. It has been criticized before.
We knew right from the start that Detroit: Become Human was going to be heavy going. The 2016 and 2017 trailers both featured children in peril: first a child dangled from a rooftop, then a young girl being beaten by her father, but David Cage defended the dark subject matter with the promise that “there’s a context in the story, there’s a reason for that”, and we gave the game the benefit of the doubt. The problem is that having now seen the game in full it is clear that Cage’s child abuse narrative isn’t content with just one scene, and definitely isn’t used with care, context, and solid reasoning.
‘Detroit: Become Human’: Exploitative and Tasteless
I’m not sure if I agree with this sentiment. I feel like it was mostly focused on the way Kara goes out of her way to protect Alice, but I can kind of understand how someone else could see this differently.
I truly could not care less what they claim their reasoning is. I’ve played the game. I know how it handles things like child abuse.
This is not a game that should even be included in any conversation about censorship. The idea is fucking absurd.
I’m wondering how long it’s going to take to revert this policy
I’m against the censorship, to be clear, but a David Cage game might not be the best example to use in the future lol
Why? Because you don’t like them?
It’s a perfect example, because there’s nothing even close to pornographic in that game. The only possible reason would be because there’s a lesbian android couple that runs off together (if you let them).
There’s a solid argument that most of the porn games are some form of sexual abuse. You could argue that adults should be allowed to commit fake sexual abuse but its still likely not a positive for those who consume it.
Its interesting noone here has argued for porn games, just against censorship.
Right. Most of us don’t care about the porn, which is why we’re not arguing for it. Most of us just don’t like credit card companies being allowed to dictate what we do and don’t buy.
Plus, I’m guessing anybody with an incest fetish probably understands that isn’t something to go shouting to the world if they want their position to be taken seriously.
Makes it a bit harder to tell what someone’s intentions are though doesnt it? I dont think this problem will be solved by a petition anyways, itch.io is already working on a solution and steam likely will as well but be less vocal about it and the progress they are making.
I suppose it does make it more difficult, but very few things are as black and white as “people only care because they want to play porn games”. There’s usually some nuance in there.
And who knows, this whole situation happened because a tiny group pressured companies into acting a certain way. So it’s not like putting pressure on them has no effect. May as well try.
If the outcome is the most important thing than sure, may as well try. Although that will just get some of these horrible games re-listed so again I question the motivation.
The main issue I have is when people claim they are opposed to the idea of tiny groups pressuring companies to change policy, but then argue they should use the exact same tactic. This again seems to betray their stated motivation.
You could argue that adults should be allowed to commit fake sexual abuse but its still likely not a positive for those who consume it.
Should they be allowed to commit fake physical abuse? There are a lot of “violent” video games out there as well.
Probably not, there’s a reason the US military has spent money funding call of duty games.
If you think people playing pretend has that strong of an effect on them you might want to avoid the Internet all together. So much stuff on here is significantly worse than Mario jumping on a turtle.
Will it change someone individually drastically? Probably not. Does it have an effect on society and how it views military action around the world? Apparently so.
The military spent funding researching astral projection. That doesn’t mean it’s a thing.
