[mwill]

These conservative groups aren't pressuring Steam and Itch directly, they're targeting payment processors.

I don't think it's realistically viable to compete with Steam (or Itch) without access to Mastercard and Visa.

(For anyone thinking crypto: we have a different idea of what it means to be either "realistically viable" or to "compete with Steam")

[hungmung]

If we don't get a section 230 for payment processors we're looking at serious consequences for 1A because everything will be a civil suit away from getting blacklisted. Economist reported that adult performers are having trouble keeping bank accounts open -- as soon as a bank or payment processor finds out it's porn-related it gets nuked. Now that this is established practice, what's going to happen when Visa/MC gets sued for handling payments to do with disagreeable political speech? Our right to freedom of speech is currently only as strong as what Visa/MC are willing to defend in court, or you'd better be willing to live without any access to the banking system -- even if you're a gazillionaire who doesn't have to work, you've got to keep your money somewhere (and satisfy KYC).

Even if somebody thinks certain speech should be censored, I doubt they'd want what they consider unsavory speech being driven to use a payment system like Bitcoin, and for that to become the norm, it would open up much more potential for abuse.

[MBCook]

This is not the administration to ask for that.

[zahlman]

Most of the people I've seen advocating for this kind of pressure, for the purpose of suppressing this sort of content in video games, would describe themselves as very much the opposite of "conservative". But perhaps it's for the better that they are recognized as such. Because it really is a conservative instinct, no matter what American party politics might currently be dictating.

[magicmicah85]

You don't need to compete with Steam or Itch for games that they can't sell, you're in your own market.

[MBCook]

And as soon as people find out you exist, they get the payment processors to shut you down too as part of their crusade.

Now what?

If you’re visible, you’re a target. If you’re not, you don’t matter.

[chipsa]

What you need for running a site that people might not like: 1. Your own servers 2. Your own network 3. Your own CDN 4. Your own payment processor

Step 4 gets you thrown in jail for violating AML.

[josh_p]

being discoverable on the existing markets is extremely valuable.

[creer]

It's hard for the big companies which want to stay big - and so feel that they can't live without credit cards. But indeed that's not an issue for newcomers.

The problem with alternatives to things like OnlyFans is that the performers who work through OnlyFans want to go where people can find them. They can dumb down their acts - and have lots of paying traffic, or they can do what they would prefer - and have hardly any paying traffic. That's tough.

[leptons]

>These conservative groups aren't pressuring Steam and Itch directly

Pretty soon (in the U.S.) all porn and sexual-adjacent content is going to be illegal. The christo-fascists currently in power said they were going to do it, and they will.

[the8472]

> I don't think it's realistically viable to compete with Steam (or Itch) without access to Mastercard and Visa.

They could not allow those games to be sold through those particular payment processors and require wire transfers instead. More cumbersome payment method, but better than outright banning them.

If the payment processors try to dictate what content these sites may host even when it involves competing processors that sounds quite anti-competitive practice.

[mywittyname]

The impression I get is allowing them to be purchased at all is grounds for the payment processor to suspend their account. So this solution is a no-go.

Probably the only way around it is to spin up a completely different corporate entity which only allows for payments via wire transfer, ACH, or perhaps some of the various payment apps available.

[madaxe_again]

Just get people to mail you cash. Sounds stupid, but that’s how I built my first ecommerce business in the 90’s, and it was a pretty normal way to pay for stuff online. Cash, money order, bank cheque, whatever.

[TulliusCicero]

> Just get people to mail you cash.

> (For anyone thinking crypto: we have a different idea of what it means to be either "realistically viable" or to "compete with Steam")

Wow, not crypto, but GP fucking nailed it.

[FranchuFranchu]

You can't realistically target anyone outside the US with this.

[jimbob45]

they're targeting payment processors

They're not "targeting" payment processors. Payment processors have to deal with significantly more problems due to the nature of porn games and chargebacks. Fix those problems and the payment processors won't have a reason anymore to ban porn (or anything). What's the point of a capitalist economy if not for startups to target market needs like these?

[gs17]

> Payment processors have to deal with significantly more problems due to the nature of porn games and chargebacks.

This is commonly repeated, but doesn't hold up. Chargeback fees (especially for card-not-present transactions) are paid by the merchant and are simply increased (with reserves required) for high-risk accounts. It also wouldn't make sense to target hyper-specific niches if it were really about chargebacks, they would go after all of it, and go after things like the CS marketplace.

But the biggest giveaway IMO is that they do not allow, e.g., Steam selling these games crypto-only. It's either remove them entirely or remove credit cards entirely. If it was really about specific titles having high fraud/chargeback rates, selling them some other way would be fine.

[jdasdf]

Those problems are artificially created by regulation. There is nothing inherent to these topics that makes servicing them physically impossible.

Charge backs, etc... can be effectively solved by appropriately pricing in such risks (or not offering those services at all).

This isn't a payment processor issue, it's a political choice.

[jacobsimon]

Maybe a silly idea, but here’s a solution to prevent financial censorship: make the game free. Or monetize via another way—ads, subscriptions, credits. There’s actually a lot of options for Steam if they aren’t being pressured directly to remove the content.

[gs17]

> if they aren’t being pressured directly to remove the content.

The problem is that they aren't being told "we won't let people buy this through us", they're told "this needs to go entirely or no more credit cards for you".

[WorldMaker]

Most of the games that have been deindexed on itch.io and some of the ones that were banned/removed were free or Pay-What-You-Want/Donation-Ware (some even via Patreon or SubscribeStar rather than itch.io's own payment processing).

The problem isn't just "the Payment Processor doesn't want to support this game" but also "this game shows Guilt-By-Association that your platform's money might go to 'criminals' or 'sinners'."

Guilt-By-Association is real gross, but a large part of the current fight, too, especially looking at itch.io's payment processor-required actions, not just Steam's.

[jandrese]

> Or monetize via another way—ads, subscriptions, credits

That don't use Visa/Mastercard? The bans aren't coming from the platforms but from the payment processors.

[axus]

"Citizen's United" wasn't _wrong_ about money being a type of speech, that shouldn't be censored. Only wrong about who the first amendment is for.

[gqgs]

>Or monetize via another way—ads, subscriptions, credits.

All of those are still prone to censorship if the attacking group is motivated enough. Even crypto, which should be the ideal solution to this problem, is not ideal because most transactions are performed through centralized exchanges which can easily blacklist whatever transactions they want.

[pfisch]

F2P games are very different in design from regular games(and far worse imo)

You can't even realistically have a F2P game that requires a high spec machine because of how the market works.