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Games: No sex, please. we're credit card companies
- 486sx33 1y ago[dead]
- Insanity 1y agoSerious question - why do credit card companies care? What harm does it do to them if people buy adult oriented games?
- Apreche 1y agoThe same reason they make it difficult to use credit cards for gambling. Merchants that sell porn, gambling, and other vice have higher rates of fraud. If they allow them to accept credit cards at all, they charge them much higher merchant’s fees to do so.
- Insanity 1y agoAh, gotcha. That rationale does make some sense then.
- BizarroLand 1y agoWell, until you realize that the merchants affected in this specific incidence, itch.io and steam, have had 12 and 21 years respectively of operation without causing issue for online payment systems, indicating that this is a BS excuse.
- babelfish 1y agoIf the payment systems find that 90% of the fraud/chargebacks through these platforms is from 0.1% of the games, of course they would push for those 0.1% to be banned.
- multjoy 1y agoThe payment networks don’t pay for the cost of chargebacks - that’s borne by the merchant or the card issuer, the network makes money either way. This is one of those situations where the optimal level of fraud isn’t zero.
- leereeves 1y agoWho does chargebacks on Steam? They'd lose their whole account.
- michaelt 1y agoWhy should that be the case? Do the credit card companies go to Wal-Mart, find all the fraud is people buying cigarettes, spirits and razor blades, and tell Wal-Mart to stop stocking those? Of course they don't.
- sltkr 1y agoIs there any evidence that this is the case, though?
- sltkr 1y agoIf this was all there was to it, I'd expect a surcharge for risky payments instead.
- creer 1y agoExactly. And that mechanism is already in place: some payment processors will accept sex industry vendors. They just charge more.
- benkel 1y ago[dead]
- quickthrowman 1y agoThis has absolutely zero effect on Visa and Mastercard, they exist to make money and they’ll process any dollars they can, provided the chargeback and fraud rate is low enough. In the case of porn, it isn’t. They’d probably need to charge merchants 5-10% fees to cover the fraud and chargebacks on porn sites. Again, Visa and MC arent declining on ethical grounds, it’s not profitable for them without gouging merchants on processing fees.
- wmf 1y agoThat's a common narrative but how do you explain Steam?
- quickthrowman 1y agoMaybe the chargeback rate on porn games is lower than actual pornography, the credit card statement will just say “Steam” or “Valve” instead of ‘Monthly subscription to kink.com”. Do you really think that Visa and MC are ethical organizations who listen to whiny Christian conservatives about porn? They’re giant money making machines, and porn is legal. If it was profitable, they’d allow it, their shareholders would demand it.
- wmf 1y agoWhat's your explanation for why Visa/MC specifically demanded incest games to be banned from Steam? They can't even see which games are causing chargebacks.
- ryoshoe 1y agoTheir shareholders only demand the price stays up. Headlines claiming Visa and MC are associated with legal but morally controversial material is likely to hurt shares regardless of whether such claims are valid
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- michaelt 1y agoThere's an unwritten compact between American politicians and American payment providers. The payment providers get to charge a 2% fee on all transactions, without any pesky questions about antitrust law. In exchange, when politicians ask nicely, the payment provider cuts folks Wikileaks, out of the financial system without any pesky questions about the first amendment.
- scythe 1y agoI think the root of the problem is that it's just extremely unpleasant to moderate user-generated adult content. It's already difficult to moderate content on a somewhat serious online forum like Hacker News. Facebook moderators have been in the news and on South Park due to the emotional drain of the task. Who's going to sign up to pore over everyone else's weirdest thoughts given form? Certainly not me. So this results in websites that allow people to upload pornography having lapses of moderation where something bad gets through every now and then. One day some creepy clip goes viral among some social conservatives and they try to make legal threats against the site and anyone they consider "affiliated". This creates problems, credit card companies are very protective of their reputations, and they usually decide the conservatives seem less bad. Then someone sets up a new site that allows user-generated adult content and the cycle repeats.
- IshKebab 1y agoI suspect they really couldn't give a shit either way but porn is not a remotely significant proportion of their profit and it's just easier to cave to the "think of the children" busy bodies. They'd like to keep their sweet gig out of the news as much as possible and standing up to that noise attracts attention for little gain.
- snitzr 1y agoNo Sex Please, We're British.
- dilap 1y agoIt keeps getting side-tracked in get-rich-quick-schemes and sandbagged by UX horrors, but in theory this is a great use-case for crypto: the freedom to pay whoever you want for whatever you want, like cash, but online.
- Etheryte 1y agoIt isn't getting side-tracked, the schemes are the main point. If memory serves well, a recent study showed that roughly 85% of all shitcoins that shot up showed clear signs of manipulation. That said, I agree with you, private companies should have no business saying who I can transact with.
- kalaksi 1y agoYou're saying that a big number of shitcoins with a tiny market cap is somehow representative. Many coins, especially the big ones, have actual proper main points. Maybe this is an example of getting side-tracked.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ToValueFunfetti 1y ago>violations that result in administrative action are permanent with no chance of appeal. Any funds on the account will not be eligible for payout. This is just theft, no? I'm sure they've got a ToS that lets them do whatever they want, but it's nevertheless ironic to commit an actual immoral act in order to prevent depictions of immoral[1] acts. If they don't want people making money off of this stuff on their platform, they need to stop it before they allow the developer to sell their work to a customer there. [1] Presumably this includes, eg., consensual BDSM, which I wouldn't consider immoral. But then, I'm not Australian, so what right do I have to determine what other people should be allowed to do?
- ToucanLoucan 1y ago> If they don't want people making money off of this stuff on their platform They don't care if people make money off anything as long as they get a slice. This is strictly about cutting costs. As said elsewhere, adult content has much higher rates of "fraud" (both actual fraud, and what people lie saying is fraud when the Mrs. sees it on the statement) especially charge-backs. The companies don't want to deal with the charge-backs so they're pressuring platforms to remove the content from sale. None of this is about morality, sex workers, sex work or any of the other THINK OF THE CHILDWEN nonsense. It's just cheap fuck corpos trying to weasel out of as many of the expenses of their businesses as they can fucking manage, because fuck knows VISA is really hurting for money these days. This shit is exhausting.
- jhanschoo 1y agoI don't see prima facie how this reason holds up for Valve which also faced similar pressure. Valve has robust internal refund processes, that I suppose many people use instead of chargebacks because it is more convenient. Perhaps it also suffers from the same problem as adult content and service operators with respect to just its adult content, but I would need more proof of that.
- jjcm 1y agoAs mentioned in the article, this is primarily the result of a campaign from Collective Shout: https://www.collectiveshout.org/open-letter-to-payment-processors https://www.collectiveshout.org/open-letter-to-payment-proce... What isn't mentioned is there are some pushbacks against this. If you're opposed to credit card companies being able to effectively deem what is and isn't legal to purchase, consider supporting one of these efforts: The ACLU has an open letter to Mastercard urging them to reverse this action, with the primary messaging that deplatforming sex workers makes their jobs more dangerous: https://action.aclu.org/petition/mastercard-sex-work-work-end-your-unjust-policy https://action.aclu.org/petition/mastercard-sex-work-work-en... There's also the Fair Access to Banking Act. The primary point of the bill is CC providers shouldn't be deciding legality of what can and cannot be paid for. This puts restrictions on any bank/payment provider with over 50b in assets to not be able to restrict payments to legal content: https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/401 https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-bill/401 I'd definitely encourage you to either write to your representatives or sign the open letter if you're opposed to this.
- crooked-v 1y ago> sign the open letter > By completing and submitting this form, I agree to receive emails, and, if I have entered a phone number, phone calls and texts (including automated recurring text messages) from the ACLU and its state affiliates at the contacts I provided. Fuck no. I get enough of that "YOU MUST DONATE IMMEDIATELY OR THE WORLD WILL EXPLODE" shit 24/7 already.
- NotPractical 1y ago> During the Epic v. Apple lawsuit, Apple lawyers even cited itch.io as the kind of adult-friendly gaming platform that it wouldn't be comfortable allowing via its more family-friendly App Store. Serious question: why is censorship of sexual content by Apple largely ignored, but it becomes a huge deal when other large companies do it?
- karahime 1y agoMy best guess on this is that it's as simple as 1) most people are not Apple users (harder to reach critical mass online), 2) and most Apple users are aware of other ways to access things if that's what they want, while the ones who don't want that buy Apple in part because of the more walled garden aspects. This is purely speculative though, so it would be interesting to see surveys or other perspectives.
- imzadi 1y agoThe difference here is that itch.io and steam's hands were forced by their payment processors. This isn't like Apple deciding what Apple will and won't sell. This is Mastercard decided what Steam and Itch.io will and won't sell.
- Root_Denied 1y agoI think it's a fair question. While I disagree with Apple's stance, I think there's a valid argument that Apple is running a platform that you can choose to utilize or engage with or not - similar to how Apple could refuse to serve or trespass someone from one of their physical stores, the platform is self contained and clearly owned by a single entity. The fundamental difference with a payment processor is that they control financial transactions between entities that have no relation to Visa/MC. They facilitate money being moved quickly and efficiently between accounts for goods or services, and they have no business inserting themselves into the content of the transaction. I think it's also worth pointing out that the main reason I think that it's inappropriate for payment processors to decide on what content can be paid for with their systems is that it's a closed ecosystem - you can't just set up your own payment processor (though some governments are attempting to do so already), so there's a real risk of a small number of companies controlling what can and can't be bought digitally - that includes not just content related to sex, but also potentially content that is violent, or political. If we're going to have a very limited group of payment processors, then they need to be completely neutral - or we need to make it possible (or at least easier) for alternative payment processors to spin up operations and work within the global financial network. Considering the technical and regulatory difficulty of that second option I think the former is the better path.
- tahoeskibum 1y agoI miss the good old days when the credit card companies had no issues with Playboy or Hustler.
- tomhow 1y agoItch.io: Update on NSFW Content - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44667667 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44667667 - July 2025 (259 comments)
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- JoshTriplett 1y agoThis isn't a dupe. It's important that this is getting reported in the news, because the last news outlet to report on this caved to pressure themselves and took the story down.
- crtasm 1y agoAre you referring to this from Vice? https://archive.ph/x5cGQ https://archive.ph/x5cGQ That link seen on https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/itchio-apologise-for-frustration-and-confusion-after-delisting-thousands-of-nsfw-projects https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/itchio-apologise-for-frustr...
- tomhow 1y ago> the last news outlet to report on this caved to pressure themselves and took the story down Can you share more details about this? > This isn't a dupe. It's important that this is getting reported in the news In addition to the earlier discussion about Itch.io, which had over 250 comments, the related story about JanitorAI had major exposure and discussion on HN just four days ago (> 300 upvotes & > 300 comments). https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44629134 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44629134
- JoshTriplett 1y ago> Can you share more details about this? https://www.notebookcheck.net/After-payment-processors-prompt-removal-of-Steam-games-journalists-investigating-the-censorship-resign.1063259.0.html https://www.notebookcheck.net/After-payment-processors-promp...
- edwardbernays 1y agoPayment processors will refuse to service payments for fictional harm, but will happily help people support a fascist[1]. If we're going to censor things, we should at least censor the actual, out-and-out, self-admitted fascists. Icky games with fictionalized harm do not seem to result in real harm, yet we have a very recent history showing the harm of real-life fascism. What a strange standard! [1] https://www.givesendgo.com/rift-connor-emergency-fund https://www.givesendgo.com/rift-connor-emergency-fund
- alphazard 1y agoThe payments space looks like it is going to be very competitive in the next few years. I don't see how something like this can last, without a competitor swooping in to process the payments. They are just giving up market share, seems crazy. And eventually the friction of using cryptocurrency will be low enough that it is also a viable option. There are stable coins available on all the major ledgers. That means no need additional currency risk. You can get paid in USD.
- cykros 1y agoThat any of these outlets are bending over for payment companies rather than just using Internet native money in 2025 is a real head scratcher. It's really not that hard to just accept Lightning payments. Heck, you can do it with Square EPOS terminals these days. But a lot of industries are just in a D/s relationship with credit cards and I probably should stop kink shaming them.