[HN Gopher] Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to...
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Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain
adult games
Author : freedomben
Score : 86 points
Date : 2025-07-18 15:54 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pcgamer.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pcgamer.com)
| timpera wrote:
| Considering their volume, I find it hard to believe that Valve
| couldn't find another, more lenient payment processor with
| similar fees.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| My understanding is that it's not just the processor, but
| Visa/Mastercard themselves have rules against certain types of
| merchants/products... they really have a monopoly on credit
| cards in general so you have to play by their rules.
| jajuuka wrote:
| Yep, they are a just a modern day mafia. "Would be a real
| shame if you didn't take down these games. Then we couldn't
| do business with you anymore."
| Ancapistani wrote:
| You're right, but it's slightly more complicated than that.
|
| My understanding is that payment processors are obligated to
| follow the policies of Visa/MasterCard, AmEx, and Discover,
| but that those parties' policies don't _explicitly_ ban these
| specific things for sale. Instead, they "strongly encourage"
| processors to ban them in their user agreements under the
| implicit threat of their risk level being increased, which in
| turn impacts the fees they pay to the credit card companies.
|
| I've not been deep in this world since ~2014, but at that
| time the only processor I could find that wasn't specific to
| the porn industry, offered physical terminals, had reasonable
| (if high) fees, and didn't ban legal transactions in their
| user agreement was PAI ("Payment Alliance International"). A
| quick look at their site today shows that they seem to have
| been acquired by Brinks, so that may no longer be the case.
| Mindwipe wrote:
| MasterCard have a specific restricted list that bans an
| awful lot of things in any adult context.
|
| Some of how to interpret that is left up to the processor,
| but it is broadly under MCs and to a lesser extent Visa's
| control.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| There are no other payment processors.
| slaw wrote:
| There are national issuers like JCB or UnionPay.
| vouaobrasil wrote:
| In some countries there are other systems. It's high time the
| modern world adopted something similar like Pix in Brazil.
| raincole wrote:
| There are no other payment processors that can replace
| Visa/Mastercard*.
|
| There are other payment processors in
| India/Japan/China/Brazil/etc. But none of them is
| internationally adopted like Visa/Mastercard.
| astura wrote:
| Adult content has a high chargeback rate and high fraud rates
| so payment processing for adult content has higher fees.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Which makes less sense when you consider Steam will refund
| you game if you dont want it.
| david38 wrote:
| I don't think you understand what's being said. He's not
| talking about the ability to refund
| jowea wrote:
| But is there a good reason to do a chargeback if you can
| easily refund it? Yes if someone stole the CC and used it
| buy something on Steam, but is that the concern or that
| someone buys something with a CC on their own account,
| and then chargebacks instead of refunding?
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| People say that a lot but I haven't seen actual statistics,
| and sites that have established low chargeback rates face the
| same issues.
|
| Also that's not a reason to ban certain genres/kinks, which
| is what's happening here.
| AIPedant wrote:
| The fact that these were specifically incest games makes me
| think a title was somehow involved in distributing CSAM,
| which is often why Visa/MC crack down on porn websites.
|
| But it is possible that Visa sensibly and correctly said
| "anyone who makes or purchases such a game is a despicable
| scumbag, and we shouldn't assume the financial risk of
| dealing with them."
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| That's a pretty wild idea for what someone would be putting
| on steam as a visual novel. And why would they need to be
| pressured into removing horrible illegal content?
|
| Or you think one person did that and it made the credit
| cards decide any story with incest would be the same? That
| would be ridiculous on their part.
| neuroelectron wrote:
| You need to be more specific. Conflating "adult content" with
| porn is both problematic is masks the real issue. A large
| majority of games Valve sells are adult content. But as you
| can imagine grand theft auto is not causing a lot of
| political backlash, despite the objectionable content.
| gorwell wrote:
| They could support a stablecoin like USDC and start pushing
| people to that. No censorship and lower fees. Valve broke
| ground with Steam, they could do it again.
| edm0nd wrote:
| nah. USDC funds can be frozen by Circle on demand/request.
| drexlspivey wrote:
| You wouldn't be buying or holding any USDC in your account.
| It would be invisible to you
| gs17 wrote:
| Would you care to explain the process more? I'd be glad
| to see a useful application of crypto.
| wmf wrote:
| The problem with that is that you usually end up using
| traditional payment rails (e.g. a Visa debit card) to
| "invisibly" buy the stablecoin and then you're subject to
| their rules and fees again.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| God lord you people are still trying to make this happen.
| Consumers don't want cryptocurrency. It has been irredemably
| tainted by scammers, grifters, human traffickers, drug
| dealers and despotic regimes.
| gorwell wrote:
| They also use dollars and credit cards and gift cards.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Early crypto believer here. My first purchase of Bitcoin
| was at $0.23. I've been through the ups and downs, used the
| proceeds to buy physical assets over the years (land, and
| one vehicle), and lost interest in the "community" shortly
| after Ethereum gained initial popularity. I still hold some
| crypto, mostly Bitcoin but also Ethereum, Monero, and a
| handful of altcoins that don't amount to enough to bother
| withdrawing.
|
| My hot take take: Crypto still fills a valuable role, and
| will still "take over" the global financial system both at
| the individual and institutional level. Whether that's
| Bitcoin, another coin, or something new created by the
| institutions themselves is yet to be seen.
|
| You're right that it's "tainted", of course. That's why I
| think we're in a (hopefully) long slump in adoption. I
| think that will rapidly change if and when the US Dollar
| loses its place as the world's reserve currency.
|
| At some point there will be a war or significant political
| disruption. A large part of the world will want to divest
| itself of dollars, and none of the state-backed
| alternatives will be stable enough for their needs. That's
| when we'll see a shift to crypto - first some international
| institutions that do business across ideological borders,
| then the rest of the internationals, then individuals.
|
| Unless and until that happens, things will continue to
| slowly grow. The boom/bust cycle will keep going, getting
| longer and lower magnitude over time. There's still money
| to be made in speculation, but that's not what interests me
| :)
| mvdtnz wrote:
| > At some point there will be a war or significant
| political disruption. A large part of the world will want
| to divest itself of dollars, and none of the state-backed
| alternatives will be stable enough for their needs.
| That's when we'll see a shift to crypto - first some
| international institutions that do business across
| ideological borders, then the rest of the internationals,
| then individuals.
|
| Sorry how would crypto end up more stable than any
| candidates for a reserve currency? The only thing even
| remotely stable in the crypto world are stablecoins
| which... are pegged to the dollar (the actual reserve
| currency) which is already unstable in your scenario.
| wmf wrote:
| It complicates things to have some games that can be purchased
| with credit cards and some games that can only be purchased
| with crypto.
| Hemospectrum wrote:
| If they continued to carry _any_ of the games that were
| singled out for removal by Visa and Mastercard, they would
| not be able to accept credit card payments for _anything else
| in their store_. This same drama has played out the same way
| with countless other online services.
| tencentshill wrote:
| Controversial games being restricted to purchase only with
| Steam Points. The credit card is only ever charged to buy
| points, which can then be used to purchase items on the store.
| Similar to fortnite.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| What can be done to loosen card companies' grip on this? It has
| been a constant problem now for decades.
| bobsmooth wrote:
| Bitcoin was supposed to solve this.
| gloryjulio wrote:
| Exactly. It's really a tragedy that crypto becomes a
| speculator's tool, and the real problem didn't even get
| solved.
| lawn wrote:
| And you could indeed use Bitcoin on Steam for a while!
|
| But then the blocks got full, fees and wait times
| skyrocketed, and in response to the customer backlash Steam
| removed Bitcoin.
|
| Meanwhile Bitcoiners were (and still are) only focused on
| number go up instead of other, more productive, use cases.
|
| Such a waste.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Likely nothing.
|
| The simple fact is, Visa/MC don't want to deal with porn
| because the number of chargebacks and fraud from porn purchases
| is significant and a huge outlier compared to most other
| charges. Their crusade against processing charges for adult
| material isn't about purity, it's simply business.
| blibble wrote:
| I can't imagine people are risking their steam accounts to
| ripoff a $5 adult game
| mnmalst wrote:
| Can you link a reliable source for this claim? I personally
| couldn't find anything with substance.
| mitthrowaway2 wrote:
| I doubt it. If that were the case, I think they would only be
| complaining to Valve about the number of chargebacks issued
| from the Steam store. Not about genres-that-are-correlated-
| with-chargebacks-in-other-contexts.
|
| Given Valve's generous refund policies, and the fact that a
| steam store purchase on your credit card statement looks
| quite innocent, and that the credit card companies didn't
| complain to Valve about chargebacks but about content, my
| guess is there are hardly any chargebacks, and this is just
| about moral purity.
| gs17 wrote:
| > Given Valve's generous refund policies,
|
| Their generous refund policy, and more importantly their
| very-non-generous chargeback policy. If you chargeback a
| Steam purchase, your account is locked.
| gs17 wrote:
| I'm not sure I buy the chargeback angle. It's commonly
| trotted out as a reason card companies would enforce
| censorship, but it doesn't make sense with the actions they
| take. Chargeback fees are paid by the merchant regardless of
| the chargeback's success, and are supposed to cover the costs
| of administering it (and then some). The very selective rules
| applied here are pretty odd from that angle too, if adult
| content chargebacks/fraud is the issue, then _all_ of it
| should be the issue, not small niches.
|
| Fraud is likely more realistic of an issue, but that's
| probably an issue with games in general, not just adult
| titles.
|
| There are already high-risk merchant accounts with higher
| fees and cash reserve requirements, but AFAIK companies like
| Valve aren't being given any options other than comply or be
| destroyed.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| That's not true, anti-sex work and anti-porn activists have
| specifically been pressuring payment processors to assume
| these policies. The processors as the critical control point
| of this whole thing was identified decades ago and
| conservative christian think tanks have been pursuing this
| path since then.
|
| This is part of a long-term plan to de facto ban lgbtq
| content without having to deal with first amendment
| protections. First have the payment processors ban explicit
| content, then have queer content categorized as explicit.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Visa charge a fee for processing chargebacks, and this will
| be a tiny fraction of Steam sales. I doubt it's their
| concern.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| in a word, regulation.
| niemandhier wrote:
| Regulation and anti cartel laws.
|
| Adult business is legitimate business in many parts of the
| world and companies using their monopoly to suppress it should
| be a case for an Investigation.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Use ACH/Zelle/Paypal/etc.
|
| The permanent solution is a federal government operated
| electronic money system operated as a utility with
| constitutionally protected rights.
| majorchord wrote:
| Those solutions might work for _some_ people in _some_
| countries, but I would argue that it 's not acceptable for
| the vast majority of customers, and they would lose a very
| significant portion of revenue.
| gs17 wrote:
| PayPal has also been involved in this.
| jowea wrote:
| Instant payment systems that go direct from bank to bank,
| assuming the banks, the government or any other intermediaries
| don't also decide to not allow it.
|
| Or cryptocurrency, I guess.
| Symbiote wrote:
| Denmark has seen a trend where their national card network
| (Dankort, operating at the equivalent level to Visa and
| Mastercard) is seeing reduced usage.
|
| They're aiming to reverse that trend.
|
| https://cphpost.dk/2025-06-28/general/new-political-agreemen...
|
| Not all European countries still have these independent
| networks.
| herbstein wrote:
| Seeing reduced use partially because only a few banks support
| using it in Apple Pay. And Google Pay can't support it at all
| currently
| blibble wrote:
| if I was doing a couple of billion a year in transactions then
| the payment processor would be told where to shove it
| maplant wrote:
| Okay, then you'd go from a billion a year to zero.
| Congratulations.
| david38 wrote:
| You clearly think in small terms then. Trillion dollar fish eat
| billion dollar fish
| IshKebab wrote:
| A couple of billion is an insignificant fraction of the
| $10000bn MasterCard processes every year.
| blibble wrote:
| which is relevant how exactly?
|
| merchants don't deal with mastercard, they deal with an
| acquiring bank
|
| of which there are hundreds
|
| no doubt one of which will be happy to take the business
| IshKebab wrote:
| Mastercard appears to be involved in the pressuring. You
| can't avoid them.
| blibble wrote:
| certainly not explicitly mentioned in the article
|
| and I very doubt it's the case, the card networks simply
| don't care, given you can buy adult entertainment from
| millions of websites
|
| the acquirer will care if it pushes up their chargeback
| rate, but this is normally solved by the merchant by
| paying a couple of bps more
|
| it's a negotiating tactic, nothing more
| majorchord wrote:
| https://nationwidepaymentsystems.com/mastercards-policy-
| on-a...
| kevingadd wrote:
| It's interesting that Valve sort of put themselves in this
| situation by opting not to police their store anymore.
|
| I'm personally a fan of fewer restrictions on content in video
| games and fewer "gatekeepers" but it's kind of inevitable that
| people would get upset when you chose to allow people to sell
| games like "Sex With Hitler" and "Pimp Life: Sex Simulator".
| Deciding to allow that content on your store and simultaneously
| not going to bat for it is weird, it's like they decided to just
| get the porn money while they could as a short-term boost to
| revenue.
|
| Itch.io still has fewer restrictions but I assume they'll
| eventually have to clamp down too once payment processors cut
| them off - they don't have the financial resources to fight it
| like Valve or Epic do.
|
| Interestingly Nintendo has as of late relaxed their restrictions
| too, you can find porn-adjacent shovelware on the Switch eShop
| despite their history of being very censorious. I wonder if
| payment processors will successfully push them around too or if
| Nintendo is too big to get pushed around.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| > it's kind of inevitable that people would get upset when you
| chose to allow people to sell games like "Sex With Hitler" and
| "Pimp Life: Sex Simulator".
|
| The problem isn't some people being upset, it's that a single
| digit number of companies effectively control the ability for
| anyone else in the world to do business with them. Those
| companies get lobbied as much as politicians but with no
| accountability and any overreach being far less visible. And no
| freedom of speech rules.
| nottorp wrote:
| The question is: has "kill in the name of Hitler" also been
| banned, or is that okay with Visa/MC?
| raincole wrote:
| Most Japanese adult game publishers had (some of) their games
| rejected from Steam.
|
| Steam does police their store. It's just that Visa/Mastercard
| don't approve of how they police it.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| What does "police" mean? They don't allow illegal content,
| that's policing no? You want more policing like morality
| police?
| arprocter wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Tankard_Reist#Collecti...
| raincole wrote:
| > a "pro-life feminist"
|
| What.
|
| Seriously what? I thought pro-choice is a core tenet of
| feminism?
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Why would it be?
|
| I live in a red state in the South. I'd say about 2/3 of the
| women I know well enough to be confident of their politics to
| that degree of detail would describe themselves as both
| feminists and anti-abortion/pro-life.
|
| If you want to put a name to it, they're basically second-
| wave feminists with a few third-wave beliefs tacked on.
|
| The real lesson here is that politics are nuanced, and the US
| party dichotomy doesn't come close to covering it.
|
| I consider myself an AnCap (shocking given my username, I
| know), but grew up here surrounded by Republicans. I fit in
| well enough overall because this is where I developed my
| "social mask" in the first place. I lived in a community with
| nearly directly opposite politics (Charlottesville, VA) for a
| few years and found that I fit in pretty well with that crowd
| as well.
|
| I share enough with both parties that I can have
| conversations on things that I agree with them on and connect
| to the point that they assume that I'm "one of them".
| Invariably, once conversation turns to other topics I'm
| accused of being a member of the other party. It's to the
| point that it amuses me when it happens, and I frankly enjoy
| being in a place where I can connect with most everyone and
| serve as a sort of translator: I've spent enough time "in
| enemy territory" from their perspectives that I can explain
| the other side's position fairly and with empathy while
| explicitly not holding that position. It makes for
| stimulating conversation with little risk of offense.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| Because "anti-abortion/pro-life" removes a right from
| women. Trading the rights of a developed adult for the
| rights of a hypothetical future person.
|
| What does ancapistanism have to do with it? Is there a non-
| religious reason to be against the right to choose abortion
| up to 24 weeks of pregnancy?
| dmix wrote:
| Well social/religious conservatives often think the child
| has rights even during pregnancy so it's not as simple as
| the mothers rights.
|
| The libertarian view tends to much more favour the
| parents rights to make choices for their children if I
| remember correctly.
| speeder wrote:
| For those thinking is only related to chargebacks and fraud, it
| is not.
|
| VISA and Mastercard have been banning a lot of content that is
| not porn but has political values that are disapproved by certain
| billionaires and investors. There is a bunch of links I wanted to
| post about, such as US billionaires bragging he personally called
| VISA CEO to ban content on PH or japanese politicians mad at the
| censorship of japanese art with certain values because of these
| companies. But I am on phone walking home so if anyone else has
| such links please post.
| raincole wrote:
| Of course it's not. Steam already has a very generous refund
| policy. It's hard to imaging the chargeback rate would be
| _that_ high even for nsfw games when you can simply refund.
| Refund takes about 3~4 clicks on steam website; Chargeback
| takes a phone call with your bank and can get your steam
| account locked.
|
| And people who laundry money out stolen cards won't do that
| with nsfw games. They'll do that with CSGO knifes.
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Yep.
|
| They've colluded with the US federal government in the past on
| those issues as well. "Operation Choke Point" was ostensibly
| about fraud, but included transactions related to firearms in
| its scope. As a result, several major banks and payment
| processors dropped legitimate firearms dealers. For a while it
| got to the point that I was helping a couple of local gun
| stores contract with "high risk" payment processors that also
| serve the porn industry and get set up.
|
| To this day if you're on a gun forum and mention that you use
| Bank of America, people will pile on to tell you horror stories
| of both companies and individuals having their accounts closed
| and funds held for weeks or months after completely legal
| transactions. In one case in particular, they claimed it
| happened after buying a backpack at a gun store.
|
| Again, these are 100% legitimate and legal businesses.
| Federally licensed (FFL) gun stores had trouble for years even
| keeping a working business account. It was clearly not about
| fraud, at least not in practice.
|
| Politics completely aside, the financial landscape for gun
| stores today looks a lot like the cannabis industry: a few
| institutions are quietly known in those communities to allow
| them to operate, but many choose to do business only in cash
| and most prefer it if given the option. The porn industry is
| similar from what I can see.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| I guess Gabe's commitment to freedom of speech on his platform
| extended as far as nazis, but not as far as porn...
| freedomben wrote:
| well, something like this can't be fixed overnight. I think
| Valve have more than earned a benefit of the doubt with this
| kind of stuff. I don't know if they are thinking on ways around
| this issue or not, but I would bet highly that they are.
| Problem is the credit card companies have them (and everyone
| else) by the balls because any attempt to continue hosting
| those gmaes but accept alternative payments for them would be
| retaliated against and MC et al might cut them off entirely,
| which would be devastating. I'm not sure there is a good
| solution to this that doesn't involve change of law/regulation
| i.e. lobbying
| neogodless wrote:
| Simulated "immoral" activity could be considered a moral gray
| area. If nothing else, morality is subjective.
|
| So I think it's reasonable to argue for private, individual
| consumption of morally subjective material (not least of which is
| the logistical difficulty of preventing such things), as well as
| the right to create and sell such things. (You or I might approve
| of or oppose those things, but that's a different argument from
| what I make below.)
|
| Aside from that, I don't think Valve or a payment processor is
| _obligated_ to be a neutral party. Whether it might come from
| collective consumer backlash or whoever makes decisions for an
| organization deciding what they will or will not allow to flow
| through their system, I think they too should have the right to
| allow or ban things. If publishers and consumers want their
| morally gray content, so be it, but don 't feel entitled to have
| Steam and VISA along for the ride if they don't want to be.
|
| Hypothetically, Valve might prefer Steam be neutral, because
| money. But then they have the option to fight their payment
| processor or look for alternatives, rather than "forcing" their
| payment processor to be a part of something that the payment
| processor opposes.
|
| TL;DR when a morally subjective issue involves a lot of parties,
| every party should have the right to "opt out" if they are
| morally opposed. (in my opinion)
| knome wrote:
| Payment processors banning companies from using them for
| anything other than illegal use or fraud issues seems like
| pretty egregious overreach to me.
|
| They shouldn't be able to leverage their nigh monopoly on
| modern payment processing to choose winners and losers in the
| marketplace.
|
| They are using pornography as a wedge issue to establish that
| they get to dictate what companies are allowed to exist in the
| modern distributed market.
|
| It would be entirely reasonable to legally require them to act
| blindly towards retailers, with restrictions needing to be
| based on universally applied financial criteria.
|
| Card payments have become inseparable from modern life.
|
| Regulate them as a financial utility. The electric company or
| water company can't refuse to hook up a business just because
| the owner doesn't like that business.
| throwaway071625 wrote:
| The article calls out "certain adult games" which is vague. It is
| interesting to note that most of the delisted games were themed
| specifically around incest.
|
| https://bsky.app/profile/steamdb.info/post/3lu32vdlsmg27
|
| Wondering if this will be a slippery slope towards pulling more
| anodyne stuff.
| bji9jhff wrote:
| It is sad that in 2025 this needs to be repeated: fiction is not
| real.
|
| This statement imply that:
|
| * Simulated violence is not violence.
|
| * Simulated sex is not sex.
|
| * Simulated sorcery is not sorcery
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