Petition against payment processors who forced Steam games ban roars past 140,000 signatures

[miked9746]

  So, much like the debate around abortion, a handful of people have decided to legislate/implement rules onto the rest of us based solely on their own ridiculous Victorian sense of morality!
 The argument for both positions is the same:    If you don't want one, then don't get one...   but don't you dare think you also get to decide if I get one!!!!

[Eddieoctane]

They don't give a crap about what a bunch of gooners think. This slop should have never been let on the platform to begin with.

How do you define "slip" though? I remember the religious right (the same kind of people who are behind the Steam hijinks) freaked out over interspecies romances in Mass Effect.

How long before games that allow a human to love an elf or Klingon are banned under this same scheme? How long until you can't have an LGBT character at all? Where does it stop? Do developers have to start worrying that the current administration will pressure processors to kill others types of games? What about other media? With this BS, you could have AMC being cut off from credit cards because they did a limited showing off Broke Back Mountain.

You don't have to be a "gooner" to see the problem. At best, there's a chilling effect on all media. At worst, the CC companies are creating a mechanism for the government to enforce censorship without running afoul of the Constitution. If the current regime doesn't like your content, all they've got to do is threaten an "investigation" into Visa or MasterCard or AmEx. Presto, the payment processors tell the vendor to block sales for that content or be cut off altogether. Yes, it's extortion. And yes, it's completely legal under the current laws.

[Marshall]

Mastercard and Visa have no right whatsoever to tell me what I can and cannot buy. They are a financial institution. Their morals and opinions are worthless and have no right to dictate who and what I do with my money. They only need to sit down, shut-up and process my transaction. That is all. That is their entire purpose. If we allow this to continue it might start with porn, but it will not end with porn. They already tried doing this with guns. What would be next? Violence in games? Censoring art? Censoring music? Do we really want a bank telling us what choices we can make?
Visa and Mastercard need to know, that they do not have the power of moral judgement over private citizens. Period.

[Ramu]

Bunch of porn-addicted coomers complaining.

Really? Because it's not Steam, but Itch.io banning games like Mouthwashing - a genuinely fantastic horror game with dark themes - shows the logical conclusion of payment processors getting to decide what can and can't be played. Who says it won't be games with LGBTQ themes next? Maybe a game where there's a child protagonist who gets hurt? What's the logical conclusion of payment processors and puritanical groups getting to ban legal content?

[SSchorik0101]

Bunch of porn-addicted coomers complaining.

No it's about companies forcing you to pay extreme amounts of interest to buy stuff and then they tell you what you can or can't buy. It shouldn't be you can only purchase stuff that your credit card company likes and if they dislike something you're not allowed to purchase it. You work hard to get your credit up to get credit cards so you could build your credit even further to get cars and houses. I didn't build my credit so I can be told that I'm not allowed to purchase something. If they are allowed to get away with it with this stuff they'll just keep doing it more and more. Until you ain't allowed to buy half the stuff because someone on the board of directors don't like it. By the way there isn't a single thing that I haven't been able to purchase so this don't affect me at all I just think the idea of it is dumb af

You make a fair point and after thinking it over I agree. My comment was unfair and judgemental.