Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down
260 comments
·August 4, 2025cedws
dec0dedab0de
I think the mint should maintain a payment processor, and the post office should maintain an official email address for everyone.
these are basic things we need to exist in society, we should not be at the whims of private organizations.
throw10920
Wouldn't it be better to try to regulate the necessity of needing these services out of existence?
For the sake of reducing complexity in an already very complex world, I'd rather that it be illegal to require an email address to sign up for an account (or, alternatively, make it illegal to require an account for things like making a reservation at a restaurant) then being provided with an email by the USPS.
Doubly so given the interactions that I've had with digital services provided by my country's government and the bad (and in several cases extremely bad) experiences that I've had with them.
To be clear - I don't object to e.g. an address from the USPS complementing my existing email - I just don't want to be forced to use it for anything due to it being given some special properties that normal email providers aren't.
belval
> Wouldn't it be better to try to regulate the necessity of needing these services out of existence?
No because these things are genuinely useful. As much as people lament that we are going cashless, it's very convenient to be able to just carry one card and it's genuinely useful to just give my email as an identifier when registering for stuff.
Regulating their necessity means forcing people to accept cash and then using this as a reason why MasterCard and Visa should be allowed exist. In practice if something is that ingrained into daily interaction, then it should have something like the common carrier rules, set the fee to a static percentage of the transaction and that's it. The current 50% profit margins rent-seeking approach is just inefficient.
egypturnash
Is a payment processor operated by the Federal Reserve good enough? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedNow
Well, it probably would be, except guess who killed it in favor of a crypto scheme? https://www.jitumaster.com/2025/06/us-president-signs-execut...
I agree about the PO though. Social media shouldn't be a for-profit enterprise either.
Arubis
Ugh, they killed FedNow too? That hadn’t hit my radar. Why a waste.
ghostDancer
That's socialism or even communism./s
Damogran6
What's the profit in that?
/s
p_ing
There's no meaningful attention, here. Until it is on the US Gov't radar, this 'attention' is just a collection of upset redditors furiously posting forum messages which will fissile out in a few months, at most.
Besides, it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA.
perihelions
> "which will fissile out in a few months"
A tangential nitpick: it's fizzle out, from a Middle English etymology meaning "to fart"; not to fission (fissile being an adjectival form), from Latin "to split".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fizzle#Etymology ("Attested in English since 1525-35. From earlier fysel (“to fart”). Related to fīsa (“to fart”). Compare with Swedish fisa (“to fart (silently)”). See also feist.")
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/feist#Etymology
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/fissile#Etymology ("From Latin fissilis.")
Waterluvian
I’ve never heard fissile out but I love it for describing a problem that will go away once the full consequences have already been felt.
dpoloncsak
"to fission (fissile being an adjectival form), from Latin 'to split'."
Does this mean "Missile" means "to miss"? 'Cause boy have we been using those things wrong :-)
93po
guessing it was autocorrect issue :)
pchangr
Germany actually uses their own card system .. or cash. They are very much against visa/mastercard due to their “high commission fees” and “privacy concerns”
Girocard charges a 0,3% fee vs visa/mastercard 3%
f6v
So does Russia, Denmark, Belgium/Netherlands, Iran, China. I’m sure there’re others. I know someone working on unified payment platform for games in Africa. They have dozens of different payment systems instead of the two.
EgregiousCube
You're comparing a regional debit network to an overarching network that includes lots of different fee structures. The USA has debit networks (STAR, etc) with similar cost structures too - Germany is not unique in this regard.
gruez
>Girocard charges a 0,3% fee vs visa/mastercard 3%
AFAIK all credit cards in the EU have similarly low interchange rates because of EU regulation.
pjc50
I don't think having this on USgov radar would improve the situation. Since FOSTA/SESTA, and various state level age verification laws, it seems likely that government attention would simply bring a bigger hammer down on games. It's the US anti-money-laundering system that ultimately exerts a lot of financial control, after all.
no_wizard
You can, if you switch to using American Express and Discover cards. They’re both closed networks that only take their particular card.
It’s almost trading one for another but it would be an effective way to boycott these companies
bityard
> Besides, it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA.
Why not? Lots of people, especially in lower income brackets, don't have ANY credit cards at all. I know many. They buy groceries and gas with cash and pay their utilities by ACH or mailing a check. Everything else they need, they buy locally.
What you mean to say is that it's _inconvenient_ for you personally to boycott Visa/Mastercard. Which may be true enough.
no_wizard
Visa and Mastercard run debit networks for majority of banks and credit unions. They get fees there as well.
Even lower income citizens use debit cards more than cash nowadays.
You would need to use different networks like Discover and American Express to effectively boycott them
delta_p_delta_x
> it's not like you can boycott Mastercard or VISA
In many countries, if you pay locally, you absolutely can. China's UnionPay, India's UPI, PayNow in Singapore, PromptPay in Thailand, PayPal, Cash App, and more.
wongarsu
And places like Steam take a lot of payment options. Most online services that wanted to have wide international appeal in the 90s and 2000s had to simply because credit cards were rare in many places, and a lot of those services still have a wide array of options
mathiaspoint
The US also has Discover/Capital One and American Express and if you live in some of the nicer parts people still take checks.
pwillia7
You need the government to cajole the market to create safe and free inter bank transfer programs. We're not going to do that in the USA -- no one's buddies would get their kickbacks!
p_ing
That's great to hear, but this is a US-centric complaint discussing US-centric companies.
infecto
Whole heartedly agree. I would also rather the discussion be how can we disrupt the problem rather than a mob mentality to take down Visa (which is never going anywhere anyway).
gus_massa
You can switch to Amex, but here in Argentina like half of the postnets don't recognize it.
Also there are a few QR networks, some made by the banks like "Modo" and other no-a-bank ones like "MercadoPago" and a few minor ones. Even the guy/gal that sells hot bread on the street accept most of them.
xeonmc
> You can switch to Amex, but here in Argentina like half of the postnets don't recognize it.
To this point, it was even a punchline in The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.
Hamuko
Amex is only available on Steam in the US. I have a basic free Amex card as a backup, but I wouldn't be able to use it for my Steam purchases. Presumably because the processing fees are just that much higher.
Somehow I'm able to use a JCB card though. As far as I'm aware, JCB cards aren't even available here.
Rodmine
Well, it's worse than a duopoly. But of course, we can't talk about it here.
digitalsushi
why cant we? are you self-censoring because there's some policy forbidding us to talk about something clandestine here?
i dont have access to the joke, or inside club, or inner sanctum, and maybe theres other people like me that want to know more and if the mystery is self-imposed then i might respectfully push back that we cant talk about it
pwillia7
Does the government view it as 2 throats to choke and so the risk is 'worth it' or is it just a condition of gilded age II and corp and political greed and corruption?
Why did we make all those monopoly laws only to completely forget they exist or why we ever made them?
ethbr1
It's most just the way things turned out, without government intervention.
American Express' card started in 1958, as a pivot of their then already 100-year-old business: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Express#1920s%E2%80%9...
Visa also in 1958 as a Bank of America (and friends) card, which quietly expanded into the mid-60s: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_Inc.#History
Mastercard in the mid-60s from banks who BoA wouldn't invite into the Visa clubhouse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastercard#History
And Discover in the mid-80s because Sears was big enough to be its own financial services firm: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discover_Card#History
EliasWatson
This is the kind of problem that Bitcoin was designed to solve.
tdb7893
Isn't Bitcoin impractical for these sorts of transactions (slow, high fees, no privacy, etc)? People always say Bitcoin was designed to solve this sort of thing but whenever I've looked into it it's been fairly impractical for use in most day-to-day transactions.
kmfrk
Full title that doesn't fit in the HN headline:
"Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down, but Valve says payment processors 'specifically cited' a Mastercard rule about damaging the brand"
(For the people who don't click the link to read the article.)
weberer
It was Mastercard's rule, but any one of the companies in the payment network could have brought it up to Valve. The whole system is set up so one transaction has to go through up to 6 different companies, and they all have to abide by each other's rules. The US Internet Preservation Society explained it recently:
>Each of these companies maintains its own terms of service and each of them can block a transaction by themselves. Additionally, intermediary companies that handle card transactions are mutually and individually bound to the terms of every Card Network, so even if you never do business with Discover or American Express, you must still obey their rules if you want to accept Visa or Mastercard. For online businesses, there are no alternatives: you will do exactly what they want, or you will not do business at all.
>If you are banned from processing payments, you will not be informed why or by which point of failure. "Risk management" is considered a trade secret in the industry. You have no right to know, you cannot sue to discover what has happened, and you also have no right to appeal.
JumpCrisscross
> was Mastercard's rule, but any one of the companies in the payment network could have brought it up to Valve
Did Mastercard threaten Valve? Or did Valve precomply?
rpdillon
Mastercard pressured their processors and the processors turned around and talked to Valve about it and cited Mastercard's rules. It wasn't pre-compliance, but there was a proxy that allows Mastercard to deflect responsibility.
amiga386
Valve's payment processors told Valve they would withdraw payment processing unless Valve banned specific categories of game from their online store.
The payment processors did not cite any law; Valve selling those games was not illegal. Instead they cited Mastercard's rules, which say that they cannot submit transactions that Mastercard believe might damage Mastercard's goodwill or reflect negatively on its brand. Those rules also say Mastercard has sole discretion as to what it considers breach these rules, and Mastercard gives a list of what it deems unacceptable:
https://www.mastercard.us/content/dam/public/mastercardcom/n...
> 5.12.7 Illegal or Brand-damaging Transactions
> A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks.
> The Corporation considers any of the following activities to be in violation of this Rule:
> 2. The sale of a product or service, including an image, which is patently offensive and lacks serious artistic value (such as, by way of example and not limitation, images of nonconsensual sexual behavior, sexual exploitation of a minor, nonconsensual mutilation of a person or body part, and bestiality), or any other material that the Corporation deems unacceptable to sell in connection with a Mark.
The payment processors threatened Valve first. Mastercard doesn't need to threaten Valve or even contact them at all to force its will on them: it just needs to threaten its payment processors, the same outcome is achieved. Valve did not remove games from sale until threatened. If they did not do that, and instead initiated some kind of fightback, they would most likely find themselves completely removed from all payment processors, with no recourse. If you want to call that "precompliance", so be it.
braiamp
They cite a rule about Mastercard brand damage. If Mastercard didn't specify that such content would result in MC brand damage why would they cite it rather than their own rules?
petcat
There are definitely a lot of links in this chain. Maybe leafo can chime-in and say exactly what happened with Itch.io. But I suspect that someone downstream of Visa/Mastercard anticipated that the payment card companies would not permit the transactions and relayed that back up to the merchants, and they shut it off preemptively.
But it's hard to say. Mastercard is now saying that they never said or did anything. So where did the outrage come from? Someone must have done something.
Shank
> But I suspect that someone downstream of Visa/Mastercard anticipated that the payment card companies would not permit the transactions and relayed that back up to the merchants, and they shut it off preemptively.
It sure is tragic that benevolent and majestic Mastercard is having their name thrown into the mud over this. Coincidentally, it sure is convenient that they have a number of middleman scapegoats who can take the blame on their behalf.
Mindwipe
FWIW Mastercard are simply lying, as anyone who has ever had to touch adult payment processing will tell you.
There's even a (non-public) list of keyword banned terms.
TimorousBestie
Indeed, and the keywords are vague and they refuse to rigorously define them. Adult payment processors just run around in the dark until they trip over one of these landmines.
Even the (rare) categories of content that have been legally determined to be non-obscene (e.g., werewolf erotica [1]) can fall under banned keywords (in this case, “bestiality”).
It’s a stupid extralegal system and ought to be destroyed.
[1] https://time.com/archive/7118599/california-prisoner-fights-...
roenxi
The US has some clear laws against government controlling speech and, in the abstract, that makes it pretty much impossible to censor games. Various factions - exactly who it is difficult to pin down - have been working hard to set up a system where they can shut things down without ever explicitly instructing anyone to do anything. This appears to be the system engaging by accident because some crazy from Australia accidentally said the right thing to the right people.
So I do actually believe Mastercard when they say this, but holding them accountable anyway is probably for the best. They're likely the single group with the most influence over the regulators.
perihelions
> "The US has some clear laws against government controlling speech and, in the abstract, that makes it pretty much impossible to censor games."
For background,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_v._Entertainment_Merchan... ("Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association" (2011) ("ruling that video games were protected speech under the First Amendment as other forms of media"))
p_ing
First Amendment applies to the _government_, not private entities.
CoastalCoder
I think the larger point here is that the government is suppressing protected speech by using private sector actors as intermediaries.
weberer
Now read the grandparent comment you're replying to. You're just talking in circles now.
KingOfCoders
Say fuck on TV.
chrisrhoden
In addition to the sibling comment about safe harbor hours, the FCC regulates not speech but the shared airwaves. Print is irrelevant, and that’s why you can do whatever you want on cable.
Also, the FCC does not directly set standards and instead responds to complaints from the communities in which the broadcast is available. So it’s conceivable that in an environment where nobody cared, you could do this at any time of day.
null
terinjokes
Many stations affiliated with the ABC network did, from 2001 to 2004, in primetime by airing "Saving Private Ryan" unedited for Veterans Day.
rs186
Apparently you can do that between 10pm and 6pm on broadcast TV, or on cable TV.
Which is a pretty messed up situation.
man4
[dead]
infecto
I am quite surprised how wrong opinions like yours are. There is no argument of free speech here, they are a private business and as such can decide what they allow and don’t allow on their network. It’s no different than if cloudflare had a click through that said no adult material.
You can hand wave around well they are a monopoly or some related argument but the government does not see it that way. Visa and Mastercard for decades have censored adult sites on their network. At the end of the day I suspect they would be happy to take the fees but they are the ones underwriting the risk and there have been cases over the year in the US at least that challenge how extreme you can go with Adult material. Even today there are certain categories that are much harder to get setup for processing.
Edit: to be ultra clear, I would love more competition in this space but at the same time there is no argument around free speech here.
Kinrany
The argument from free speech is that government should not be allowed to censor, regardless of the mechanism. Payment processors currently offer that mechanism.
infecto
If the government were coercing Mastercard into censorship, that would be a free speech issue. But absent state pressure, a private company choosing not to do business with certain content isn’t censorship in the constitutional sense. That’s just market behavior. If you want to challenge the influence of financial infrastructure on speech, that’s a separate (and valid) policy debate but it’s not a First Amendment violation.
charcircuit
Competition doesn't matter if entities have to follow all of the payment processor rules. It means in order to compete you have to find people willing to give up everything else. Which is an impossible proposition.
It's like if a tier 1 ISP only peered with networks that peer with networks that censor XYZ. Allowing for these kind of agreements leads to censorship and is why net neutrality is important from the government.
lightedman
"There is no argument of free speech here, they are a private business"
Constitutional rights are also civil rights - businesses may not violate them nilly-willy in this specific manner which causes damages to people.
infecto
You’re confusing constitutional rights with business obligations. The First Amendment restricts government actions, not private companies. Mastercard isn’t violating free speech by refusing to process certain payments. Civil rights laws protect against discrimination in specific categories like race or religion, not content moderation. Unless adult content is a protected class, your argument doesn’t apply.
nottorp
Wrong title.
"Mastercard finds out there are a lot of gamers out there, makes an attempt at damage control." would be more appropriate.
v3ss0n
Why you care about whatever we do with do with digital pixels at our free time ? Gamers trying to save the game they play and Master card have no business banning the games we play on our own private
polytely
I wonder if Valve could (threaten to) become their own payment processor if this becomes too big of a threat. They are one of the few companies on earth with enough money to attempt it.
If I remember correctly a big part of Valves heavy investment into linux was Microsoft wanting to lock windows down more, and now in 2025 gaming on linux is a viable alternative to windows.
f6v
Well, you can buy Steam gift cards for cash in underdeveloped markets like Germany. Can’t imagine how else would it work.
8n4vidtmkvmk
I don't know how that helps. PayPal and stripe are the payment processors, no? Visa and MasterCard are the payment network. Steam can build their own Stripe probably, but are they going to make their own credit card network too? Probably not. They can maybe try taking money directly from your bank though, like Wise. But if you've ever tried it, that looks like such a shit show. Every bank and every country does it a little differently, has its own limits and fees, and the authentication is really ghetto.
master-lincoln
What would that change? The assumption here is that payment processors need to comply with MasterCards rules. So would Valve if they would become a payment processor, no?
nottorp
By the way:
https://www.amazon.com/Streetcar-Named-Desire-Blu-ray/dp/B07...
Why is Mastercard processing money for this movie that contains a rape scene?
wongarsu
Still waiting for Game of Thrones to be removed from all streaming services for gratuitous sexual depictions and on-screen depictions of rape
Freak_NL
It's not targetted by pressure groups at the moment. MasterCard isn't acting out of its own moral convictions here, so don't expect these rules to be enforced wherever they might apply.
baobabKoodaa
Oh please. As if Mastercard is beholden to some grass roots movement from Australia.
xbar
MC/Visa wield a great deal of market power, which is bad because they become directly controllable entities.
I can't believe I am about to say this: Bitcoin fixes this.
rs186
Dumb question: what if Steam only takes cash or crypto payment for these games, and leave them on the market? Cash is loaded from debit card and can be used for buying any games, while crypto apparently always works for everything. Would they still be on the hook?
reginald78
IIRC the rule Mastercard cited was so vague that trying to workaround it almost seemed potentially pointless. It was basically a blanket "we think it makes MasterCard look bad so we end our relationship". Anyway, debit cards are still Visa/mastercard so using them as cash has the same problem. I was thinking they could just use Steam gift cards but since those are often themselves purchased in stores or with credit cards it seems to just push the problem a little further away.
I believe Steam did support bitcoin at one point but decided to end usage over because the price fluctuations made it to unpredictable on their end. Maybe the landscape has changed though.
ascagnel_
Debit cards still go through MasterCard and/or Visa. They could take crypto, but crypto is far too volatile for the types of transactions Valve wants to be handling.
alexvitkov
Volatility isn't an issue for the merchant - prices can be adjusted in real-time based on the cryptocurrency's value at the time of purchase, and if they don't want to be exposed, they can sell it immediately on purchase.
Whether or not Valve would want to encourage people to pay with crypto and expose their customer base to its volatility is another matter.
ascagnel_
In a world where people need both fiat and crypto, the volatility of crypto precludes returns.
wiseowise
What they mean is that you top up your Steam credit and rest is between you and Steam.
numpad0
That's where it gets disgusting. They don't tolerate that solution, which is a proof that this has nothing to do with brand protection or chargeback rates or anything of sorts.
So either those poor games need to be kicked out, or everyone has to switch to cash/app overnight. The transition process has to be easy enough that the dumbest addict you have seen in worst fast food restaurant place can complete in few clicks. That has proven difficult for many, and sadly the former options are usually taken.
krainboltgreene
Yes, but also the crypto option has been tried and absolutely doesn’t work.
littlecranky67
Can you elaborate? If crypto is the only viable option to pay for something, I would agree due to the low amount of people familar in dealing with crypto. If it is an additional option, what part of it is not working?
alexvitkov
It really hasn't. Everything has been tried with crypto, except actually buying things with it.
Ruthalas
To be fair, in the case of Steam they legitimately did try. They supported bitcoin purchases for nearly two years before they stopped, citing volatility and processing fees:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/593110/announcements/detail...
unsigner
how do you "take cash" over the Internet?
forgotoldacc
Japan lets you make payments for online content at convenience stores.
How it works is you purchase a product online and it gives you a barcode that can be scanned at any major convenience store. You go to the store, scan the code, hand over cash, and the content you bought is instantly unlocked once the payment is confirmed.
TehCorwiz
Steam sells physical gift cards. You can buy them at convenience stores, Walmart, etc. you can pay cash for them.
mattnewton
those stores would absolutely stop carrying the gift cards if customers could not pay with visa/mastercard for them.
v5v3
Mullvad VPN takes cash, you post it to them.
roblabla
I doubt Mullvad has anywhere near the volume of transaction Valve does. And mullvad has plenty of other payment methods, so only a tiny, tiny fraction of their userbase likely pays in mail-in cash.
I don't think Valve could feasibly implement this at their scale - especially if this method was the _only_ way to acquire the games in question.
Shank
This realistically doesn’t work that well above anything like a micro scale. It’s also a crime to mail cash across many borders, so it only really works domestically.
harvie
There already was a time when Steam managed to free people from need to use funny pieces of plastic in their lifes... They've done that with CDs, they can do it again with Cards.
master-lincoln
Yeah, that was when Steam freed the users from actually owning any game and instead gave the users limited licenses for using games.
I am looking forward to the day when they shutdown and everybody realizes this.
makeitdouble
> Mastercard's Rule 5.12.7 relates to "illegal or brand-damaging transactions," and states:
> A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks.
I didn't expect they had such clear rules expliciting they can ban any kind of transactions they don't like or would make them look bad, regardless of the legality of it.
Hamuko
I called MasterCard twice and both times they a) guessed that I was calling about content on Steam without ever mentioning Steam b) said that they only restricted "illegal adult content" and have "standards based on rule of law". Said absolutely nothing about protecting the brand. Also couldn't say if said "standards" were actual laws or MasterCard's own (legal) standards.
loa_in_
Good argument to record any calls with them and submit the recordings to the press
Hamuko
You don't really have to record the phone call. If anyone in the press wants to hear them saying that they don't block legal content, call them and ask about Steam. They have a ready-made PR response that they will read to you.
infecto
I am again going to be the outlier here and state that I don’t think this is an issue with Visa or Mastercard. As public companies I suspect they would love to be processing as much as possible and unfortunately they have to walk a balance in some categories, like Adult content, where they are overly careful to make sure they are 1) not antagonizing regulators with extreme content and 2) try to keep on the positive side from a PR perspective.
I definitely wish there were more option in payment processing and this is a good example of how crypto has failed, it should be a seamless drop-in imo. I also don’t believe this is a matter of free speech. It surprising to see so many folks wave the free speech flag where I don’t follow the logic. The government under any administration is not going to come to the rescue of free speech laws.
braiamp
They should be allowing all lawful transactions, and if they can't, they should get broken up.
infecto
People keep saying this but I don’t see any reason any administration would do this. It is that type of argument that feels good to think about but has no legal basis.
TimorousBestie
It’s not credible that Collective Shout actually caused some change in policy. They’re being used to deflect blame from Visa/MC, who in any case have done rolling purges of adult content creators’ accounts for decades.
man4
[dead]
stego-tech
The payment processor censorship issue backs up a point I made elsewhere about companies being involved in politics: they shouldn’t be, and shareholders should be screaming with rage that these companies have inserted themselves into these discussions on purpose.
They’re payment processors, for crying out loud. Their entire grift is taking a slice of every transaction processed, ergo, the only restriction they should ever have in processing payments is whether or not the transaction is legal under the law, full stop.
If they don’t like processing payments for pornography or adult content (including games), then don’t be a payment processor. They’re a business, not a person, and therefore their “preferences” regarding content are irrelevant.
I'm glad the Mastercard-Visa duopoly is finally getting some attention, these companies shouldn't be allowed to exercise the financial control they do. Payment infrastructure is not a free market - you can't just choose to pay via some other processor if they turn you down, they ARE the processors. Therefore, they should be under intense scrutiny when they refuse.