- cross-posted to:
- games@sh.itjust.works
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Why are they doing a comprehensive audit on the content and not doing a comprehensive audit on new payment providers? I sure would be
Because they would basically die off without the credit card processors, I assume.
Yeah so they should shop around now that theirs seems to be problematic
What I meant is that simply excluding Mastercard and Visa would turn away tons of sales and donations, even if they worked with every other payment processor on the planet at once.
They… could. But it would hurt, maybe even kill Itch.
My biggest issue with this situation is: if they can get away with getting games they don’t like being delisted, where does it end? Delisting books with themes or authors they don’t like? Banning the sale of alcohol and cigarettes?
Honestly haven’t thought so far. But Media lacks that, as almost everything is clickbait.
And you got a point. There is questionable stuff. But killing off a whole area is like a bit shot on a small bird
One of the great mysteries of the 21st century is how a tiny number of US companies control most of the world’s payment processing, when it’s not a technically difficult problem.
You could implement an entire end-to-end payment processing system in a year with a team of a few dozen competent engineers. The only difficulty is getting banks and retailers to sign up to it, but when the big players charge so much and create so much trouble this doesn’t seem like it should be a tough sell. In most cases literally all you’d need to do is charge 2.4% instead of their 3%.
This morality police crap being carried out by the most immoral bastards on the planet needs to stop.
You realize that you’re defending a game that was literally a rape and incest simulator that was already banned in multiple countries before the payment processor issue occurred, right?
Yeah! Let’s sell pornos out of candy shops too! Fuck morality policing!
No one with a brain is suggesting this. It should be up to the service and government to create rules to allow or not allow harmful content. It should definitely not be a payment processor.
Businesses shouldnt be allowed to refuse service for any reason!
What if you refuse to bake a cake because you have no sugar?
Pure fraud, most likely.
Ah, ok, 99% chance you’re a troll. 1% chance that you’re deeply mentally challenged and it’s a miracle that you can type out sentences.
Dang, look at you coming up with not one, but TWO possibilities! Super proud of you!
The issue at hand is that it’s being made impossible to sell them at all.
Yep fuck morality policing and anyone who supports it, hope you all rot in hell etc.
Applause for such a brave opinion!
except nowhere on earth is your example happening.
When did they say “fuck morality policing”, or even “let’s all stop policing morality”?
Either you piggy-backed off a comment to be a whole weirdo. Or you neee to up your reading comprehension.
why not?
When did you jerk off last?
Right after I read your comment!
It seemed like every search on Itchio was 70% NSFW results before this move
Could someone just make, like, Raunchy Mastercard and just process payments from everyone including all the porn and weird shit that the other mainstream companies don’t want? It seems like the payment processors being puritanical dipshits is a weakness that could be exploited by an enterprising competitor.
But then again, we’re talking about a natural monopoly that has been in place for decades at this point. I wouldn’t expect them to exactly play fair.
The problem is that people like MC and visa would then ban you from sending money TO RaunchyCard.
So it just moves the problem back a step.
So can I call the payment providers of the companies I don’t like and complain about them?
I mean, crypto is still not the answer so long as it is functionally a speculative asset even after all the proof efficiency improvements… Also it still has centralized points which keyholders could easily leverage.
Miserable fuckers, the whole lot of puritans…
Collective shout finacials year: 2024 revenue: 458043 employee_expenses: 107000 other_expenses: 215488 net_surplus: 135555 employees: total_fte: 2 full_time: 0 part_time: 1 casual: 4 volunteers: 15 donations_and_bequests: 389800 government_grants: 0 commercial_income: 0 expense_to_revenue_ratio: "70.4%" average_expense_per_employee: 39400 Leadership - name: Melinda Tankard Reist role: Founder, Movement Director public_socials: - Twitter: @MelTankardReist - Instagram: @collective.shout public_email_address: Not publicly listed salary: Not publicly listed - name: Caitlin Roper role: Campaigns Manager public_socials: - Instagram: @collective.shout public_email_address: Not publicly listed salary: Not publicly listed - name: Renee Chopping role: Campaigns Strategy public_socials: - LinkedIn public_email_address: r******@collectiveshout.org salary: Not publicly listed - name: Lyn Swanson Kennedy role: Campaigns Strategy public_socials: - Instagram: @collective.shout public_email_address: Not publicly listed salary: Not publicly listed - name: Coralie Alison role: Movement Operations Manager public_socials: - Twitter: @CoralieAlison - Instagram: @collective.shout public_email_address: Not publicly listed salary: Not publicly listedThis is exactly like the pearl-clutching we had back in the 1980’s around D&D and music lyrics. At least we moved the goalpost from satanic panic and thinly-veiled racism, over to “art that features sexual expression I don’t understand.”
If history is any indicator, their actions are only going to increase awareness of this kind of stuff.
Fuck religion.
Don’t you just love people that can’t mind their own fucking business?
Bro for real! Like I hate any porn game, as a game. Not as a societal flaw!
So you know what I do? Same exact thing I do about gay sex. I don’t do it, I don’t think about it very often unless there’s a funny joke to be made in a tangential way, and I don’t tell other people that they have to be exact like me.
Ffs, let people do what they want if they aren’t hurting anyone.
but if people are watching porn or having gay sex then they’re not making babies to sacrifice to the capitalist meat grinder.
They want people having more babies so the US president has more supply to pick from. It’s not been as easy since he lost his best friend that helped sort it out for him.
They cannot help it. They literally think about it all the time, and there’s no helping people like collective shout or the crazies on the street. The unwashed ones with the “you’re going to hell for gay sex” signs.
I see the same people on the street all the time. And they think about gay sex WAY more than I do, and I’m married to a person of the same goddamn sex, lol.
Some people really need to cut loose. Generally, I’m not pro-drugs, but damn, they need some hard party drugs to reset things and help them get back to a normal life. Go to burning man, get a good job, then go hike the Appalachian trail or something, for Christ sake.
I would argue that instead of party drugs (which I assume is X, coke, alcohol, pot, and so on), I think they need a good ego death trip. I’m talking like twenty caps(or two wavy bois) or an LD50 of LSA.
“If you sin you’re going to hell, I have to save you from yourself!”
I’m so sick of this. What if we don’t want saving? Just fuck off.
I’ve got friends in both places, and I highly doubt God is gonna give you extra karma or brownie points for converting someone to a made up religion that’s like, maybe 200 years old, lol.
Go gardening. Volunteer at a big cat rescue place. Stop wasting your life preaching something that deep down, you probably don’t even believe in, but is distracting you from something else in your life that could be resolved with therapy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melinda_Tankard_Reist?wprov=sfla1
Collective Shout. Thanks to itch.io for naming them. TIL
Wow, good to learn about the conservative christian, anti-abortion, “radical feminist”.
Here’s a different comment to avoid the other stupid one. Feminist support equal rights and freedom.
Well They ARE feminists.
👍
It’s damn clear that you’re gullible. So when the mask innevitably slips that feminists were always right-wing fascists, you scapegoat someone else.
Wow wow, hang on, I think I misunderstood your comment.
I agree with you. Fuck feminists. Someone just posted a picture calling for the death of all men due to catcalling and it was getting upvoted.
FUCK THAT.
https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/49718552
This bullshit needs to stop.
Are you trolling me ?
The post I sent is real, isn’t it? I despise misandrists.
I even removed my original reply to you because I misinterpreted your comment.
I would appreciate if you edited yours too. I get it. I agree.
My favourite fact is she thinks decriminalising sex work will lead to more sex trafficing.
Such wisdom and vision, we should let these people have power over payment processors
Stuff like this is the strongest argument for a decentralized payment option. Hopefully some day crypto will not be so much a tool of monetary speculation and we can use it for that without having to have the same experience as the guy who bought a pizza with Bitcoin.
That’s what I always wanted “DeFi” to be, a systematic replacement for the legions of evil old banks who have happily collaborated with the worst institutions of the last several centuries.
Damn, Rupert Murdoch and now this asshole. Australia has a monopoly on ruining media, lol.
You can thank Advance Australia for that. Huge think tank that likely bank rolls all this nonsense and more.
Also, down with Collective Shout! As someone who suffered child abuse, I condemn these cookers crusading under the guise of child protection. FFS, they were patting themselves on the back for stopping sales of plastic heads on Temu.
If it’s any consolation, I’m sure the American versions (Focus on the family, alliance defending freedom) are right there with them.
Props to them for figuring out a real way of imposing colonialism on impoverished countries and former colonies alike. Now their ideas and laws are spreading worldwide, like someone with diseases shitting into the local water supply. Ugh.
I have a terrible feeling that the people they duped won’t figure this out for 30 years or more, with some trappings lasting for 50+ years.
Reist reviewed the controversial Netflix film Cuties (2020) for both her ABC Religion & Ethics column[20] and for the Christian newspaper Eternity.[21] She described the film as “a social critique on what happens when we allow misogynistic, violent, exhibitionist internet culture to ravage girls – training them to wield their immature bodies as currency.”[21] Reist related the film to the activism of Collective Shout: “In the past 10 years at Collective Shout, we have met many girls this age, who have felt the same pressures. Some have taken inappropriate pics and shared them, sexualising themselves either out of a sense of obligation, or because they have believed the lie that self-objectification is empowering or liberating.”[21] However, regarding certain scenes in the film, she wrote that “the complexity here is that in trying to make a serious ethical point about girls and sexuality, the girls may have been used unwittingly — but still inappropriately — to a noble end. The scene could have been filmed differently[.]”[20]
Yeah. As a society we seriously need to get on the same page about morality, but for my money it can’t come from a religious group tinkering with the beating heart of commerce. They may have points to make but it’s fruit of the poisoned tree.
gamers, unironically, rise up. this isn’t going to end on niche porn games
It’s already expanded. It started as going after “rape and incest” but now it’s all adult games. But a bunch of lgbtq games have already gotten hit. I am beyond furious.
Shit. Would you provide a source please?
i don’t know if any source has caught up yet, but a few days ago it was indeed just taboo kink games that were being targeted, now it seems all of itch.ios NSFW games are disappearing
I think all games being hit is a temporary measure while they get some sort of new process in place. We’ll see where things land.
Either way, card processing companies shouldn’t be dictating what kind of art consumers can consume, even if I don’t personally agree with the content of some of the worst offenders. If it’s not outright illegal, they can fuck off.
Here’s one example I came across on Bluesky
Direct link to the game because the creator restricted who can view their posts on Bsky. Only viewable via a link or from their profile now, searching the name only returns a bunch of other dress-up games, but not this one, presumably because of the „Transgender“ tag.
Thanks for the context. Might have been caught up in the crossfire, but very worrying indeed.
It’s gonna stop once they hit a category that includes big AAA games. Once they start cutting into the revenue of Call of Duty or Assassin’s Creed the big developers should take a stance.
I’ve already seen a pretty big YouTuber cover that they are targeting GTA 6 now. It was either moistcritical or mudahar
Since this is caused by activist pressure on the payment processors, perhaps a grassroots activist campaign of our own could change their mind. Especially if we threaten to stop using their services in favor of any competitor that allows all legal purchases.
Hopefully you’re referring to Visa/Paypal, not Itch.
One place that comes to mind is Verotel. I barely know them, but supposedly one of their star attributes is their use for adult businesses. Likely someone else knows them better.
visa have similar restrictions… the issue is that payment processor, merchant, card network, issuing bank, and acquiring bank (and a few more) are all different layers to facilitating a transaction… there are very few card networks in the world, and essentially people pay online using mostly either just visa or mastercard
technically you could probably run a site that only accepts amex, diners club, jcb, discover, etc but it really wouldn’t go well: people want to whip out their card (often their only method of online payment) and just pay and go
you’d also need to find a payment processor that would be comfortable taking on the risk of facilitating transactions around mastercard and visa… they might just cut them off from access to their network. sounds like extortion? yeah welcome to the world of banking, where in any other industry it’d be called a cartel
making things even more difficult is that by law in the US payment processors must offer at least 3 (i think? it might be 2?) “routes” (these things aren’t always straight forward - sometimes there are multiple card networks involved), so you probably have to have a pretty mature payment processor because they’d have to accept several of the alternative card networks
oh and you have to push various stats to the federal reserve which is a massive back and forth bureaucratic challenge even above the technical challenge of interfacing with some pretty awful systems. it often takes over a year to get things sorted unless you’re a “too big to fail” type customer
there are a buuuuunch of other spanners that get thrown into the works, but i’m not sure where the NDA line hits so i’m gonna just leave it there and say trust me, payment processing (distinct from payment gateway) is an absolute nightmare mess
I’m not sure that works, like on a purely game theory level. If gamers start to apply pressure, threaten to stop buying games, the stores need to make a choice:
A. Risk facing the wrath of the gamers, sales are likely to drop. Possibly by a lot, perhaps 15-20%. That could keep up for months before stabilizing.
B. Risk facing the wrath of the payment processors, credit card sales will stop immediately, only alternative payment types get through. Sales drop by 80% overnight, over time some users will seek alternative payment methods, possibly resulting in only 50% less revenue than expected…
While both of those options are bad, one of them is totally fatal to their business.
Those numbers are of course only speculation, but that’s my best guess.
I meant pressing the payment processors, like those prude activists are.
I find it offensive that the only effective way to combat this is to fight fire with fire and also make a big bitchy noise about this like the conservatives love to do. I have better things I would rather be doing with my life. But such are the times we live in I suppose.
In the short term, I think that collectively being Karens about it would be able to reverse the pressure, by steering the monopolists away from oppressing us. Because they are mainly motivated by money.
In the long term, take away their monopoly power.
How do I tell politely in a letter to MasterCard, that if I want to buy a horse dildo it’s only MY fucking business?
buy a horse dildo with bitcoin and flaunt how they didn’t get any money from your transaction? idk man, i’m good at vague ideas, specifics are harder
Any games with even mild nudity is next (like Nier)
Yep, then lgbtq games, then games with guns, then games with blood, so on and so on
Are you sure gun and violence culture is on the chopping block? In the American market?
It absolutely is, it’s naive to think these puritans will just decide to stop here
The big payment processors won’t let you buy firearm parts
It absolutely is. We only encourage gun and violence culture in real life, especially by authoritarian figures and their representatives. Allowing such in virtual spaces where no one can actually be hurt or killed runs counter to our patriotic ideals.
GUNS are you nuts… Murican “morale” apostles might have infuenced the media worldwide, but if you take away guns… you lose Murica!
Collective Shout is Australian.
Activision, EA, Ubisoft, etc. would never let that happen.
Neighbors being kidnapped: I sleep
Taking my fetish games: Real Shit
most of the world isn’t american. we can’t do anything about your government
Transaction companies should not play police, in my opinion
In fact no company should play being police
This is why we have the digital market act
How are transaction offering companies not included there? Who gives them the right to choose what people consume?
Way do much centralised power
Basically a dictatorship
Fuck that
I mean, they have no problems offering transaction services to obvious scams like “find sex in your region” and other scammy find relationship websites.
This will never go away. Payment processors make life easy for most consumers, people like them. And as long as we have them, they hold all the power around how money can be used. And they will always be limited by governments and local laws.
If you don’t like the situation, use cash. If that’s too inconvenient Bitcoin is essentially your only other option.
They have the power because states gave it to them. States can very easily take it back. But they won’t because they’re corrupted assholes.
Not even… They have the power because you gave it to them. States can take it away, but that’s worse, you don’t want that.
But it doesn’t really matter, it’s all connected. The payment processors control how money can be used and the state controls how they’re allowed to let you use it. And you let it all happen by voluntarily using a credit card.
Bitcoin, and the millions other way more efficient alternatives 😜
“Bitcoin” and “efficient” do not fit together like that…
We got GoonerGate before the release of the Epstein files
