As a result of pressure from the pay processor, the international payment giant Mastercard issued a strong-worded statement on social platform X, which categorically denied its demand that the game creation platform restrict any activity, in direct contradiction to previous public statements and actions by Steam and tch.io.
In its statement, MasterCard stressed that “the MasterCard does not assess any game and does not require restrictions on any activity on the game creator’s website and platform, contrary to media reports and allegations. Our payment networks act in accordance with the law. In short, we allow all legitimate purchases on the network. At the same time, we require businesses to put in place appropriate controls to ensure that MasterCards are not used for illegal purchases, including illegal adult content.”
The Masters Statement is a response to the recent successive restrictions imposed by Steam and itch.io on the platform ‘ s adult content. In early July, Steam set up a large number of “adult-only” games and added to the policy a clause prohibiting “contents that may violate the rules and standards of Steam’s payment processors, related card organizations, banks or Internet network providers”.
steam part adult game
Immediately thereafter, the largest independent game platform in the world, itch.io, has been “unindexed” for thousands of NSFW games on its platform, and players will not be able to access the content through browsing and searching. itch.io made it clear that this was due to the “payment processor’s pressure to review us” and that the source of the pressure was the Australian feminist organization “Collective Shot” for complaints about adult games. itch.io is in the process of “a comprehensive review” and has recently restored the index of free adult NSFW content, with emphasis on “slow reintroducing pay elements” and ongoing negotiations with payment processors.
In the announcement concerning the restoration of the Free Content Index, itch.io also disclosed a statement by its main pointer, Stripe: “Despite widespread support for (duly registered) adult content by the Card Organization (Visa and MasterCare, etc.), Stripe is currently unable to support transactions involving explicit content due to restrictions imposed by its banking partners. Stripe has expressed the hope that the adult content will be supported in the future.”
The founder of itch.io, Leaf Corcoran, after communicating with Stripe, learned that he could not support the adult content of “sexual stimulation” — a definition widely criticized as vague and subjective.
Leaf Corcoran Statement
This adult game has been reviewed and repeatedly referred to as “Collective Shot”, an Australian feminist organization, which claims to be a non-profit organization dedicated to “the physicalization of women and the sexualization of girls in media, advertising and popular culture”. Its campaign against game platforms aims to pressure the payment processors to stop paying for so-called “coercive and bad” games.
Information poster for Collective Short
However, this was strongly rebounded by the game developers group, which was considered to be a disguised review. Since adult content itself is not illegal in most areas, one-size-fits-all audits have led to the involvement of a large number of games unrelated to the objectives of Collective Shoot. It consists of artistic games that address such heavy themes as trauma, sexual assault and so forth, as well as games designed to raise awareness of issues such as sex trade.
There is widespread concern among developers that this would set a precedent for dangerous audits and could lead to an increasingly restrictive definition of “prohibited adult content”, which could eventually be expressed by marginalized groups such as LGBTQ+ games.
Under the wind, the players ‘ group launched a protest campaign against giants such as Visa, Masters, Stripe and PayPal, who tried to bomb their client centres by telephone to pressure them to change their decisions. According to Aftermath, although the results are still “scattered feedback”, it appears that the client has indicated that he received a large number of relevant calls.
This statement, which is seen as the first important signal that the grass-roots pressure campaign could have a substantial impact, has inspired continued protests by communities in order to be able to reverse the situation.
In the face of pressure from the payment route, itch.io has made it clear that its long-term plan is to access one or more new payment processors who are more willing to deal with adult content. To date, Valve (Steam parent company) has not publicly commented on the Steam platform.
The outright denial of everything does not calm the controversy, but rather accentuates the complex chain of responsibility and the vagueness of the review criteria between the platform of the game, the payment processor, the bank and the lobby organizations. The debate around “Who is defining taboos?” and “The right to payment is the right to express?” is expected to continue.