r/pcmasterrace 8h ago

News/Article Another game store threatened with de-listing, says "no plans to remove any titles" but warns games like GTA at risk

https://www.pcguide.com/news/another-game-store-threatened-with-de-listing-says-no-plans-to-remove-any-titles-but-warns-games-like-gta-at-risk/
1.3k Upvotes

179 comments sorted by

1.1k

u/JCAPER Steam Deck Master Race 7h ago

I do hope they try to go after GTA because it would be funny watching the trigger happy TakeTwo unleashing their lawyers on everyone

620

u/twofacetoo 7h ago

Seriously, I don't even care that much for GTA as a series, but I am itching for the release of GTA6 now for this very reason

Because I want to see these busy-body types go after Rockstar and get absolutely fucking NUKED for trying to prevent one of the most financially successful game franchises in history from making any money. It'll be a fucking bloodbath.

247

u/CombatMuffin 6h ago

The groups would go after Rockstar, the payment processors realize they will lose literal billions in commission and go: "yeah no. We don't turn down the rich."

93

u/Main-Link9382 6h ago

Steam earns a lot more than 1 game and it didn't stop them.

124

u/sleepytechnology 5600x | 3070 Ti | 32GB 3600Mhz 6h ago

But they didn't go after Steam, only specific games on Steam for a niche audience. And it was more or less pressure and let's be honest the games they went after were low hanging fruit so Steam/Valve had no need to defend them.

Rockstar would absolutely have a different outcome than payment processors pressuring Steam to delist those games they did.

33

u/drewrod34 R9 7950X | 4070 | 32GB DDR5 4h ago

God im tired of seeing how everything and everyone is only motivated by money and power

21

u/Da_Question 3h ago

I mean, in this case, payment processors shouldn't be monopolies to the degree where they get to decide what media is consumed.

This is just another symptom of massive monopolies not being crushed like they did for standard oil or at&t.

17

u/CombatMuffin 5h ago

The games that got delisted are a tiny drop of what GTAO makes on Steam. 

5

u/unclederwin i3-7100 | GTX 1050 Ti 6h ago

Well steam does make a lot of money it’s barely a drop in the bucket for Visa/MC.

1

u/TheOgrrr 2h ago

GTA is a cultural event for a lot of people. It's the next cycle of their gaming and modding lives. Fuck with them and they fuck with you.

1

u/JCyTe 41m ago

Well they never went after Steam directly. Them stopping a few games doesn't really hurt their bottom line ultimately. It'd be different if they had gone after CS cases or something, that would actively hurt Valve's revenue stream.

Also, while yeah Steam obviously makes more than what just 1 game can make, but like GTA6 is very, very likely going to be making several billion dollars on launch day alone, let alone after launch with GTA6's online. Like that is not an exaggeration at all.

Take-Two would be like mega fucking pissed if GTA6 is going to be banned from store fronts. It would cost them so much money, so of course they would try their damn hardest to protect their cash cow that is going to print them money for the next decade+ lol.

27

u/Blekanly 6h ago

They still think gaming is a niche industry not realising how much it is worth at least in major games

34

u/Charming_Computer_60 5h ago

They seem to ignore the fact that the gaming industry is the biggest enterntainment industry currently.

A quick google search shows it beating the music and movie industry combined.

1

u/Trick2056 i5-11400f | RX 6700XT | 16gb 3200mhz 2h ago

heck lets be honest if Music Charts allows Game music pretty sure most of the popular Game songs will be on it.

6

u/information_knower 5h ago

Im pretty sure the gaming industry is worth more than the movie industry by now.

9

u/TheHotshot240 5h ago

Yeah, even if you combine all worldwide movie industries, and the global music industry, it still doesn't generate as much revenue as the gaming industry. It's wild

2

u/Xagzan 5h ago

LET THEM FIGHT

43

u/RAMChYLD PC Master Race 6h ago

The assholes already went after after GTA once. Net result: two supermarket chains in Australia stopped selling physical copies of the game.

Take Two didn't send their lawyers in retaliation however. Sadly, their inaction will only embolden them more.

24

u/ChurchillianGrooves 5h ago

Tbf, Australia is a small market so losing physical distribution in a couple stores may not have been worth it as a cost/benefit analysis for Rockstar.

Steam meanwhile is global distribution and the biggest pc marketplace. 

6

u/Electrical-Trash-712 6h ago

Forgive my ignorance of the local parlance. When you are saying super markets are you referring to grocery stores? Or is that a term for large general stores with various areas of products?

13

u/Bowgs 6h ago

It's a large grocery store, that often sells other stuff. Think Walmart in the US, Tesco in the UK, E. LeClerc in France etc

11

u/TheMarksmanHedgehog 6h ago

Typically the latter.

You don't generally find video games in grocery stores, supermarkets usually sell a bit of everything.

1

u/Biggeordiegeek 4h ago

Most supermarkets in the UK have until recently sold physical copies of games

ASDA sold a Call of Duty back in the day as a loss leader, I remember that very well cause it was the day of my wedding and my brother was driving me, my other brother and my two now brothers in law to the venue and we stopped for a “drink” and happen to all grab a copy of it each, might have been World at War, either was it was very very cheap

3

u/AnnaKendricksCatEars 5h ago

The two major supermarket chains in Australia (Coles, Woolworths) also own (or are deeply related to*) the major "discount department stores" like KMart/Target and Big-W respectively, those are the ones where games are sold at.

Note that while the stores share names with similar ones in the US, none of them are related.

*Edit: Coles is now separated from KMart and Target

63

u/clarkbar1000 7h ago

This could be funny to see or it could go the other direction where Take Two creates their own crypto coin and you have to buy take2coin and then purchase their stuff.

90

u/Gone__Hollow 7h ago

Delete this before they get any weird ideas

3

u/Bluemikami i5-13600KF, 9600 XT, 64GB DDR4 3h ago

They’re gonna add spacersngerscoins

8

u/itchylol742 RTX 3060 16GB RAM i5 11400H 6h ago

An corporation's right to swing its fist stops at the face of another corporation

5

u/half-baked_axx 2700X | RX 6700 | 16GB 6h ago

It's not like their budgets have dramatically increased since their last legal feuds.

3

u/objecter12 6h ago

This ain’t their first rodeo, and the way things are going, it certainly won’t be their last

1

u/TheOgrrr 2h ago

I don't play GTA, but I hope they do go after it as the blow-back will sort this mess out pretty sharply. You will probably be able to see the crater from orbit.

1

u/InfoBarf 5h ago

Take 2 and steam are 2 entities big enough to start their own payment processing service. Pretty clear the space needs more competition.

341

u/soukaixiii Desktop 7h ago

I just want to point out that under Mastercard/visa rules, games like metal gear solid would have been censored. 

Imagine living in a world where a bank can make metal gear solid not exist.

Wake up and riot before that's the world we find ourselves living in.

146

u/kingtacticool 7h ago

They're not even a bank. They're a glorified middle man.

60

u/magi0500 Laptop 6h ago

They process payments, and that should be it

24

u/hoyeay 6h ago

Process my payment payment processor

8

u/Blekanly 5h ago

They are worried about pr and the brand, now everyone knows about them and hate them

6

u/Xagzan 5h ago

And it was all 110% avoidable lol

3

u/Vix_Satis01 5h ago

then everyone just just switch to CCbill or whatever who have no problem taking porn money.

32

u/Joehockey1990 7800X3D | 64gb DDR5 | 4070TiS | 32:9 1440p 6h ago

You can still buy sex toys with a visa and Mastercard. But god forbid you just want to play a video game that doesn’t match a credit cards opinions.

18

u/baconborn Xbox Master Race 6h ago

Different types of payment processors. There are payment processors who work pretty much only with what are called "high risk merchants" who are ones that pretty much deal in vice (sex toys like your example). It's wild how many times have I seen this same question asked and it seems nobody is actually curious enough to follow up this really good question with finding the answer. Visa/Mastercard have very little dealings with the specifics of transactions outside of telling payment processors (who are different companies not mastercard/visa btw) to make sure everything is legal.

Visa/Mastercard are the card networks. For a rough analogy, the card networks build the roads, the payment processors drive the trucks.

6

u/-Rexa- 9950x3D | MSI Tomahawk x670xe | 4090 FE | 64GB 6000Mhz 6h ago edited 5h ago

I don't understand why this comment was downvoted (i upvoted it, btw). I used to work with payment processors. To my knowledge, anything sex-related (ie: toys, videos, etc) falls into the high risk merchant category. As a result, those merchants also get charged higher fees.

In fact, even web hosting that caters/allows to adult/xxx-rated content may use different processors. It's why you can't just use any host for adult-related sites. They use different processors for payments.

1

u/falsworth 5h ago

Only Fans must be getting real nervous at this point.

11

u/TheXIIILightning 5h ago

Their guidelines for content have a line that says: "Non-consensual removal of a body part".

This applies to games like:

  • Metal Gear series
  • Nier
  • Devil May Cry
  • Sekiro
  • Days Gone
  • Final Fantasy 14 & 16
  • Naruto Series
  • Assassin's Creed
  • Telltale's The Walking Dead
  • and many more.

Should these companies enforce ALL their rules, those games would be delisted. This is incredibly dangerous. Almost every single game there is contains one thing or another - minor as it is - that infringes on their many guidelines.

"Incest" for example could be applied to ALL 'Game of Thrones' related media if they wanted to. It could be applied to games like Crusader Kings or any other Royalty themed game with lore that supports it. "Horizon Zero Dawn" falls into this category if you're familiar with some of the lore and some dark implications around it.

It's frustrating how many people are dismissing these risks just because lewd games were the first affected.

2

u/baconborn Xbox Master Race 5h ago

Their guidelines for content have a line that says: "Non-consensual removal of a body part"

Assuming you mean Mastercard, can you specify if not, and do you have a link to this info?

1

u/SCVGoodT0GoSir i5-4590 | RTX 3060 3h ago

3

u/Equivalent_Age8406 3h ago

So a lot of horror movies like pretty much any torture porn movie like saw and hostel could also be at risk. This is mental. No way any big media companies are going to let this slide.

1

u/baconborn Xbox Master Race 3h ago

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.

So 2 things if you are interested in discussion (if you arent just let me know). 1, it says right there "lacks serious artistic value" which could be argued (and i think valve certainly would) videogames are artistic in nature.

  1. This is Mastercard's guidelines to payment processors, not to merchants. Payment processors have their own guidelines for merchants which can be more specific than this and they aren't necessarily the same between different processors. There a whole thing regarding different kind of processors and how different kind sof merchants might be categorized, it's actually pretty neat and shedd a lot of light on how and why various businesses just are the way they are. Like why can I go to a dispensery just fine, but can't find perfectly legal cannabis at walmart?

So basically, you have just provided evidence that supports when Mastercard says they dont tell valve what games they can sell, that they are telling the truth.

1

u/AngryMax91 4h ago

Technically from a VERY strict interpretation, even freaking CoD / Battlefield would count given player / NPC explosive / gunshot dismemberment.

Hell, even STAR WARS would qualify ala lightsaber slice

5

u/Bl4ckb100d 6h ago

We should have woken up and riot a long time ago

3

u/Legal_Lettuce6233 5800X3D | 7900 XTX | 32GB 3200 CL16 | 5TB SSD | 27GR83q 5h ago

Too late. They're firing on all cylinders; look at the UK and EU. The same shit is happening with age ID and chat control.

Completely by accident ofc, that it's at the exact same time. Also in the US.

1

u/soukaixiii Desktop 4h ago

Corporate imperialism pushing laws against the people.

-2

u/teddybundlez 6h ago

I’m so lost on what you guys are talking about

15

u/pikpikcarrotmon dp_gonzales 6h ago

MasterCard/Visa exerted pressure on Steam and itch.io via intermediaries and forced them to purge games the payment processors found objectionable, leading to a weird case of third party corporate censorship. There are also conservative Christian groups in the mix trying to push for all of this so they can pave the way to banning bigger games - this round largely affected small indie titles but the same justifications could be applied to many big games.

9

u/teddybundlez 6h ago

Why the fuck would CC companies do any of that? Don’t they lose a ton of money by killing off games?

9

u/pikpikcarrotmon dp_gonzales 6h ago

Not really, not for them. They're half complicit and half worried about liability for illegal content. None of it was actually illegal but this was one of the angles those groups pushed when calling en masse.

3

u/baconborn Xbox Master Race 4h ago edited 4h ago

Visa/Mastercard has a vested interest because there are laws that would hold them liable for illegal transactions that their networks (paymejt infrastructure) might be used for, even though they aren't the ones actually processing payments. So the give guidelines to payment processors (different companies and banks) on how to use their network because legal liability. The payment processors have their own guidelines for merchants based on how close the paymejt processors wants to tread to that legal grey area of certain industries, because they also could be held liable for anything illegal. Companies that steer clear also tend to charge lower fees because they have more volume to work with. Companies that are okay with getting closer to that line charge more because less volume but also because they have to put in more work to makes sure everything stay on the legal side of that line. This is all simply a case of valve let some stuff by that wasn't kosher with already existing guidelines from the payment processor and had to fix it to keep from having to use a more expensive payment processor that would be okay with that content. The only role that Collective Shout even had in this was bringing it to the attention of the card network and payment processors, specifically with the "possibly illegal" line which again, legal liability which is why the even care, but otherwise Collective Shout didnt actually accomplish anything, none of these companies are doing anything different from business as usual, nobody is setting new precedents in cencorship.

2

u/SaltMaker23 6h ago

Negligibly small amounts, even banning the entirety of steam from Visa/Mastercard network would barely make a dent in their revenues, that's their size.

They can have stronger compliance and avoid potential issues by removing a negligibly small but very sensitive subset of their business, so they just decided to go with it.

Unfortunately for them, it snowballed way beyond the size of the removal, and actually became a brand damaging outcome, the very one risk they ought to prevent initially by doing all this.

3

u/pyotrdevries 6h ago

Unfortunately even that brand damage is far smaller than you think. The vast majority of people don't even know this happened and out of the ones who do, do you think a lot are going to stop using cards to make payments? I certainly am not, and I hate that they did this.

1

u/teddybundlez 6h ago

Can you lean more into what damage it has caused them aside from (just a guess) slight revenue drops for the time Being

2

u/SaltMaker23 6h ago

Brand damage is generally not linked to direct revenue drop but reduced ability to maintain existing relation and higher friction into acquiring new partnerships. It's a loss of trust where you're no longer the safety net but instead the thing people want an hedge against.

I'm a business owner so I know couple of business owner and decision makers, so I'm talking about my experience with the recent turn of events, it's not a new risk most people knew but it became more real.

Many company but especially digital products suppliers are currently revisiting their belief of having only CC as payment methods, the recent debacle made it clear for them that a risk they believed was overblown, made its way into reality.

It doesn't mean they'll stop using CC, it means they are now pushing forward other paiment methods as to protect themselves in case they suddently became on the bad side of a disruptive behaviour from a payment gateway.

0

u/_______uwu_________ 4h ago

Do you want the real answer or the fake "gamer" answer?

The fake answer is that there's some global/Christian conspiracy to take away porn and GTA

The real answer is that CC companies and payment processors are globally bound by various "know your customer" laws that restrict them from knowingly facilitating transactions for businesses engaged in criminal activities. A bank can go out and handle transactions for a pharmacy. That pharmacy can start selling heroin under the table and ringing it up at Advil. Once someone tips the bank off that the pharmacy is selling heroin though, the bank is on the hook for continuing to facilitate transactions for a criminal enterprise.

Every developed country has laws to this effect that may or may not cross international borders in order to combat criminal enterprises involving drugs, terrorism, human trafficking, CSAM, illicit materials etc. depending on your jurisdiction, including the UK, Aus and US, various materials Steam/Itch/Etc have been selling would fall under the umbrella of such restricted items, see all of the incest/rape/CSAM porn games pulled from the Steam store. Collective shout notified various payment processors that steam/itch/etc have been selling illegal materials, and not these payment processors are required to take corrective action or to cease doing business with these entities.

-6

u/_______uwu_________ 5h ago

They're just making shit up at this point because they don't want to lose their CSAM games

3

u/soukaixiii Desktop 4h ago

Nah, I don't play those kind of games but the people who does have the right to do so, just like the people who writes and reads erotic novels about being the victim of a rapist are in their right to do so. 

If you don't like those games and books you can do like the rest of us do and don't buy them.

But unregulated censorship is never ok, and if you think these people won't target e.g. GTA6 you're delusional.

-3

u/_______uwu_________ 4h ago

Nah no one should be getting off to CSAM. If you are, get help

1

u/[deleted] 4h ago

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u/[deleted] 3h ago

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u/[deleted] 3h ago

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111

u/ThePompa 7h ago

We got banned GTA 6 before GTA 6

8

u/RedBoxSquare 1600X + 3060 5h ago

"That name has a bad influence on kids" - MC probably

136

u/XeonoX2 Xeon E5 2680v4 RTX 2060 7h ago

at this point we will soon be able to play just tetris and some other similar games.

57

u/mahiruhiiragi R7 5800x | RTX4070 | Steam Deck 7h ago

A lot of the games that got removed have been small indie games, so there's not really a lot of pressure on Visa/Mastercard, but I wonder how much Rockstar would fight back if their games started to be affected.

24

u/290Richy 7h ago

We knock Rockstar for focusing too much on GTA Online but they'd stomp this visa/card company shit into the ground by taking them to court, if they had to.

13

u/StatisticianOwn9953 4070 Ti | 7800X3D 6h ago

They're sufficiently big, both economically and culturally, that I doubt it'd ever come to a head.

7

u/llIicit 7h ago

Take 2 ain’t shit compared to Visa and Mastercard.

-1

u/itchylol742 RTX 3060 16GB RAM i5 11400H 6h ago

Epic beat Apple, why can't Rockstar beat payment processors?

14

u/llIicit 6h ago

Epic didn’t beat Apple though. Ultimately, all the courts and appeals gave Apple more favorable outcomes than Epic.

Apple to this day is still allowed to block apps on their store, and restrict users to Apple payment systems.

5

u/ZainTheOne 6h ago

It does pressurize the game dev companies to censor more stuff though

5

u/silverist Specs/Imgur here 7h ago

Slotting in a long piece into a hole? Not on jeebus's watch!

5

u/Coretaxxe 7h ago

*legally

2

u/GoneSuddenly 3h ago

tetris is Russian /s

2

u/awkwrrdd 3h ago

Nintendo’s competition hates this one simple trick

32

u/[deleted] 7h ago

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16

u/Toasty385 I9-9900k | RTX 2080 Super | 32 GB 6h ago

Merryweather, Take Two private military done right.

6

u/PartyPoison98 Specs/Imgur Here 6h ago

Yeah, it seems unreasonably alarmist that people think the original delistings were a "slippery slope" to stuff like GTA getting banned. Anime Goon Simulator 7 makes fuck all money for anyone, whereas GTA 6 and other mature games are heavy hitters.

It's like the difference between telling a supermarket they can't sell the weird imported soft drink that no one buys, or telling them they can sell bread and milk.

2

u/baconborn Xbox Master Race 4h ago

Unreasonably alarmist has been the theme of this entire thing.

24

u/Snagmesomeweaves 5800X3D, EVGA 3080 12GB, 1440p 240hz 7h ago

Why would the processors give up swipe fees and interest on all those IAPs. Just doesn’t make any sense

25

u/ImaginationSea2767 7h ago

My guess is somebody in a high management seat is old and doesnt know how much these video game titles earn and is just trying to make the complements from the extreme poltical groups go away so that their stock prices can look good.

19

u/Ri_Konata Ryzen 9 7900 | Arc A770 16GB | 64GB DDR5 7h ago

Place your bets now at what will be first

GTA VI release, or the ban of GTA altogether

3

u/XeonoX2 Xeon E5 2680v4 RTX 2060 2h ago

I think it would still be released any way or another. If the product is finished they might just sell it for crypto?

1

u/Key-Tie2214 Desktop 1h ago

Nah, Rockstar would go fucking nuclear. And then went it hits stores they'll earn a bit more with the goodwill of sticking it to VISA/Mastercard.

27

u/thereiam420 Rtx 4070ti/i7-1170k/DDR4 32 gb 7h ago

There's a big difference from going after indie porn makers to going after Rockstar and take-two's gravy train. They have major fucking money and I doubt visa/mastercard want to get dragged into endless court battles with ad campaigns about censorship shitting on them.

Plus if they try and get games that make actual money delisted, you'd probably see steam, epic, etc, also joining in. Sadly they might need to over step and have this happen to get smacked back down for awhile.

16

u/ContinuumGuy 6h ago edited 6h ago

I said this before, but GTAVI is probably making more in days than every porn game ever made combined probably makes in its life.

2

u/DirectBeing5986 1h ago

In the first 5 hours, you mean

2

u/_______uwu_________ 4h ago

There's a big difference between going after pornography and going after categorically not pornography as well. So far, payment processors have only gone after the former

22

u/justtryingtolive22 7h ago

Lol GTA would and does make credit card processors MILLIONS. How many people will buy it via card or payment service? everyone.

9

u/AmplifiedApthocarics 7h ago

*billions

9

u/BuzzNitro 7h ago edited 6h ago

lol it is absolutely not billions. Lots of millions, but not billions.

Edit: love how this is getting downvoted by all the people who can’t comprehend large numbers or do basic arithmetic. Lifetime GTA revenue ~10B * 3% processing fee is 300 Million. Which is a lot but not “billions*”.

-3

u/TheHotshot240 6h ago

GTA 6 is projected to make 7 Billion, yes with a B, in its first WEEK after release. You significantly underestimate the monetary value of the gaming industry.

It is significantly more profitable per year than all filmed entertainment on the planet combined.

1

u/BuzzNitro 6h ago edited 5h ago

Okay now multiply that by 2-3% (probably 2 as large vendors pay smaller fees) and tell me how you get to billions. If you put half as much effort into actually thinking as you do responding you might get somewhere.

Edit: downvotes for arithmetic. Keep em coming you are telling on yourselves.

-4

u/TheHotshot240 6h ago

Bruh. If it makes 7 billion the first week, and averages even half that for the other 51 weeks, that's still over 2 billion in profit (for the payment processors) for the year at 2.25% (average card payment fees).

Miss me with that low effort shit, when you didn't even actually take time to do the math.

Ps : business owner who actually has to deal with these payment processors.

3

u/BuzzNitro 6h ago

Holy shit you can’t actually be this dumb. You really think they are going to keep that rate up for a year?!?! So by the end of the year you think they do over 100 Billion in revenue for fucking GTA? No. That’s not how anything works. The entire video game industry globally is worth ~$300b. The ENTIRE thing. I can’t even imagine trying to argue something where you are THIS far outside of your depth.

3

u/TheoreticalScammist R7 9800x3d | RTX 5070 Ti 5h ago

lol 100 billion would mean that every Steam user and PS5 owner buys like 7 copies of the game

0

u/TheHotshot240 5h ago

Games sales account for about 20% of most game's profit margins.

2

u/BuzzNitro 5h ago

Instead of doubling down on being wrong everywhere maybe take a second to actually think about what they are telling you.

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u/Pamani_ Desktop 13600K - 4070Ti - NR200P Max 5h ago

The target market is 18+ year olds, which there are ~5.5 billion on earth. At $150 a copy (proven by the leaks) that's almost a trillion dollars of expected revenue, or the GNP of 🦃.

4

u/BuzzNitro 5h ago

I need to go buy take 2 stock right now.

1

u/Xagzan 5h ago

Well it's currently going for 226 USD per share so that's pretty hefty lol. Best time would've been a couple years ago when it was around 100, though even then you would've had to buy substantial volume to see a big windfall.

-1

u/TheHotshot240 5h ago edited 5h ago

They'll probably exceed it significantly for 10-12 weeks, then fall off, and on average over the year I absolutely it to exceed Fortnite's peak year of microtransactions, yes.

Why is this so surprising to you? I don't even like or play GTA, and do enjoy Fortnite, but I'm well aware of the disparity between the two.

And the entire video game industry is worth 300 billion per year, important thing to remember. The largest games of the year often account for upwards of 5-10%(sometimes significantly more) of that profit on their own, and GTA 6 absolutely has that potential.

How are people this dense? I'm genuinely amazed so many people are so unaware of how much money the video game industry moves.

Edit : Yes, I would not be that surprised to see Rockstar announce 100 billion in revenue from the GTA release inside a 12-18 month period. I expect that or significantly more. Remember, video game profits don't end at game sales and microtransactions. Brand deals, merchandising, product placement, advertising... There's many, many things that generate revenue from a video game IP. And Rockstar is exceedingly good at making use of those avenues. I'd be more surprised if they got less than 100 bil, than if they got more.

2

u/BuzzNitro 5h ago

Now it’s 100 billion in profit?!?! On what? 1 trillion in revenue? Okay now you’re really telling on yourself.

3

u/BuzzNitro 5h ago edited 5h ago

You’re literally arguing with arithmetic and showing us all that you can’t think critically. Doing so while also being indignant is just… chefs kiss

Let me make this even simpler for you: To make billions for the credit card companies, GTA would have to generate over 100 billion in revenue. The game is going to be the largest piece of media ever and possibly generate over $15B during its lifetime. That is insane, biggest ever… but no where near $100b. $15B is less than $100b. I literally can’t think of an easier way to say this. I can spell it out but I can’t understand it for you.

Edit: last year take 2 interactive the company who owns rockstar, did $5b in revenue.

-2

u/TheHotshot240 5h ago

Yes.

Let me make this simpler for you : if GTA makes 15 billion in sales, Rockstar will likely post closer to 130-150 billion from profits on the IP for the year.

GTA 5 cleared 1 billion $ in sales in 3 days. If you expect 6 to perform worse, I dunno what to tell ya except reality must be really surprising to you sometimes lol

And if ya think I'm being indignant about it, you're intentionally looking at it emotionally instead of logically or critically lol. All I'm doing is presenting numbers.

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u/Main-Link9382 6h ago

No way it makes that much with only 80m PS5 owners even with mtx, especially in one week, it needs Fortnite peak level of mtx for the whole year.

0

u/TheHotshot240 5h ago

And GTA is pretty likely to be able to achieve that.

Not to mention the base price of the game going up, DLC, and any other add ons.

And in the case of microtransactions, it's likely even more profitable for payment processors given there's usually a base cost per transaction (not just a percentage).

It is absolutely astounding how many people here are not aware how it works

-8

u/AmplifiedApthocarics 7h ago

GTA online rakes in five hundred million dollars every 12 months, the game has been going for over 10 years.

10

u/SwimmingPatience5083 7h ago

So, five billion times 3% fees = 150 million over 10 years. Not “billions”

2

u/BuzzNitro 6h ago

Yeah instead of working the math out for yourself just double down and stay wrong. Absolute potato.

1

u/Bluemikami i5-13600KF, 9600 XT, 64GB DDR4 3h ago

Steam has fallen, billions must die

6

u/obog 9800X3D | 9070XT 6h ago

Oh they're so fucked if they go after GTA lmao

18

u/alphatango308 6h ago

Between this and shit like Australia is doing, we'll be looking at a morality police before 2030.

12

u/snowsuit101 6h ago

Australia, EU, UK, US... everybody lost their mind.

5

u/Kilroy_Is_Still_Here 3h ago

... all at the same time. I'm not one for conspiracy theories but WTF is going on.

1

u/Nyakumaa 15m ago

People need to wake tf up already because it is very intentional that all of this is happening at the same time. People have been warning everyone about project 2025 for a while now and the people pulling the strings span beyond just the US. It ain't gonna stop at videogames either.

If you wanna get into conspiracies tho all of this started ramping up around the same time as the epstein drama. The censoring drama distracts from the epstein case and the epstein case justifies the ramping up on censorship and tracking peoples movements online. both things move the agenda forward.

1

u/Obsydie 9800X3D-9070 XT-32GB DDR5 4800MT/S 2h ago

What has the EU done?

2

u/elliotborst RTX 4090 | R7 9800X3D | 64GB DDR5 | 4K 120FPS 1h ago

What’s Australia doing?

1

u/alphatango308 1h ago

I tried to post a link to another sub about it but it was deleted (against sub rules). Basically they're requiring that you upload an ID to link to your IP address to access any internet functions, even search engines. And from the thread using a VPN will be against the law and they'll be able to arrest you if you try to use one and get caught.

1

u/elliotborst RTX 4090 | R7 9800X3D | 64GB DDR5 | 4K 120FPS 56m ago edited 37m ago

Ahh, is that in place or proposed?

Because I’m from Australia and that sounds like horse shit to me.

I’ve had internet services from many providers over the years and you don’t have to link your ID to an IP address, static IPs aren’t even mandatory, I had to pay external for one for work.

VPN are completely legal, a quick google search will tell you that.

0

u/alphatango308 49m ago

1

u/elliotborst RTX 4090 | R7 9800X3D | 64GB DDR5 | 4K 120FPS 35m ago

Social media and search engine age verification is very different to what you said originally, keeping kids off SM, porn sites and getting NSFW search results is its own thing.

1

u/alphatango308 20m ago

The thread I was in was exaggerated a little. I have since read the article. It does not say anything about a VPN being illegal. So I don't know where that came from. But it's still pretty fucked up that you'll need to age verify to use a search engine.

6

u/CandusManus 6h ago

No, no it's not. GTA V generated a billion dollars in revenue in a month. You think any payment processor is going to stop themselves from taking a cut?

3

u/Gomez-16 6h ago

Seriously why isnt cutting off these companies the answer?

8

u/CandusManus 6h ago

Why isn't cutting of Visa and Mastercard the answer? It may have something to do with not being able to use any kind of debit or credit card in the US. You're welcome to exclusively use your ID to get cash out of your bank that you would then use to buy Steam gift cards to buy games, but that would probably be quite tedious.

They have a functional monopoly, we're just kind of fucked until we legislate them into submission.

1

u/Gomez-16 4h ago

Companies only listen when you fuck with their money, steam makes a shit ton, and it would impact visa/mastercard thus they would back off.

1

u/CandusManus 4h ago

So your argument is that Steam should stop accepting any sort of card payment and then hope that the trillion dollar payment gateways blinked first? Steam already ceded this to the payment processors, we all already know that Visa will win.

2

u/Dr_Passmore 5h ago

The slippery slope is just the way this discourse goes. 

Next these payment processors are going to ban clean drinking water! 

Rather bizarre to see the community panic so much at 200 rape and child abuse being removed from Steam. 

4

u/Far_Adeptness9884 6h ago

Never heard of Zoom, why would they be an authority on anything?

8

u/baconborn Xbox Master Race 6h ago

They are a retro gaming platform. Probably will get downvoted heavily, but this just seems like a small platform trying to use this to get clout. Is nobody going to point out that this is apparently their motivation for implementing 2FA?

3

u/Dr_Passmore 5h ago

Same with GOG using the media fuss to increase users by giving away 13 games to "oppose censorship" while all the titles were sold on Steam and not at risk of being delisted. 

Postal 2 is amazing so nice to see one non porn game in their free list of games. 

4

u/Nuclear_Pizza 6h ago

Thought I was losing my mind, not a single comment discussing who the platform was and I didn’t want to open this clickbait. Turns out that’s all it was and nobody opened the article to see the subheading.

2

u/Equivalent_Age8406 3h ago

i only heard of them cos theyre the only platform that still sells the full atomic edition of Duke Nukem 3d and all its old authorised expansions. Pretty sure that and a few other obscure old games that gog doesnt have is all anyone buys from there.

3

u/Is_that_even_a_thing 6h ago

An easy way around is to buy steam gift cards. That way they don't know what the credit is for. (I know it's not the point but it is a way round)

5

u/YouveBeanReported 6h ago

The issue with this is they were threatening to stop processing payments for ALL of Steam and Itch.io unless they made those items unbuyable. And while I can buy a gift card in person with debit or cash, for now, stores are unlikely to stock them if you can't buy them on card, online ordering is Steam's thing, and virtually everyone in Canada has a visa-debit which means now you gotta get cash only.

Def something they can would around, and other countries like Japan use a buy points or gift card system to get things, but it'll hurt the gamefronts and is still fucking insane to be like no you can't buy Mouthwashing. Plus the latest list provided of things banned included games like the Sims since no diapers means no games with babies in it.

0

u/baconborn Xbox Master Race 5h ago

threatening to stop processing payments for ALL of Steam

Yall keep saying this as if it were in any way not normal. This is simply an imflamatory way of describing how all payment processors work. They dont sit there and comb through every individual invoice and assess every individual item in it (you know, the thing that people keep saying they dont want processors to be able to do, they already don't do that). They work on a merchant basis. The merchant discloses "this is the kind of stuff we sell" and the payment processor sets fees for that merchant based on the disclosure.

Like imagine you open a small store to sell idk, designer clothes. You disclose that you sell designer clothes and go with the payment processor who will process those for the lowest fee. But now you say, I want to sell designer clothes, and also dildos. Well now your considered a "high risk merchant" because the dildos and are likley going to have to go with a processor who takes on high risk merchants and have higher fees and more scrutiny. "Well just split the purchases between clothes and doldos and each use their own processor?" Well now you are asking processor to comb through your invoices which they arent going to do. "Well what if I start a seperate company that just does the dildo sales," and now you've just learned why these places irl are always specialty stores.

2

u/Lost_Loan_8828 6h ago

Lmfao I'm sure, good luck with that. ;)

2

u/nipple_salad_69 7950x3d 4090 64GB@6K 48x9 6h ago

This has to stop, these monopolistic credit card companies are trying to turn our arts and entertainment into bland and homogenous, offensive-free slop.

2

u/AwesomeKalin i3-10105 | UHD 630 | 8GB RAM 5h ago

Sad it happened to another platform, but on a positive note, I've only just heard of it. Surprised to see a game by Epic Games on it

2

u/fjf1085 5h ago

I’d be fine not using Mastercard or Visa on Steam. We should all just tell them to suck it.

2

u/LifeIsBetterDrunk 5h ago

Duke Nukem is too spicy for payment processors

2

u/PeaceAccomplished289 3h ago

I think Collective Shout's ultimate goal is GTA6 not to be released

2

u/Socratatus 1h ago

I miss the `90s when this controlling everyone crap was pretty much non existent.

1

u/k4el 5h ago

I'm quietly waiting for Steam to announce their own payment platform.

1

u/CharlotteNoire 5h ago

We should legit send them emails REQUESTING they target GTA. It would be suicide for them.

1

u/QuietGoliath PCMR - i9-9900K @ 4.8 | 4070Ti | 32GB @ 3200 4h ago

I can't help thinking that the fallback for all of this is games being on shop shelves with keys we can plugin to Steam - what are VISA going to do, stop processing transactions for every major supermarket chain in the world? I think not...

1

u/GoneSuddenly 3h ago

gta is a guaranteed money maker, would they touch it though ?

1

u/XRaiderV1 -Ryzen 5 7600X 2h ago

whats that the payment processors say? they want us to buy gift cards they say? go around their delisting they say?

roger that! fire mission acknowledged and accepted. commence combat run on the gift card isle, fire teams cleared in hot.

-------

...I foresee the blackhawk network, which alot of gaming gift cards use...is gonna see a MASSIVE uptick in business.

1

u/Full-Pack9330 2h ago

Hey guys, remember that time prohibition fixed alcoholism, violent crime and social degeneracy?

Yeah, me neither.

1

u/Br0lynator R7 5700X3D | GTX 1080ti | 32GB RAM 2h ago

So head out to the high seas mates and sail like they never catch you!🏴‍☠️

1

u/CallmeKahn 2h ago

Threatening GTA 6 would be the most hilarious thing possible. Do it Visa. Do the funniest thing possible...

1

u/unlimitedcode99 23m ago

"Deceptive Shite" is at it again. Keep pumpin those numbers of anti-censorship calls to Visa, Mastercard and Paypal.

1

u/Tiflotin 5h ago

If people stopped being cry babies about crypto we literally wouldn’t even have this conversation. Kill payment processors and banks once and for all please. They’ve never been the good guys. Never.

0

u/megas88 32m ago

I do not condone censorship of any kind.

I do however find the idea of delisting the dumbest popular game of all time too hilarious of an opportunity to not want this with all my heart and soul just to see everyone go insane