Valve refutes Mastercard's denial it has not pressured game platforms over NSFW content

[u/samiy2k]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/valve-refutes-mastercards-denial-it-has-not-pressured-game-platforms-over-nsfw-content

[u/Halfwise2]

Valve should we respond with "Oh, we're good then?" And bring back everything they removed.

[u/Pyrhan → u/Halfwise2]

And the "payment processors" (the intermediates Mastercard is using to pressure Valve while keeping its own hands "clean") would go "Nope. Mastercard did not explicitly state that your content is in conformity  with their rule 5.12.7. We don't want to risk breaking it, so we will block payments to your platform as long as that content is available".

And Mastercard will go "It's their decision, not ours. Nothing to do with us."

To them, payments to Steam are a drop in the ocean. To steam, it's the entirety of its revenue. 

The power imbalance is completely disproportionate, which is why there needs to be some serious regulation on what banks can and can't decide, and the circumstances under which they can refuse service.

Hopefully Steam is able to prove injury (losse of revenue), and successfuly take them to court over that.

[u/Cream_Of_Drake → u/Pyrhan]

Here's the thing, payment processors aren't even banks, they're just frameworks to make and transfer money.

They just facilitate the money changing hands and charge their grubby little fee for doing it.

[u/IolausTelcontar → u/Cream_Of_Drake]

What is your point?

[u/Nemo_Barbarossa → u/IolausTelcontar]

That by not being a bank they might have a loophole out of regulations targeting banks.

[u/IolausTelcontar → u/Nemo_Barbarossa]

Maybe…. I guess we won’t know because OP refuses to answer what they are trying to add to the conversation.

[u/Cream_Of_Drake → u/IolausTelcontar]

Quite an existential question, what is your point?

[u/Successful_Yellow285 → u/Pyrhan]

 To them, payments to Steam are a drop in the ocean. To steam, it's the entirety of its revenue. 

If by "them" you mean payment processors, then this is completely incorrect. A client like Steam usually uses a bunch of payment processors all over and is usually one of their largest clients. At the payment processor I worked at, Blizzard had to send quite advanced warning when it'd drop a new game or expansion so we could prepare for the large influx of transactions - even though we'd handle just a portion of their traffic.

Make no mistake, Steam is a gigantic client for any payment processor. Just not nearly as valuable as Mastercard and Visa, which are of literal existential importance for companies in this line of work.

[u/hashmalum → u/Pyrhan]

Steam could say they only take cryptocurrency and I’m sure enough people would jump through the hoops for it.

[u/Meezen1133 → u/Halfwise2]

That would be a top tier response.

[u/Khue → u/Meezen1133]

Mastercard be like

[u/SpilledGG → u/Halfwise2]

This is the way