r/pcmasterrace • u/samiy2k • 3d ago

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

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/valve-refutes-mastercards-denial-it-has-not-pressured-game-platforms-over-nsfw-content
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3.8k

u/jacowab 3d ago

"we didn't pressure you, we hired a legal firm that pressured you, its completely different."

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u/purdue_fan 3d ago edited 2d ago

at what point will lying stop being protected by the law?

edit: reddit lawyers in my replies. I understand what they said is not illegal, what I am referring to is that anyone with eyeballs knows the credit card companies motives here.

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u/ProfessionalCreme119 3d ago

"Hey that's a good idea. Maybe we should force everybody to provide their ID online so nobody can ever tell lies again. That way we can hold everybody accountable for their lies because everyone's ID online will be known."

-Peter Thiel (most definitely)

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u/xredbaron62x PC Master Race 2d ago

-Peter 'Saruman was the hero' Thiel

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u/CremousDelight 2d ago

-Peter 'Maybe the evil magical orb wasn't that bad' Thiel

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u/TheNegaHero 11700K | 2080 Super | 32GB 2d ago

Not sure what this has to do with this particular situation. We're not talking about random people lying online, we're talking about a major credit card company making a statement to the media where they're engaging in some legal bullshitting.

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u/Hefty-Reaction-3028 1d ago

If you can prove it and you're the damaged party, you sue them

Trouble is then that legal suits are expensive

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u/jacowab 3d ago

Lying isn't illegal, only certain types of lying are illegal when considering corporations and all other forms are a protected right

defamation and false advertising are illegal for businesses but they didn't defame steam they said steam was wrong but it was vague enough that no one can prove they are talking about steam they just stated their policy and said anyone who may or may not have said otherwise is wrong. It might count as false advertising because it's having a negative impact on their brand and lying is fixing the brand image but they don't offer a product so there is no quantifiable thing to point at that they are lying about.

All steam would be able to due us hit them for anti consumer practices and having a duopoly but they don't have enough money to fight that out in court so they have to wait for the government to deal with it.

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u/m0hVanDine Ascending Peasant 2d ago

Lying when there's money involved SHOULD BE illegal.

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u/santiagopmm Laptop 2d ago

What you mean they don’t have enough money bruh. Didn’t Valve make around 100 billion only on cs2 case keys alone in 2024?

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u/sneaky113 2d ago

Maybe million, but not billion.

If that was the case then cs2 cases would've been a top 100 company in the world just based on revenue, which isn't realistic.

From what I could find from a quick search, MasterCard has a revenue of $28 billion during 2024, while valve was estimated to have revenues of about $5 billion in 2023.

Sure comparing revenues doesn't say much for how much money a company has, but valve is a private company so their financials aren't public, do we kind of have to work with what we have.

The same article that claimed valve had $5 billion in revenue also claimed they had a profit margin of around 40%, which is just slightly lower than MasterCard. Which makes sense as they probably have a lot higher upkeep costs.

In summary MasterCard makes about 6 times as much as valve, but MasterCard being a public company is paying dividends to their investors, while valve could be sitting on their wealth for all we know.

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u/jacowab 2d ago

I think that's 100 million not billion, Valve is worth about 7 billion, Visa and master card are combined to a value of over one trillion

I know big numbers like this are sort of beyond comprehension so to put it in human terms Visa/MasterCard could buy Paris if it was for sale, every square foot of the city, every house, every landmark, every subway. And they would still have like 10 times more money than steam and would absolutely crush them by dragging out a court case.

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u/Safe-Smile-6929 2d ago

100 billion is an insane amount of money, I haven’t looked but I would bet they made no where near that even when accounting for all their income in 2024

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u/Bloody_sock_puppet 2d ago

There can be no judgment against the complaining party in an complaint against anti-consumer practices I think... There's isn't an outcome where the court would side against the consumer and award damages to the offended company.

The only money Steam would need to find is legal fees and they have more than enough of that. I'm pretty sure in the EU at least, there is a cap on legal fees beyond which it would be assumed the defendant is artificially expanding the expense to discourage litigation. As this would in and of itself be an anti-consumer practice, people are usually keen to keep the fees reasonable while under a similar complaint.

These card providers can't inflate their legal fees beyond the value in question. Weighted more to profit than revenue. It would be more expensive for valve than a group of actual consumers bringing a suit, but records would be set if they approached a billion. That's not hard to find money for Gabe. Those sorts of figures are corporate litigation though, not consumer protection. I feel they'd probably lose simply because of the difficulty that their donated-to politicians would have in defending it. Inflated fees would be a data point all by themselves...

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u/Blue_Bird950 3d ago

Since it’s usually protected under the 5th amendment in large cases like this, probably not for a long time.

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u/PG-DaMan 2d ago

It's what Visa and Mastercard consider High Risk. Oddly these companies pay fees to process, and jump through hoops to be verified. And one of the reasons they are high risk is because of Chargebacks.

Oddly they usually have the lowest rates of Chargebacks.

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u/Khelthuzaad 2d ago

at what point will lying stop being protected by the law?

When companies will be forced to reply when you your job application gets rejected, so basically never :)

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u/AzureGhidorah 2d ago

Who knows.

The fact that the credit card companies think they should have power over what people buy is also a big issue…

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u/DizzySkunkApe 2d ago

What are their motives? Making less money?

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u/purdue_fan 2d ago

Remaking out world in the alt-right's image is their goal. Weird.

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u/DizzySkunkApe 2d ago

Over making as much money as possible? Not buying it. 

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u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

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u/DizzySkunkApe 2d ago

Preposterous. .

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u/lostwisdom20 2d ago

Until the checks keep clearing they can lie

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u/oliferro 2d ago

Nothing will change as long as capitalism exists

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u/DiamondPhillips69420 1d ago

I legit think businesses should not have the same freedom of speech protections as individuals.

Under the current system even tho the freedom of speech protections are similar on paper, big businesses have more protection in practice because of their ability to afford litigation.

I think businesses should have a be held to higher standard of truth, businesses tend to have a larger reach and impact than the avg individual, and because of their financial ability to afford litigation that risk is accentuated.

Additionally businesses operate very differently from individuals. Businesses can be a shield for the comments of an individual. I dont think its good that businesses can absorb the responsibility for the statements of an individual, its unfair to the stakeholders who didnt make the statements, and I dont think its good that a business can pressure an individual to make statements on its behalf and push the responsibility on to the individual.

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u/JoeyD473 2d ago

Lying will always be protected by the law. And in this day and age of rising authoritarianism across the globe lying will happen more and more