Valve have added a new rule to the Onboarding guide for game developers, noting that payment processors get a say in what stays on Steam.

Valve have added a new rule to the Onboarding guide for game developers, noting that payment processors get a say in what stays on Steam.

Newly added rule is:

Content that may violate the rules and standards set forth by Steam’s payment processors and related card networks and banks, or internet network providers. In particular, certain kinds of adult only content.

Diff of the new terms https://github.com/SteamDatabase/SteamworksDocumentation/commit/fddd59b5395cc3c1c74574650dbf5784612d0521

:/ payment processors strike again (slippery slope etc)

  • megopie@beehaw.orgEnglish
    74·
    1 day ago

    I really don’t get why payment processors care. like, I really doubt it’s a morality thing for them, so where’s the financial incentive?

    • atro_city@fedia.io
      612·
      1 day ago

      They are USAian. Owners are most likely conservative and Christian --> imposing their values on others through money. It’s the rich people’s way.

      • megopie@beehaw.orgEnglish
        111·
        1 day ago

        Every payment processor on steam is a publicly traded company, not privately owned. So it wouldn’t really be up to any one individual’s moral preference about such things. Personal preference would only count in to it if one of the shareholders had enough shares to push the board around, but the only one where I could see that being the case would be PayPal from people like Theil and Andreessen. Like they’re both jack wads for other beliefs, but I wouldn’t exactly call them bible thumpers.

      • tal@lemmy.todayEnglish
        131·
        1 day ago

        I doubt that it has anything to do with social preferences of anyone internal to payment processors. They won’t care.

        Putting pressure on payment processors is a useful way to put pressure on any commercial service. The commercial service may operate in another country, but it needs the payment processor, and the payment processors don’t want to be ejected from countries. The payment processor can be a lever for laws passed elsewhere.

    • KoboldCoterie@pawb.socialEnglish
      202·
      1 day ago

      I don’t know how much truth there is to it, but one compelling reason I’ve heard is that adult content has a considerably higher chargeback rate than other content, making the risk much higher for payment processors. This makes sense - I could absolutely see some horny person buying some adult content, getting off to it, then doing a chargeback in their moment of introspection.