Thought the people here might appreciate the heads up on some recent events, and the "storm" it has kicked up in the gaming and otaku communities in light of events over the past two weeks or so.
But by the same token, Visa, Mastercard, and Paypal seem to have just had it out for games with content that can also be found in many stories here on SoL.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/29/mastercard-visa-backlash-adult-games-removed-online-stores-steam-itchio-ntwnfb
The good part of this is that it's gotten an actual conversation started about this. Gamers are a group one does not rile up lightly :)
There is some history of pushback working, but we'll see what happens in this case. I'm not wildly optimisic, but not bitterly pessimistic either.
The longer we muddle along, the more likely something else (e.g. Bitcoin) will become 'mainstream enough' to work for content providers. We're not there yet, but we're getting closer.
If someone bit (say, Onlyfans) were to successfully move to an alternate payment system, that would probably make payment processors take notice. I suspect that's why they backed down with respect to OF. OF has very little business except providing 'adult content,' but that business is very lucrative. If the payment processors were to cut them off, or make their fees too much to bear, OF would have to make the jump to something else and see if it would work.
And, if it worked, one might imagine there would be a mass shift of porn websites and the like to whatever OF moved to. There's too much money in porn for the payment processors to easily let it go.
They didn't really back off on Only Fans. Only Fans fixed their process for vetting and getting proper documentation for the girls who work on their site. Something they weren't doing--but were required to do under US Law.
Once Only Fans purged the non-regulatory-compliant girls and demonstrated they had systems in place to avoid a repeat, VISA and company were happy to resume doing business with them.
I suspect in this case Steam gave them a short-term victory and rolled over because it threatened their core business, which isn't smut. But given Gabe Newell's history on such things, I could imagine that Valve is now looking into alternative payment processing options, possibly one of their own.
Then there is Elon Musk and his X Payments project, and he inserted himself into it briefly on the 21st of July to comment that it looked like he needed to expedite it.... Aside from the whole other issue that X Payments is supposed to be using VISA for some of its backend transactions, and they're part of the problem in this case.
But yeah, if anything else, the big thing of note on this case is it has captured the attention of at least two Tech Billionaires who hold strong anti-censorship positions, and VISA/Mastercard and Paypal made it somewhat personal for one of them.
They didn't really back off on Only Fans.
The initial demand made of OnlyFans was far more stringent than the ultimate demand (removal of all sexually explicit content), and had relatively little to do with proper documentation or vetting (many well-known, well-vetted people were faced with losing their ability to post sexually explicit content). The hand-waving about vetting and regulatory compliance was basically a smoke screen to allow the payment processors to back down gracefully.
See, for instance, https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/27/22641095/onlyfans-sex-work-ban-online-porn-payment-processing-controversy
You'll note that OnlyFans was already compliant with the new rules before the controversy even started.
You might be confusing PornHub (which was not compliant with proper vetting and regulatory compliance) with OnlyFans.
Very possible.
And in any case, in all of the back and forth that has now gone on. The Terms and Conditions for VISA and Mastercard have now become far more publicly known.
For the curious:
https://www.mastercard.us/content/dam/public/mastercardcom/na/global-site/documents/mastercard-rules.pdf
For MasterCard, the specific section that is relevant is 5.12.7
And for VISA:
https://usa.visa.com/content/dam/VCOM/download/about-visa/visa-rules-public.pdf
1.3.3.4
Where VISA's policy on the matter is so poorly written and overly broad, that most Star Wars Movies, even the original trilogy(in particular Episode V) from the 1970's, is in violation of VISA's current policies. They just don't enforce it.
True for anything 'mainstream' - Game of Thrones (the books and movies) violates all their policies (incest, rape, underage sex). And that's just one example.
In any attempt to regulate such material, I'd want them to distinguish between knowing such activity is taking place, showing it (with no or minimal nudity) or x-rated portrayals.
At least the Mastercard document mentions 'serious artistic value.' VISA should have done that, but didn't.
Admittedly, 'serious artistic value' is in the eye of the beholder, but it would let them avoid the straightforward 'this is a violation of the policy as written' problem.
Mastercard summarized as non-consensual, child exploitation and bestiality, but end with 'or anything else we're offended by'
If the 14yo girl shows full agency and is the pursuer, is it exploitation?
And then Donald Trump entered into the fray, on a related parallel item impacted by the same exact issue.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/08/guaranteeing-fair-banking-for-all-americans/
At the risk of getting deeper into the political weeds, there's reason to believe 'all Americans' may not apply to any of the cases we're talking about here. The person most directly responsible for actually implementing the executive order in question is vehemently opposed to 'pornography' and wants it to be made illegal in the United States. I doubt he's likely to complain about the payment processors taking action in this particular area.
I hope I'm wrong, but that's the way the trend seems to be going.
And, of course, it won't directly apply to SoL, since they're not covered by US law anyway, and the payment processors can (in theory) follow the E.O. in the US and ignore it in Canada. Maybe.