Valve confirms credit card companies pressured it to delist certain adult games

What can be done to loosen card companies' grip on this? It has been a constant problem now for decades.

Bitcoin was supposed to solve this.

Exactly. It's really a tragedy that crypto becomes a speculator's tool, and the real problem didn't even get solved.

Likely nothing.

The simple fact is, Visa/MC don't want to deal with porn because the number of chargebacks and fraud from porn purchases is significant and a huge outlier compared to most other charges. Their crusade against processing charges for adult material isn't about purity, it's simply business.

And you could indeed use Bitcoin on Steam for a while!

But then the blocks got full, fees and wait times skyrocketed, and in response to the customer backlash Steam removed Bitcoin.

Meanwhile Bitcoiners were (and still are) only focused on number go up instead of other, more productive, use cases.

Such a waste.

I can't imagine people are risking their steam accounts to ripoff a $5 adult game

in a word, regulation.

Regulation and anti cartel laws.

Adult business is legitimate business in many parts of the world and companies using their monopoly to suppress it should be a case for an Investigation.

Use ACH/Zelle/Paypal/etc.

The permanent solution is a federal government operated electronic money system operated as a utility with constitutionally protected rights.

Can you link a reliable source for this claim? I personally couldn't find anything with substance.

I doubt it. If that were the case, I think they would only be complaining to Valve about the number of chargebacks issued from the Steam store. Not about genres-that-are-correlated-with-chargebacks-in-other-contexts.

Given Valve's generous refund policies, and the fact that a steam store purchase on your credit card statement looks quite innocent, and that the credit card companies didn't complain to Valve about chargebacks but about content, my guess is there are hardly any chargebacks, and this is just about moral purity.

Why do you think it's fair/acceptable to strongarm niche sectors that want to process credit cards just like everyone else?

Instant payment systems that go direct from bank to bank, assuming the banks, the government or any other intermediaries don't also decide to not allow it.

Or cryptocurrency, I guess.

Denmark has seen a trend where their national card network (Dankort, operating at the equivalent level to Visa and Mastercard) is seeing reduced usage.

They're aiming to reverse that trend.

https://cphpost.dk/2025-06-28/general/new-political-agreemen...

Not all European countries still have these independent networks.

I'm not sure I buy the chargeback angle. It's commonly trotted out as a reason card companies would enforce censorship, but it doesn't make sense with the actions they take. Chargeback fees are paid by the merchant regardless of the chargeback's success, and are supposed to cover the costs of administering it (and then some). The very selective rules applied here are pretty odd from that angle too, if adult content chargebacks/fraud is the issue, then all of it should be the issue, not small niches.

Fraud is likely more realistic of an issue, but that's probably an issue with games in general, not just adult titles.

There are already high-risk merchant accounts with higher fees and cash reserve requirements, but AFAIK companies like Valve aren't being given any options other than comply or be destroyed.

Those solutions might work for some people in some countries, but I would argue that it's not acceptable for the vast majority of customers, and they would lose a very significant portion of revenue.

That's not true, anti-sex work and anti-porn activists have specifically been pressuring payment processors to assume these policies. The processors as the critical control point of this whole thing was identified decades ago and conservative christian think tanks have been pursuing this path since then.

This is part of a long-term plan to de facto ban lgbtq content without having to deal with first amendment protections. First have the payment processors ban explicit content, then have queer content categorized as explicit.

Visa charge a fee for processing chargebacks, and this will be a tiny fraction of Steam sales. I doubt it's their concern.

"It doesn't personally affect me so I don't care."

> Given Valve's generous refund policies,

Their generous refund policy, and more importantly their very-non-generous chargeback policy. If you chargeback a Steam purchase, your account is locked.

Seeing reduced use partially because only a few banks support using it in Apple Pay. And Google Pay can't support it at all currently

PayPal has also been involved in this.

Because those sectors are particularly difficult for processors in terms of fraud and abuse. If your niche is so disproportionately problematic that cc companies don’t think it’s worth it to try to make money off you, then you should find a different solution.

It absolutely does affect me for disproportionately fraudulent activity to exist on the same system I use for routine payments. I don’t want to subsidize cc abusers with the cc processing fees I implicitly pay.

There's now Ethereum, Base and Solana featuring US dollar stablecoins and significantly cheaper fees. If you want to go a step further and eliminate the stablecoin issuer's counterparty risk you could even pay in the base asset of ETH. Shopify allows payments from crypto now, so Steam should try it again.

Good luck censoring purchases on ETH.

You can get Pornhub subscription with Bitcoin, but not credit card.

Dane here, and I just don't see the point of using Apple or Google pay. Aside from not wanting American tech interfering in, or data harvesting, my finances, it's not any easier to use. I just touch my card to the terminal and payment happens. Some times, or if the amount is over some limit, I have to enter a pin. I cringe every time I see someone contorting their arm to pay with their watch. It's tech for the sake of tech.

Sincerely, Ted K.

Even stablecoins aren't so great for the environment. Proof of stake isn't as bad, but also doesn't offer much beyond traditional systems once KYC is needed.

Am I missing something?

Choose a payment system by a company that is not as opinionated. Apple pay, for example.

Stablecoins are great. The only way to be debanked is if the stablecoin issuer explicitly blacklists your address, which is a public act which they will be forced to justify.

And Ethereum's Proof of Stake algorithm is highly censorship resistant. That's why it took seven years to design.

There are plenty of alternatives to Bitcoin payments in the crypto space.

The problem isn't technical, the problem is getting people to care.

They built the lightning network, it's meant for this use case.

Unfortunately it's shit at it. The user experience of using another currency or hell even just Bitcoin is far superior.

In Europe, Wero[1] has a chance to become the de-facto payment system, once it's supported by more banks in more countries and adds online payments functionality.

[1]https://wero-wallet.eu/

AHA AHAHAAH AAHAHAAHA nice one