Put simply, we allow all lawful purchases on our network.

As Valve correctly points out, this is a blatant & outright lie. They have cut off any number of legal entities over pressure from politicians or groups. Now they have to own it.

So obviously somebody is lying. I really don't understand why Valve or Itch would be the ones lying about this. My money is on the group of self righteous censorship soldiers with too much time on their hands, and the payment companies. I could always be wrong I though.

We have seen the same behavior out of the credit card companies before. Its pretty clear that they do pressure companies to remove content they don't approve of. Its censorship and its legal since the companies are not the government. They are just tied in at a high level to the banking industry. Its a good example of how lack of regulation harms both creators and consumers.

It lets a bunch of poorly adjusted individuals force their personal mental problems on us all.

If nobody takes responsibility, then they should all just agree that this was a big misunderstanding and reinstate the titty games.

Collective Shout says it wasn't their fault, MC and Visa say it wasn't their fault, Steam and Itch say it wasn't their fault. Conclusion? No one is to blame! No one did it! What's more, it didn't even happen!! it was all a figment of our imagination!

Gotta love it when companies put something in their legal agreements that just says “we can do whatever the fuck we want.” Is the rest of the wall of text just there to hide that somewhere someone won’t read?

nonconsensual mutilation of a person or body part

I feel like a strict reading of this rule would also put a lot of fighting games, shooters, horror games etc in the not approved category

I guess turn the boobs butts and dicks up to 10,000 then. In every game.

Its time for Gordon freeman to do unholy things with a headcrab!

“Mastercard did not communicate with Valve directly, despite our request to do so,” Valve’s statement sent over email to Kotaku reads. “Mastercard communicated with payment processors and their acquiring banks. Payment processors communicated this with Valve

This whole thing reads like a telephone game where nobody wants to take any responsibility.

"Nonconsensual mutilation of a person or body part" includes just about every fighter or shooter game. They really want to have COD delisted over this?

I love how this has damaged Mastercards brand much more than anything Valve sells. MC would rather pressure Valve for selling NSFW games, than clean up billionaires buying and trafficking children.

Brilliant, just make your rules vague and force everyone else down the chain to self-censor. Surely this will result in the best outcome.

Fucking mastercard

I don't think they realize how much worse their brands look now, after starting all this shit...

Tl;dr: Mastercard says they didn't "force" Valve to remove nsfw games. They just told them that if they didn't remove the games that were complained about by Collective Shout, they'll block them.

Direct link: Mastercard rule 5.12.7 Illegal or Brand-damaging Transactions

As much as we hate x, airing negative publicity over their attempt to deny responsibility by directly citing back their policy & asking questions might be good.

Isn't every game NSFW? Funny how language works.