As a Canadian, American Express most certainly exists here. A quick google search shows that it exists in the UK as well. I’m going to guess it exists in other major countries as well.
No idea about Discover though. Barely even knew it existed at all.
Discover is on the JCB, UnionPay, Troy and RuPay. (japan, China, turkey, and India respectively). Probably many more.
Similarly, a JCB card should work wherever Discover is. It’s a billateral alliance.
Oh, and all Discover cards work on Diners Club International because those two networks completely merged.
Alliance members are not 100% acceptance. It seems like 95%+ acceptance though (most JCB will accept most Discover cards and vice versa, though you will get confused looks from the locals). It sounds like there’s a lot of old equipment around the countries that break compatibility but cities and other urban areas with new equipment shouldn’t have any problems.
I’ll probably get a Discover card and start testing this out. I already have Visa and Mastercard but this new censorship issue seems serious enough to make me start supporting a 3rd place competitor.
Between Discover vs AmEx, it seems like AmEx is about elite club / customer service / returns etc. etc. nice features but I’m not sure if it’s worth the price.
Discover is free of annual fees, reasonable cash back, mediocre costs for the merchants (better than AmEx anyway and comparable vs Visa) and a surprisingly huge offering of international compatibility (RuPay, JCB, UnionPay, etc Etc). It seems like the winner to me as a 3rd card to experiment with.
Have you played any of these sexual violence games? You aren’t comparing apples to apples here, and there are plenty of books that are much more graphic than acotar or haunting Adeline.
Leaving aside how gross it is, and separate from whether corporations should be the arbiters of morality:
Incest between parent and child, even if the offspring is of legal age of consent, would imply an insurmountable power differential as well as likely grooming. Incest between siblings would depend on the age differential and authority structure of the family. It’s not a case of incest=abuse, but of how likely it could imply abuse. The challenge is nuance. The goal is harm reduction
I understand that for some incest porn is enjoyable, not because they would commit incest themselves, but because incest=forbidden=naughty=sexy. Maybe that’s you? In any case, you asked how violence is implied, and that’s my take
Yo I’m NGL I’m usually really passionate when I feel my rights are infringed but I do not feel like my rights are being infringed. This isn’t the same thing as requiring ID to view NSFW content; this issue is not a legal one.
It’s not even like porn is js inacessible now, most of it is found on Patreon, which is both unaffected and literally accepts cryptocurrency. I will admit im suprised to see itch.io take action cos it has a reputation as a porn service, but who tf consumes porn on steam? I do not believe “what they define as NSFW will expand!” Or “next, games featuring a gay character will be banned!”, either. You are fucking bugging if you think Valve would let that happen. All they would need to do is lean heavier into steam giftcards, potentially selling them digitally, and start accepting crypto 'till the processors wanna play ball.
I don’t understand why people are bitching that the companies that they choose to use have so much power over their purchasing decisions. “First this, next sex toys! Then contraceptives!” Like Jesus fuck bro have you not heard of cash?
Your point is sound because I usually use a credit card for this, but most of my Steam purchases come from buying gift cards. However, I could easily buy those gift cards with cash.
So it requires the effort and capability to go to a place that happens to have those cards. In some areas, that is more difficult and unlikely than others, and can be more difficult for the less financially fortunate.
Thus there’s added utility cost to the person when otherwise the existing digital payment model would be more accessible.
i.e. it’s a regressive solution and less ideal.
I liken it to the utility or economic tax that is attempting to vote in some areas where they make it more difficult to actually do it.
In Australia at least, those cards are everywhere in populated areas. Supermarkets and department stores pretty-much all stock them. I’d say that over 90% of Australians live within 3km of a store that sells Steam cards and takes cash. Most of us even closer than that.
No one will lament the removal of No Mercy from sale on Steam, but whenever a net like this is thrown over an entire area of perceived problematic content, there will be well-intentioned games caught in the net too. Specifically, LGBTQ+ games are under threat - games that don’t align with the Christian values underpinning the pressure group Collective Shout.
I do not believe “what they define as NSFW will expand!”
And that’s the core of your problem, puritan activists don’t generally have the capacity to think “actually, the thing i wanted other people to not be able to see is gone, i think I’ll leave it there” because the censorship isn’t the goal, the goal is control.
It’s even worse with organised puritans , because even if a few hang it up you’ll always find a few willing to just go a little further or have differing opinions on what is “acceptable”.
I would lay good money on this not actually being as far as they originally wanted, it was just what they could get for now.
I don’t understand why people are bitching that the companies that they choose to use have so much power over their purchasing decisions. “First this, next sex toys! Then contraceptives!” Like Jesus fuck bro have you not heard of cash?
Firstly, it’s the payment processors, you know the monopoly of companies that you need to take payments from regular people.
Secondly, payment processors can and will stop providing payment services for shops that carry physical goods they deem unacceptable.
(yes crypto exists, no it’s not equivalent yet) (yes steam cards exist, no it’s not equivalent and unless i’ve missed something itch.io doesn’t have an card system)
As far as cash goes, is there a new slot where you can put the cash monies directly in to the pc/console and it credits your account ?
Or do you mean, go to the store and buy a physical copy of the hundreds of thousands of games that don’t have physical editions ?
Yes, I understand that if these people could have it their way, any kind of mature content would be completely illegal. The reason I don’t feel strongly about this is strictly because this isn’t a legal threat, and I don’t think it has that capacity to become one. Lobbying is expensive, and I don’t believe that an Australian organization has the capacity to seriously affect global/western culture more than this. Quite frankly, its impressive they were able to pull this much off, and I fully expect ts to blow over in 3 years tops.
Don’t get me wrong- its not that I don’t care about censorship, its that I don’t really view this as censorship because the consumption and purchasing of the “censored” product is still completely possible. Contrarily, if this were signed into law I would have a big fucking problem with it.
With regards to the “companies they choose to use” point I made, I was in fact referring to payment processors, hence why I proposed crypto, cash and giftcards; as in purchasing a steam giftcard with cash from a store. Obviously I don’t expect people to not have credit cards, but the anonymity and security cash provides is almost never used because people find it less convenient.
The reason I brought this up is because I have seen it proposed that this issue will expand beyond the scope of digital marketplaces, which I find downright laughable. People WILL stop using visa cards if you can’t use it to buy condoms and there’s an ATM in the gas station.
I firmly believe that if this issue is pressed further, at the very least Valve will js stop accepting payment directly through payment processors.
I’d argue that it not being a legal threat doesn’t matter too much in this case because they aren’t looking for legal control, so much as “effective” control.
If they can stop you without needing for it to be signed in to law, then they’ll take that, if they can get a law as well, then I’m sure they’ll take that too.
Don’t get me wrong- its not that I don’t care about censorship, its that I don’t really view this as censorship because the consumption and purchasing of the “censored” product is still completely possible. Contrarily, if this were signed into law I would have a big fucking problem with it.
Censorship isn’t a binary, but we can agree to disagree on that one i suppose.
To this part though
purchasing of the “censored” product is still completely possible
Not really, there are numerous titles available exclusively on itch.io and steam, those are effectively censored by your rationale as you can no longer purchase them at all.
Honestly steam gift cards don’t work at all here because it’s not a ban on buying the games using a card, it’s a ban on steam listing the titles at all, on threat of losing the payment services.
Crypto cash and gift-cards are great if you have effective access to them.
Crypto is out for most people for obvious reasons (technical knowledge, dearth of places that actually accept crypto)
Cash works until it doesn’t and governments and big tech are trying their hardest to make it as difficult as possible, there is a big push to go cashless.
It’s not that people find cash less convenient because they are lazy (some are i suppose), it’s because it’s being purposely deprecated as much as possible, or just straight up doesn’t apply to the paradigm, such as online purchases.
The reason I brought this up is because I have seen it proposed that this issue will expand beyond the scope of digital marketplaces, which I find downright laughable.
As i said, this already happens, it’s weird in how it’s applied tbh, but that’s neither here nor there.
Mastercard just says : “brand-damaging Transactions” and doesn’t elaborate, at a quick glance.
A good example of this is casino’s and other gambling related physical locations, there are a lot of hoops to jump through to get a payment processor to work with gambling, assuming they even give you the time of day.
People WILL stop using visa cards if you can’t use it to buy condoms and there’s an ATM in the gas station.
Sure for that specific thing, hard to pay cash at amazon or other online only retailers.
I firmly believe that if this issue is pressed further, at the very least Valve will js stop accepting payment directly through payment processors.
That i’d be interested to see tbh, because as i said there isn’t an equally available alternative to card payment processors (and it’s not even close).
If they did go crypto only for instance, there’d be a big move to crypto for some, but that’d be a significant loss to take on principle alone.
I don’t understand why people are bitching that the companies that they choose to use have so much power over their purchasing decisions. “First this, next sex toys! Then contraceptives!” Like Jesus fuck bro have you not heard of cash?
Because that’s what groups like Collective Shout do, sparky. They think just acknowledging that LGBT people exist is “too adult”.
When was the last time you paid cash for a Steam game?
they’ve been doing it since the late 90s/early 00s. Visa and MC have a list of “rules” for porn companies and have had them for decades. Why the vast majority of adult entertainment companies use third party processors like CCBill to specifically deal with that shit.
These dumb fucks in Australia think they’re ahead of the curve or doing “something that has never been done before” but nah man they probably did talk to Visa and MC but highly doubt they pushed them to anything. it was more like Visa/MC said “oh yeah we did this before…yeah we should probably apply what we did to Porn to the gaming industry.”
Australia is pretty weird about porn too. For years their rules basically ensured all female porn actors get boob jobs and took scissors to their labia.
Thanks for taking the time to put those resources together for me.
That’s absolutely crazy, my goodness… Some people really are insane when it comes to sex. It reminds me a bit of how you can show soft penises in American TV to some extent without it being considered pornographic, but hard penises are pornographic. But this labia issue makes even less sense than that, because it doesn’t depend on arousal. What a backwards situation
Yeah taking on this role will only bring them more problems. Once you decide to not be content neutral, you are responsible for everything you transmit.
Unironically it will bring more people to dark corners of the net, foul content was always free. Now i’m not going for these games, but also comparing the entire nsfw genre to specific games is disingenuous. At the same time violence and shocking real life images are fine, right?
Nsfw involves adult themes that aren’t sexual.
That means censoring the self expression of consenting adults.
This creates a huge bottleneck that eventually just leads to this growing in the back of the visible. Porn addiction is a problem, sure. How did pre-teens gain access to this content? Didn’t parents give them a fully capable computer at all times?
Back when i used a computer, I only had access to research and office, also flash games. Other than that I had other devices and offline games, on cd.
Modern devices have better parental controls but nobody uses them, old computers had virtually none. Turns out you can do your parenting.
The dangers of this privacy invasive solution is the exposure of personal ID to questionable places, while bringing people towards bad places, that don’t ask for things.
Kinda like pirating a game as a kid, because you couldn’t buy it, but you only got viruses afterwards. Same deal.
Have you gone to their (Collective Shout) website to check out their successful campaigns? They’ve taken down a manufacturer on Temu who makes silicon heads used for piercing. Apparently the heads looked too much like children.
the Stasi are never gonna stop at the particular marginalized group you dislike. plus nobody’s offending shit, being a freak isn’t illegal (yet). acting like it is certainly helps move the overton window that way though
I might not have worded it correctly, but if your aim is to keep women safe from sexual assault, then removing an outlet for people who want to do that, while also removing a potential indicator for that kind of behaviour its a double screw over.
Im well aware that its nothing to do with safety or decency and is just a motte and Bailey attack on our freedoms.
gotcha, my whole issue was with the whole state surveillance of “dangerous people” part of it, because trans people are gonna end up on that list just for existing
because MC and Visa are morons. According to them in porn 4 fingers and a thumb in a vagina is fine. as soon as you take said fingers and thumb, ball them into a fist, and then stick it in a vagina then they got problems with THAT and it’s a no go.
They have more stupid rules. If you piss on a woman in Europe and film it then it’s fine. If you piss on a woman in the US and film it then it’s not fine. IF you take the footage of someone pissing on a woman IN Europe and SELL it in the US then that’s fine. But Americans are not allowed to pee on Americans on US soil according to Visa and Mastercard.
here’s another one: Incest Porn is not fine according to Visa and MC. “but I see that stuff all the time!” I hear you say dear reader. Yes, because according to MC/Visa you MUST establish that this is a step family relationship in the beginning BUT further into said video you can drop the “step-” moniker and start throwing around regular dads and moms and brothers and sisters all you like.
Don’t forget Ruport Murdoch who’s been pushing the right wing agenda across the country is an Australian export. This is not unusual from that country honestly.
He is from Australia originally, but he’s been a US naturalised citizen and lived there full-time since 1985, he gave up Australian citizenship 40 years ago.
Are you saying that Valve and Itch did not respond to Collective Shout? Well, so did I… My comment was saying they were justified in doing so.
Are you saying Collective Shout are not religious nutjobs? That’s an easy mistake to make because their website and branding does a really good job of trying to hide it from a casual researcher, but the founder Melissa Reist is pretty obviously a devout Catholic- she gives interviews with Catholic organizations, appears at Catholic youth camps, and describes herself as a “pro-life feminist”, which is of course an oxymoron. She’s definitely a religious nutjob.
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