This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Man, I knew it was only a matter of time but I didn't think it would be this bad, this soon.
Fear & Hunger is a goddamn masterpiece. Yes, it has depictions of nonconsensual sexual acts. It's in keeping with the lore of a world that is truly fucked even beyond our reality. It's an integral part of the worldbuilding, and it is by no means glorified.
Agreed. Fear and Hunger has it's issues and I would not broadly recommend it to anyone. I would also say that the FREQUENCY of sexual assault in the game, and the presence of some weirdly sexual status effects like anal bleeding are a bit overboard. That being said, when one of the earliest enemies can sexually assault you, or maim your character in a way that leaves you able to keep playing, but effectively crippled, it really nails home not just that the world is dark, but that your assumptions about what is in the game don't apply here. Anything could happen. REALLY anything. And exploring a harsh, hostile world with that expectation set is one of the best parts of the game, because it's a unique experience that you just can't get at that quality anywhere else.
First, I don't understand why processors give a fuck. Do they imagine people are going to just stop using credit in protest of how other people spend their money? Tell me another fucking joke.
Second, I'm not a game developer, but I suddenly want to make a horror game that includes graphic, exploitive, gratuitous depictions of everything they complain about. And name the game Collective Shriek.
The worm that keeps getting put into payment processor's brains is that they might somehow be held criminally liable for games people purchase. It's like telling a bus driver that they might be liable because they gave a ride to someone who robbed a store.
NOW that they've started curating, that has become way more likely to actually happen. They could have claimed to be a neutral carrier before. Actively filtering means they've decided to take on that responsibility, and the consequences for missing stuff.
They're morons
That what I just dont get about this.
If payment processors think they are liable because these games cause harm then where does it stop? Supermarkets sell cigarettes and so on...
I've heard this reasoning a few times. I don't buy it. Illegal content is already illegal. You aren't allowed to sell it. Policing particular content beyond that doesn't cover your ass. In fact, it implicates you if you do process payments for illegal content.
I've never seen any argument from them that this is the reasoning. The only rule they need is that you aren't allowed to sell illegal content on your platform. That covers everything. Going beyond that implies there's a different reason. They're being influenced by something else other than the law.
I hate corpos as much as the next guy, but I don't think that's a good rule to have.
So that's how it works. Maybe people should also start harassing payment processors for weapon purchases, buying fossil fuels, oversized SUVs and whatnot until they stop caring.
Under their own reasoning, you shouldn't be able to buy a Bible with payment processing.
The problem is that the people who care about the real problems aren't completely fucking insane like collective shout and their ilk.
Called it. Soon all we’ll only be able to play baby games like Elmo’s big adventure puzzle book land, or something like that.
It'll be some "evolution is the devil" creationism bullshit, because this is a Christian fascist movement.
They hate Elmo, too.
Nah, most likely Veggie Tales. Elmo is too woke and might cause dissonance with supremacists and Christian Nationalists. Oh, wait. I just repeated myself - sorry.
That slope got real slippery real quick.
I don't get why the gaming platforms are removing games instead of removing the objecting payment providers as a payment option for purchasing those particular games.
If visa doesn't want people to purchase game X with Visa, then remove Visa as payment option for buying game X.
Yeah, that's not what the payment processors are requesting. They aren't saying they don't want to be used to buy this content. They're saying, if your platform hosts this content at all then they won't process any payments. It doesn't matter if the option is removed if the content is still there. They're using their power of monopoly to police content.
You overestimate the adaptability of the average software stack. I worked at companies where even adding another button to the cart screen was a monumental undertaking
Itch has come out and said it's not Visa, it's PayPal and Stripe.
Removing those payment options would cause a massive loss of revenue.
This is what Steam will probably do in the future, and Itch.io is already looking into it. There's a reason all this garbage hasn't splashed GOG. GOG is based in Europe, where protection laws would slap silly any financial entity trying to pull this stunt on an European company (pressure groups have weaseled censorship and moral panics with other strategies though, just not this one), and they have so many more payment processors that PayPal, Visa and MC would just be dropped entirely and immediately for any of the other dozen or so alternatives. The issue is that in the US and Australia, the three headed shit dragon already lobbied governments to pull the ladder behind them, so no other payment processor could take their place or compete with them, establishing a legal oligopoly of the old money finance club. They won and have this power due to systemic and political failures decades in the making.
Involving the MasterCard Mafia in your puritanical crusade is next to criminal. The only solution is to [CONTENT REMOVED FOR VIOLATING RESTRICTIONS AGAINST ADVOCATING VIOLENCE].
What I see is a new niche opening up for a website offering game sales through alternative payment processors.
Wait, that's actually their logo? A butthole?
E Pluribus Anus.
So close to the Greendale flag from Community.
Isn't there some hacker group putting Collective Shout in the crosshairs?
Hope so.
I think there are probably some skeletons in the closets of Collective Shout's members. It's always projection with these people.
Give them an inch, they'll take a mile.
Maybe we should retaliate.
Soon: games causes mass shootings! Prohibit all games! And the payment processors will just comply because again they're semi dictatorial greedy fucks
Well, this is happening earlier than I thought.
Wow.... This count have happened in the 2010's with the anti-gaming feminist and conservative movement at the time.
If only they knew to go after payment processors instead of identity groups.
This will be fun 🍿.
(before downvoting: don't worry, this won't go over well)
Fear and Hunger appears to be back.
Honestly horrors get old when you can read in the news about "respected people" calling to exterminate Gaza and build beachfront cottages there. Even from just reading that and knowing that the same people can put anything onto your Android devices via a Facebook update or any of the Google applications update, on a whim. Nobody will even know.
About this - is it even legal to obey such pressure?
EDIT: I mean, how is it different from banning sellers by skin color when racists complain, or by religion when Muslims complain (all Hindus are Satan worshipers, didntcha knaw), or whatever else.
EDIT2: But it pains me to see how public offering was, in fact, an important part of market regulations, when everybody just ignores it without getting 9 lifetimes in jail for executives. I was against it at some point. That is - customer associations are important, and there are almost none, and when customer associations demand businesses to act like public offering, then it's almost as good as if enforced, and no such regulation is a good stimulus for customer associations to keep existing. But - feels shitty when it's in the law of most countries and hasn't been removed.
