Mastercard denies the platforms of pressing play, Valve tells another story

Urching after a recent repression of the game market with adult content, apparently due to the pressure of payment processors, Mastercard prompted to publish a brief declaration Friday against recent titles.

“Mastercard has not evaluated any game or requirement of restrictions on any activity on games and platforms of games, unlike media reports and allegations,” said the company, adding: “At the same time, we demand that traders have appropriate controls to guarantee Mastercard cards cannot be used for illegal purchases, including the content of illegal adults.

This follows an open letter from the collective cry of the group defense group addressed to the leaders of Paypal, Mastercard, Visa and other companies, criticizing them for having allowed the sale of “no mercy” and other games that represent rape, incest and sexual children.

In the following weeks, Steam announced that he would prohibit games that violate the rules of his “payment processors and related card networks and banks”. Then, Itch.io said he deleted games with adult content from his navigation and research pages while performing a wider audit.

While the Mastercard’s declaration seems to undermine the story that payment and cards were those that were putting pressure on the game markets, the owner of Steam Valve responded with his own declaration, provided to PC Gamer and other game sites.

According to Valve, “Mastercard did not communicate directly with Valve, despite our request to do so. Mastercard has communicated with payment processors and their buying banks. The payment processors have communicated this with Valve, and we responded by describing Steam’s policy since 2018 to try to distribute legal games for distribution. ”

Valve said that his response had been “rejected” by payment processors, which noted the “risk for the Mastercard brand” and underlined a mastercard rule against “illegal or damaging transactions”.

Meanwhile, Itch.io said he was now reinstating free games with adult content while negotiating with payment processors, including Stripe, who, for his part, said that he was “unable to support sexually explicit content” due to “banking partners”.