Updated: 8/1/2025 4:18 p.m. ET: In a statement to Kotaku, a spokesperson for Valve said that while Mastercard did not communicate with it directly, concerns did come through payment processor and banking intermediaries. They said payment processors rejected Valve’s current guidelines for moderating illegal content on Steam, citing Mastercard’s Rule 5.12.7.

“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, and we replied by outlining Steam’s policy since 2018 of attempting to distribute games that are legal for distribution.  Payment processors rejected this, and specifically cited Mastercard’s Rule 5.12.7 and risk to the Mastercard brand.”

Rule 5.12.7 states, “A Merchant must not submit to its Acquirer, and a Customer must not submit to the Interchange System, any Transaction that is illegal, or in the sole discretion of the Corporation, may damage the goodwill of the Corporation or reflect negatively on the Marks.”

It goes on, “The sale of a product or service, including an image, which is patently offensive and lacks serious artistic value (such as, by way of example and not limitation, images of nonconsensual sexual behavior, sexual exploitation of a minor, nonconsensual mutilation of a person or body part, and bestiality), or any other material that the Corporation deems unacceptable to sell in connection with a Mark.”

Violations of rule 5.12.7 can result in fines, audits, or companies being dropped by the payment processors.

  • NONE@lemmy.world
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    41 minutes ago

    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!

    • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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      23 minutes ago

      Gee golly I accidentally dropped internet privacy into the garbage and almost threw it out with the trash. Oops didnt mean to! Silly me.

  • UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml
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    25 minutes ago

    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!

  • dreugeworst@lemmy.ml
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    4 hours ago

    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

    • Simulation6@sopuli.xyz
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      3 hours ago

      I think some christian items could also be affected, like the bible. Cane and Able, crucifixion, etc are all in that book

    • arin@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Oh did you not read the years and years of actions religious groups did to snuff games and movies?

    • Rekorse@sh.itjust.works
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      3 hours ago

      Mutilation seems to imply more than just violence or killing. For example, Days Gone has a scene very early that involves flaying someone’s skin off, I would imagine that type of stuff would qualify.

        • Khanzarate@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          That’s true but anyone agaimt its inclusion would just say it doesn’t add to the story. “Clearly it detracts from the story, as the player would be distracted by the horrific event instead of enjoying the game” -some hypothetical mastercard Exec, right before fining Valve.

          It’s not a court, so there’s no appeal from that, unless there’s an appeal granted by the contract itself.

  • merdaverse@lemmy.world
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    5 hours ago

    “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.

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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      1 hour ago

      Honestly, I don’t care if MasterCard doesn’t want to take responsibility. It was their rule and their intermediaries that caused the situation and they did not intervene when valve tried to reach out directly.

      They are responsible through action or inaction, no matter how they try to deny it.

    • rozodru@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      they did the exact same thing in the porn industry. naturally Visa and MC didn’t communicate directly with the individual porn companies. So thats’ how places like CCBill and what have you took off. and then Visa and MC laid out their weird rules to CCBill who then passed it along to the individual companies.

    • bryndos@fedia.io
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      5 hours ago

      At work when no one wants to pick up a task, I issue the “slopey shoulders” award.

      https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/mrmen/images/1/15/Mr_cheeky1.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/250?cb=20170519093913

  • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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    3 hours ago

    Thanks to this mess, I ended up installing Wero.
    Now I just have to find somewhere to use it… 😐

    • mx_smith@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      Unless your work has been gamified. I play several games at work, one called Jira, another called GIT they aren’t super exciting but it’s a job.

      • NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone
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        3 hours ago

        Ironic though that gamification refers to features added to games to make them feel more like jobs (quotas, deadlines, milestones, certification etc).

  • Grizzlyboy@lemmy.zip
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    7 hours ago

    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.

  • PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works
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    6 hours ago

    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.

      • HarkMahlberg@kbin.earth
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        8 minutes ago

        Unless MC and Visa are run by people who already agree with Collective Shout and are just using them as an excuse to enforce this policy.

  • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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    8 hours ago

    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

    • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyz
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      3 hours ago

      It’s not even that vague.

      Valve basically said: “we are not doing anything illegal”.

      To which mastercard responded: “yeah but you’re making us look bad, so tough”.

    • INHALE_VEGETABLES@aussie.zone
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      4 hours ago

      Their rules seem to just follow the law or am I retarded and missed something?

      Edit: thanks for the downvotes, fuck me I guess lol.

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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        1 hour ago

        No, the rules don’t (that’s why it’s been fine for 7 years), and you used a derogatory term so cry harder about your downvotes.

      • IronKrill@lemmy.ca
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        4 hours ago

        If they just wanted to follow the law, they could have left it at “don’t sell anything illegal” without all the extra “brand damage” nonsense.

      • Dunstabzugshaubitze@feddit.org
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        7 hours ago

        or any other material that the Corporation deems unacceptable to sell in connection with a Mark

        which could be just anything.

      • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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        5 hours ago

        Up to the third comma, yes, but all the rest seems to go beyond that pretty arbitrarily.

        When they say anything that “may damage the goodwill of the corporation”, and qualify that with “in the sole discretion of the Corporation” that just means “anything we don’t want to be associated with, and we will be the judge of that”.

        That’s what makes it so vague, how is a Merchant or an Acquirer supposed to know what Mastercard might find damaging to the goodwill? They have to guess, or use trial and error*. Most will just err on the side of caution, which means customers get blocked from even more purchases, just to be safe.

        * Or talk to Mastercard, which Valve apparently tried, but they wouldn’t respond.

        • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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          1 hour ago

          When they say anything that “may damage the goodwill of the corporation”,

          Looks like MasterCard is going to have to ban MasterCard because of all the damage they’ve done to MasterCard’s goodwill.

      • Annoyed_🦀 @lemmy.zip
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        5 hours ago

        Their rules seem to just follow the law

        Whose law? The US? UK? Netherlands? Japan? Or Singapore?

        That’s why it’s vague.

        • bouh@lemmy.world
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          5 hours ago

          It’s much worse than that. How they word it is “if it may damage the public image of mastercard”. And they don’t review the content, they review the means used to prevent the damage to their brand.

          So valve doesn’t even need to have anything that actually damage mastercard brand, it just need to be that mastercard is not comfortable enough with the measures used to prevent it.

          • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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            3 hours ago

            Like buying anything would actually damage the brand of Mastercard. It’s such a nonsensical excuse that I’m surprised nobody laughed in their face.

    • Decoy321@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Oh shit, that’s an old school reference. Poor Mr. Cheeseface.

      For those unfamiliar, this is from an old National Lampoons magazine.

      A few years later, someone actually shot that dog.

    • callouscomic@lemmy.zip
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      5 hours ago

      Jennifer Lawrence Nude Leak Simulator? That’s what it looks like to me. Haha


      Caption in the article says EroticGamesClub which appears to be a developer or publisher with a lot of sex shovelware (list of their supposed games).

      • Darkonion@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        This might just be my insomnia talking, but I thought a reasonable idea might be to call and reduce the available credit by however much is comfortable. For me, it would be fairly reasonable to reduce it by 50%. I assume they use some kind of magicians handshake to value their company based on how much potential credit is out there… Maybe it’d do nothing though. Anyone know?

        • Saleh@feddit.org
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          5 hours ago

          You guys use them for actual credit? To me it seems that in Europe they are mostly used as a debit card directly charging your account, but compatible with the global payment processing of them.

          • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com
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            23 minutes ago

            I thought credit was the main selling point.

            • Ability to dispute & reverse charges.
            • Flexibility to keep cash in an account earning higher interest until payment is due.
            • Not having to constantly check enough cash in is your low interest checking account (which you’ll keep low so your cash earns more interest elsewhere & to minimize losses in case of unauthorized debits).
        • proudblond@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          I am not a financial guru so hopefully someone will correct me if I’m wrong about this, but your credit score is affected positively the more available credit you have. So by voluntarily lowering your available credit, you’re actually hurting yourself way more than the card companies. At least I think that’s how it works, or rather one of many factors.

    • filcuk@lemmy.zip
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      8 hours ago

      Does it really matter when you’re a duopoly and equally bad as one another?

  • SheeEttin@lemmy.zip
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    10 hours ago

    “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?

    • joelfromaus@aussie.zone
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      38 minutes ago

      Unironically, COD getting delisted would probably get mainstream media coverage and legitimate outrage from people who “don’t play video games” but actually do.

    • jaybone@lemmy.zip
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      5 hours ago

      Some kid on COD said he fucked my mom and then he called me a faggot.

    • acosmichippo@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      you’re missing some context in that.

      “The sale of a product… which is patently offensive and lacks serious artistic value… (such as… images of… Nonconsensual mutilation of a person or body part”

      insert joke about COD lacking artistic value, but clearly there is more to COD than just body mutilation.

      • SPRUNT@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        “Patently offensive” and “lacks serious artistic value” are entirely subjective classifications. With those restrictions, any game with country music should be delisted.

        • bryndos@fedia.io
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          5 hours ago

          Man, if i could get a patent on offending people . . . money, money money, win win win.

        • Lembot_0004@discuss.online
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          7 hours ago

          Wagner and Mahler: Listen, we have some really badass tracks. Use them! And nobody would dare to call this music “not art enough”.

  • Petter1@discuss.tchncs.de
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    6 hours ago

    I can’t imagine, that the delisted games lacked “serious artistic value“.

    Proof me wrong!

    (Joke is, you can’t proof that in any way)