Originally posted by alexn55:

Hey All. I'm sure nobody will notice this or even care, but I'll do my part to push against Payment Processors' control over games that are allowed to be curated and sold. It'll probably be a long shot, but I figured I'd do what I can alongside these other petitions.
I'm not doing this for profit or for attention, but just to make my intentions known as a consumer and advocate of independent developers. For anyone who may be interested in helping to rally support, it would be genuinely appreciated.

Remove Rule 15 From Steam Distribution Guidelines! Reject Payment Processors Game Control! via Change

https://chng.it/wrCRZc7w4H

You understand that it's just a list of guidelines. You can submit whatever to steam and steam will decide what they want to keep and what they will reject.

They could just not mention it, you could spend years making a game, and then when you submit it to steam, they reject it because their payment processors got steam to agree to reject any such game.

Steam mentions it so devs don't waste their time building games that they won't be able to accept. Removing it from the guidelines won't affect if they can sell it or not.

Originally posted by Chronocide:

Originally posted by alexn55:

Hey All. I'm sure nobody will notice this or even care, but I'll do my part to push against Payment Processors' control over games that are allowed to be curated and sold. It'll probably be a long shot, but I figured I'd do what I can alongside these other petitions.
I'm not doing this for profit or for attention, but just to make my intentions known as a consumer and advocate of independent developers. For anyone who may be interested in helping to rally support, it would be genuinely appreciated.

Remove Rule 15 From Steam Distribution Guidelines! Reject Payment Processors Game Control! via Change

https://chng.it/wrCRZc7w4H

You understand that it's just a list of guidelines. You can submit whatever to steam and steam will decide what they want to keep and what they will reject.

They could just not mention it, you could spend years making a game, and then when you submit it to steam, they reject it because their payment processors got steam to agree to reject any such game.

Steam mentions it so devs don't waste their time building games that they won't be able to accept. Removing it from the guidelines won't affect if they can sell it or not.

Maybe so. But at least if this rule gets removed, it means that the curation of games will be back in the hands of Steam, and will not be able to be rejected or removed by payment processors for arbitrary reasons.

Originally posted by alexn55:

Originally posted by Chronocide:

You understand that it's just a list of guidelines. You can submit whatever to steam and steam will decide what they want to keep and what they will reject.

They could just not mention it, you could spend years making a game, and then when you submit it to steam, they reject it because their payment processors got steam to agree to reject any such game.

Steam mentions it so devs don't waste their time building games that they won't be able to accept. Removing it from the guidelines won't affect if they can sell it or not.

Maybe so. But at least if this rule gets removed, it means that the curation of games will be back in the hands of Steam, and will not be able to be rejected or removed by payment processors for arbitrary reasons.

You mean still in the hands of steam. Steam is the one rejecting games.They are still the curators.

Steam made a deal with visa that in exchange for being able to use Visa on their platform, that they'd do certain things. Rejecting certain kinds of products is one of those things. Steam can easily free themselves from this by parting ways with visa, but they don't want to, so Steam will continue rejecting games.

Steam didn't bend the knee, they've hand in hand the whole time.

Originally posted by Chronocide:

You mean still in the hands of steam. Steam is the one rejecting games.They are still the curators.

Steam made a deal with visa that in exchange for being able to use Visa on their platform, that they'd do certain things. Rejecting certain kinds of products is one of those things. Steam can easily free themselves from this by parting ways with visa, but they don't want to, so Steam will continue rejecting games.

Steam didn't bend the knee, they've hand in hand the whole time.

So you're saying they just did this as an out?

If the payment processors decide they don't want a certain game to be distributed digitally due to ethical concerns (suggestive narratives, guns, violence, etc.) Steam just set up this clause to avoid culpability whenever they decide to remove games from storefronts and customers' libraries?

Is that what you're genuinely trying to say? Because I really do want some clarity and understanding on the situation.

Originally posted by alexn55:

Originally posted by Chronocide:

You mean still in the hands of steam. Steam is the one rejecting games.They are still the curators.

Steam made a deal with visa that in exchange for being able to use Visa on their platform, that they'd do certain things. Rejecting certain kinds of products is one of those things. Steam can easily free themselves from this by parting ways with visa, but they don't want to, so Steam will continue rejecting games.

Steam didn't bend the knee, they've hand in hand the whole time.

So you're saying they just did this as an out?

If the payment processors decide they don't want a certain game to be distributed digitally due to ethical concerns (suggestive narratives, guns, violence, etc.) Steam just set up this clause to avoid culpability whenever they decide to remove games from storefronts and customers' libraries?

Is that what you're genuinely trying to say? Because I really do want some clarity and understanding on the situation.

You can go to visa's terms and read through it. It's very layered, but for steam to accept visa on their website, they'd have to agree to many terms, of which includes this bit about certain types of content. All the payment processors have something similar. It's so the payment processors don't get shut down by the governments.

The thing here is that, for whatever reason, neither steam nor visa had any issues until, rather recently, one of steams adult games made international papers for it's alleged obscenity.

It's been like 7 years and it's only come up just recently. So we've got steam users that came here for specifically for this content and have never known steam without it - they feel like they are being censored.

It's definitely a big deal for certain users.

Originally posted by Chronocide:

You can go to visa's terms and read through it. It's very layered, but for steam to accept visa on their website, they'd have to agree to many terms, of which includes this bit about certain types of content. All the payment processors have something similar. It's so the payment processors don't get shut down by the governments.

The thing here is that, for whatever reason, neither steam nor visa had any issues until, rather recently, one of steams adult games made international papers for it's alleged obscenity.

It's been like 7 years and it's only come up just recently. So we've got steam users that came here for specifically for this content and have never known steam without it - they feel like they are being censored.

It's definitely a big deal for certain users.

Okay, this makes me feel like a bit of a stooge now. I mean, I had always known that Steam games were technically just licenses, but even so I do care about independent developers moreso than any games with 'questionable mechanics' and believe that we should have the right to whatever we wish to purchase.

My greatest concern was that the payment processors can now remove any game for any reason, and felt hesitant about continuing any purchases on Steam as long as that was in place. It was never about the sexy works, it was always about indie games for me, and about keeping what I pay for by right.