Payment processors

[Dilan Rona]

This is a question and discussion more directed to the developers, and to get clarity.

With payment processors and banks interfering in markets regarding payments that we as people make to companies that we want to support (ie censorship of content they dont like), does Anego studios have a fallback option like crypto, so you can still sell the game?

Cause I dont like the direction of things the way they are now with payment processors, whose ONLY job imo is to facillitate payment from the willing buyer, to the willing seller.

[Lugh Crow-Slave]

I mean can you actually blame them for interfering when they have been sued and told by several governments they are responsible for what their services are used to purchase? 

Store fronts like steam and itch io were not taking sufficient measures and repeatedly distributed games in areas they were illegal. 

Pretty sure nothing in VS is illegal anywhere.

 

 

And my point isn't that this isn't a problem my point is people are made at the processors where they need to be mad at the officials that made them a liable party.

[Dilan Rona]

There is where the age rating systms (like the ESRB, and PEGI come in to play). Also it is not the responsibility of banks and payment processors to act as morality police for everyone. That is the job of parents to watch out for their own children.

If a platform breaks the law, then there are laws to deal with them. Existing laws. If they fail to follow the law, then use the legal system to deal with them. Using the banks and payment processors to debank platforms is crossing the line.

And also who gets to decide what is right or wrong, or even legal in the first place. What one person may find is perfectly normal or legal, another would find it as morally illegal.

[Lugh Crow-Slave]

43 minutes ago, Dilan Rona said:

Also it is not the responsibility of banks and payment processors to act as morality police

No but several countries have made it the processors responsibly to control what users are buying if it's illegal

44 minutes ago, Dilan Rona said:

If a platform breaks the law, then there are laws to deal with them.

Again countries also hold the processors responsible.

45 minutes ago, Dilan Rona said:

also who gets to decide what is right or wrong, or even legal in the first place.

Local law makers lol.

 

Like in this recent incident the games the stores had to disallow were all things that were illegal to sell in areas these stores kept selling them. 

[Never Jhonsen]

7 minutes ago, Lugh Crow-Slave said:

Like in this recent incident the games the stores had to disallow were all things that were illegal to sell in areas these stores kept selling them. 

That is flat out not true and misinformation. The games that were taken down were legal games, some of them having been on their respectful platforms for years

They were taken down because Payment Processors are afraid of people being naked, and those stores require the Payment Processors to make their income. 

[Dilan Rona]

1 hour ago, Lugh Crow-Slave said:

1 hour ago, Dilan Rona said:

also who gets to decide what is right or wrong, or even legal in the first place.

Local law makers lol.

 

Also laws shift and change. So does morals, and moral values. What is morally correct say 20, or even 3 years ago would suddenly become illegal. All based on the whims of the lawmaker. Who by the way are exempt from the very laws that they enforce on us, the common folk. And as Never Jhonsen stated, content that was perfectly legal was taken down just because of one complaint from someone that didnt like it, and cause they couldnt accept (read refuse) what the platform stated, they went to the payment processors, and demand they take action against the platform. The very same payment processor that is going over, above, and beyond what they are supposed to do in the first place. Same with governments. That enforce countries laws against people that are not even citizens of that country in the first place. Violating everyones rights in the first place.

Edited July 31, 2025 by Dilan Rona

[Dilan Rona]

1 hour ago, Lugh Crow-Slave said:

Local law makers lol

Since when does people in say Australia get to decide what I can or cannot buy if I am in South Africa? Same with for example UK, or USA, or whatever? They are not local to me, in any stretch of the imagination even.

[Lugh Crow-Slave]

1 hour ago, Never Jhonsen said:

That is flat out not true and misinformation. The games that were taken down were legal games,

Rape and incest games were what got removed. These games are illegal in Australia. 

4 minutes ago, Dilan Rona said:

Since when does people in say Australia get to decide what I can or cannot buy if I am in South Africa?

They don't the problem was steam repeatedly failing to block their sale in Australia. 

 

This put the processors at risk so they told steam to shut it down or they were out because they didn't want to be liable for steams failure to follow local laws where they did business 

[Dilan Rona]

20 minutes ago, Lugh Crow-Slave said:

They don't the problem was steam repeatedly failing to block their sale in Australia. 

 

Again, that is what the content rating system is for. And my point still stands. So because steam refused to block the releas of "game x" in australia because they want to "protect the children" (tired excuse for anything that needs censoring that the government doesnt like), the government (of Australia) goes and shuts the platform (an American owned) down.

The moment you give any government agency power, they take it, and go far beyond what was originally intended, and then they take that power and abuse it. And it takes a massive fight to get that power back again. And that is assuming you even can.

It is NOT the responsibility of payment processors, or even banks. Even governments needs strict legal limits as to what they are permitted to police, and to know their own geographical limits. They do not get to enforce australian laws in other countries like they are vassal states. And activist organisations need to know their place as well.

[Lugh Crow-Slave]

1 hour ago, Dilan Rona said:

the government (of Australia) goes and shuts the platform

So this isn't what's happening. It's basically a compounding effect of multiple policies and failures. 

While steam is a US company it is doing business is several. It doesn't matter where you are based you need to follow the laws of where you are operating. 

Payment processors also need to follow laws where they are operating. 

The Australian government isn't forcing steam to do anything at the moment beyond follow their laws. 

 

The ultimate failure here is on steam. They refused to actively police what was being sold on their platform. This has been causing issues for years. From scams and shovelware theft and selling illegal products.

 

 

What's happening now is a group known as community shout has told payment processors that steam is still breaking laws. This is not the first time payment processors had already warned steam. So this time the processors basically went if you can't control where you're selling things then steam needs to stop selling anything that could be illegal where the processors operate until they can solve that problem or steam can no longer use their services. 

 

Counties are well within their rights to determine what can and can't be sold in their countries. If countries (not just Australia the US and I belive UK also do this) are going to hold processors accountable you can't get upset with the processors.

 

I'm not happy with the situation I had two goals with my original post. 

 

1. To point out that VS is in no way at risk

 

2. That everyone mad at the payment processors are miss directing their anger. Steam and itch io are the main parties at fault for allowing illegal items to be sold in their stores. So that's where most of the blame should be sent. Pressure on lawmakers would be the second best, if you don't want payment processors dictating what's being sold then they need to not be liable when their service is used. 

[Krougal]

13 minutes ago, Lugh Crow-Slave said:

1. To point out that VS is in no way at risk

 

2. That everyone mad at the payment processors are miss directing their anger. Steam and itch io are the main parties at fault for allowing illegal items to be sold in their stores. So that's where most of the blame should be sent. Pressure on lawmakers would be the second best, if you don't want payment processors dictating what's being sold then they need to not be liable when their service is used. 

1. For now. That whole "If you aren't doing anything illegal you have nothing to fear" thing quickly falls apart when the laws change. So say some group of triggered vegans takes over and starts passing all kinds of crazy laws. VS depicts hunting, killing and eating animals. Something that was just fine for thousands of years. Now if it were made illegal and immoral then VS is in the same boat.

2. 100%.

[Lugh Crow-Slave]

6 minutes ago, Krougal said:

1. For now. That whole "If you aren't doing anything illegal you have nothing to fear"

Trust me I don't agree with a lot of it. I'm very much in the camp that censorship should only be used in cases where something has the deliberate intent to inflict direct harm. CP, yelling fire, ect

 

 

But fear mongering often times does more harm than good and can distract from efforts to actual improve situations. There is not going to be a vegan take over, at least not anytime soon. If there was and they made it illegal swapping to a crypto back up wouldn't really help. 

[Krougal]

57 minutes ago, Lugh Crow-Slave said:

Trust me I don't agree with a lot of it. I'm very much in the camp that censorship should only be used in cases where something has the deliberate intent to inflict direct harm. CP, yelling fire, ect

 

 

But fear mongering often times does more harm than good and can distract from efforts to actual improve situations. There is not going to be a vegan take over, at least not anytime soon. If there was and they made it illegal swapping to a crypto back up wouldn't really help. 

Yeah, same here, I am not much for censorship but there are just some things that are common sense and unfortunately most people don't have any so we have to have laws.

Haha, yeah, it was just a silly example I came up with quick.

If the vegans take away my beef, I will start eating them. I'm getting real meat one way or another...

I agree though about fear mongering, but sometimes there's a fine line between spreading FUD and legitimate concern.

Edited July 31, 2025 by Krougal

[Thorfinn]

9 hours ago, Dilan Rona said:

does Anego studios have a fallback option like crypto, so you can still sell the game?

Even if they don't, that's one of the great things about crypto. You can be up and going in a matter of hours.

The real question is if your jurisdiction decides to ban something, is whomever you bought it from willing to go to prison to protect the customer list. And the answer is, to several significant figures, hell no.

[Dilan Rona]

Censorship of something is a slippery, downhill slope. With a boulder that grows exponentially, the longer it rolls downhill. Once you start censoring one thing, and allowing the government to do the censoring, they will take that power and start censoring far beyond their mandate. And the longer the situation goes on, the more the censor till they start to censor critisisms of the government, and what they are doing, in the name of protecting people.

Either this is stopped (what the payment processors and banks are doing) right here and now, or a few years from now, you will not be able to stop it. It'll be too late (and no. Its not fear mongering. I see what is happening in a certain asian country right now, where the citizens are facing that scenario right now).

Edited August 1, 2025 by Dilan Rona

[Thorfinn]

Government should never be allowed to censor anything. Ever. Full stop. When (not if, but when) they cross that line, it's just a matter of time. The way out of it is not to punish the payment processors or banks or whomever is being coerced by government into doing it, but to oppose government's overreach. If the processors don't play ball, they will be persecuted, prosecuted, or de-licensed, whatever it takes, and someone willing to follow orders will step up. There's always someone willing to be an active part of any tyranny.

[Krougal]

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

Government should never be allowed to censor anything. Ever. Full stop. When (not if, but when) they cross that line, it's just a matter of time. The way out of it is not to punish the payment processors or banks or whomever is being coerced by government into doing it, but to oppose government's overreach. If the processors don't play ball, they will be persecuted, prosecuted, or de-licensed, whatever it takes, and someone willing to follow orders will step up. There's always someone willing to be an active part of any tyranny.

While, I agree completely in theory, but the case of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater and the like being illegal is technically a form of censorship and I don't think I've ever met a single person who could argue in good faith that it shouldn't be illegal to do so.

The same thing for suing someone for libel. Lying generally isn't a crime, except when it is.

[Thorfinn]

The yelling "fire" is a movie theatre thing is generally misunderstood. Oliver Wendell Holmes' real quote includes the word, "falsely". It's the lying that he's talking about, not the alerting people about an imminent danger. But terribly clever men have perverted the idea to the point that, like you say, you have not met a single person yadda yadda.

Propaganda works.

Edited August 1, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Krougal]

39 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

The yelling "fire" is a movie theatre thing is generally misunderstood. Oliver Wendell Holmes' real quote includes the word, "falsely". It's the lying that he's talking about, not the alerting people about an imminent danger. But terribly clever men have perverted the idea to the point that, like you say, you have not met a single person yadda yadda.

Propaganda works.

Now you're just being a nitpicker, of course I meant falsely, and while if I was writing a technical manual, it would matter, this is casual conversation. Do I really need to be 100% technically accurate for you to comprehend?

If there was an actual fire, then yes, it would not be a crime at all.

[Thorfinn]

There was no crime in the first place. There might be a tort, but a crime requires a victim, and, whatever else you may say about the State, it was not a victim. 

[EDIT]

This is not just nitpicking. The reason the State gets away with punishing payment processors is because the "justice" system has been perverted, to the thunderous applause of the citizenry. Just say, "for the children" or "fire in a crowded theater" and whatever the State wants to do is OK.

Maybe not you. I have no idea. But everyone under about 90 was indoctrinated in State supremacy, and it still has a grip on most.

Edited August 2, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Krougal]

27 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

There was no crime in the first place. There might be a tort, but a crime requires a victim, and, whatever else you may say about the State, it was not a victim. 

 

Fine. So it was a bad example on my part, but anyway, my point was there are times and places when it shouldn't be ok to say whatever you want, but it's a fine line.

Granted in this day and age it is taken to extremes.

  

27 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

This is not just nitpicking. The reason the State gets away with punishing payment processors is because the "justice" system has been perverted, to the thunderous applause of the citizenry. Just say, "for the children" or "fire in a crowded theater" and whatever the State wants to do is OK.

Maybe not you. I have no idea. But everyone under about 90 was indoctrinated in State supremacy, and it still has a grip on most.

More like the thunderous applause of the lawyers. Not me, I am against the nanny state western civilization is turning into and it concerns me that "1984" and "Brave New World" don't seem so much like fiction anymore.

Next up are movies like the "Idiocracy" and "Demolition Man", probably followed by "Terminator"

 

Edited August 2, 2025 by Krougal

[Dilan Rona]

It'll be more like Dark Angel imo.

The tech is allready moving in that direction.

Activists couldnt get their way to pressure gaming companies, so they ran to the payment processors. Who did the dirty work. Government in its infinite wisdom (never let a good crisis go to waste, and if none is available, manufacture a crisis), is getting involved now. And this is the excuse they need to start to censor not just games, but movies, books, and whatever else they deem a problem for them.

6 hours ago, Krougal said:

it concerns me that "1984" and "Brave New World" don't seem so much like fiction anymore

1984, and Brave new World was meant as a caution, not to be taken literally as a "handbook for dummies" for Dictators. In a sense we are allready seeing Idiocracy been enacted in real time. Some places more than others.

Edited August 2, 2025 by Dilan Rona

[Krougal]

8 hours ago, Dilan Rona said:

It'll be more like Dark Angel imo.

The tech is already moving in that direction.

I'm not familiar with that one.

  

8 hours ago, Dilan Rona said:

Activists couldnt get their way to pressure gaming companies, so they ran to the payment processors. Who did the dirty work. Government in its infinite wisdom (never let a good crisis go to waste, and if none is available, manufacture a crisis), is getting involved now. And this is the excuse they need to start to censor not just games, but movies, books, and whatever else they deem a problem for them.

1984, and Brave new World was meant as a caution, not to be taken literally as a "handbook for dummies" for Dictators. In a sense we are allready seeing Idiocracy been enacted in real time. Some places more than others.

Too true.

 

[Dilan Rona]

On 8/2/2025 at 5:54 PM, Krougal said:

I'm not familiar with that one.

 

Its a fairly old series from 2000 to 2002. Cancelled after season 2.