alt Hacker NewsConsidering their volume, I find it hard to believe that Valve couldn't find another, more lenient payment processor with similar fees.
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Controversial games being restricted to purchase only with Steam Points. The credit card is only ever charged to buy points, which can then be used to purchase items on the store. Similar to fortnite.
My understanding is that it's not just the processor, but Visa/Mastercard themselves have rules against certain types of merchants/products... they really have a monopoly on credit cards in general so you have to play by their rules.
They could support a stablecoin like USDC and start pushing people to that. No censorship and lower fees. Valve broke ground with Steam, they could do it again.
Adult content has a high chargeback rate and high fraud rates so payment processing for adult content has higher fees.
It complicates things to have some games that can be purchased with credit cards and some games that can only be purchased with crypto.