thanks. that's what i wanted to ask after reading an article about it.
i agree. you can poop on religious nuttery all you want, but this is gaming board?

as for TDS, it's really TDS when Trump already made his stance on videogame censorship pretty clear during his first term. people were calling for certain games to be banned because "THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!", then Trump had a meeting with top-execs from the gaming industry, then he came out of the meeting saying something like (probably misquoted) "it's already self-regulated so i will do absolutely nothing!"
long live Newgrounds indies i guess...

i prefer that too, but in recent years certain gov vouchers(shameless election bribes by any other name) stopped using snail mail to send them out and just directly credited them into our bank accounts. supposedly because mail thefts became a common problem.

OR if it's not cash vouchers and actually discount vouchers lmited to certain shops, they just sent us a link via SMS or tell us to check with a gov ID app(which sometimes don't even work). the last resort would going physically to a community centre or gov offence to request a print out of the vouchers. it's all so tiring.

Credit card companies, and payments processor in general, being absolute trash and abusing their power again... color me surprised.

The only thing I don't understand is why there never was any push back against them, no anti-trust or anti-competitive investigation: Microsoft cannot sneeze without the EU commission starting 20 different investigations to see if having mouse support in Windows is not an anti-competitive practice, but here we have two companies ruling with an iron fist over the huge majority of financial transactions in both online or retail stores around the world, abusing their power, deciding what other businesses are allowed to sell or not, basically having life or death power over them, a power that totally bypass any country laws, regulation or control based exclusively on what twisted view of morality those companies might have at the time, and yet it seems perfectly fine, nobody seem to find anything wrong with that.

Are the suitcases full of cash that Visa & MC lobbyist "accidentally" forget in the halls of the EU commission or the US equivalent really that much bigger than the ones from Microsoft, Apple and Google for them to have such total immunity ?

About the whole slippery slope thingy... it was a slippery slope years ago when they first started doing it against some porn site, today we are way past that, the slope as become so steep that it is closer to free falling and, unless stopped, I don't see them slowing down any time soon. And what will be next ? games that don't have enough "inclusivity" (or too much), games created in the "wrong" country (Russia, China.... Taiwan) or by the wrong person, games that offend X or Y crazy Internet group (like the one mentioned in this thread), etc...

I also suspect we might have several "collateral damages" with stores "over correcting" and removing/forbidding stuff just to be safe, it happened with Amazon during one of their censoring spree where several anime figures, with zero nudity, of adult characters, were removed along more risky ones, so I wouldn't be surprised to have non-porn games being banned simply because they touch the wrong topics or commit the crime of using the wrong art-style.

Think that mastercard also has a law saying no unconsensual body mutilation. So gore but why are they all treating fictional character as real people when none of them need any consent since they are not real living beings.
Edit it's called nonconsensual mutilation of body parts.
Didn't check my english

I wonder if in the future when you start a game you will have a disclaimer stating that all the characters / NPC and monsters (Sorry, I mean : non-human passing individuals ) are all adult paid stunt actors that consent to being controlled,killed or even dismembered by you during the game...

Then there's distinction in how regional branches operate apparently.

As an avid Blu-Ray/DVD collector I never had any issues with purchasing from webshops or websites using PayPal here in Europe, and some of the additions to the collection - in particular exploitation films from the 70s/80s/90s - depict some of the most provocative and controversial subject matters imaginable, including, in comparison harmless bog-standard hardcore porn.

They don't *know* what you're buying. It's only being used to pay for a purchase they can't look at.

If your invoice included a description of the contents of your basket then you better believe they'd shut it down.

Indeed. Perhaps.

But in what context?

Do those games just contain such things or do they push them as being some kind of acceptable? In other words, how are they portrayed?

For instance, I read a lot of thrillers, which often have such elements in them, but they never glorify them or make them seem acceptable, and in some cases they go into quite some detail.

If you read the PC Gamer article that UnashamedWeeb posted (See Post #13), all of the games that were censored specifically involved incest porn. Nobody is going to take to the streets to protest the censorship of incest porn, so this is just an easy win and sets a precedent where the credit card companies get to decide for us what we are and are not allowed to play.

NGL , would be wild if gamers marched out on the streets with slogans like "Gimme Wincest Porn or give me d@ath!"

See heres the problem with your question and involving context matter most who are in charge of these things and go on about em doesn't care about context just that the fact is what they view as bad is in the media or they have a very skewered perspective of it what is or isn't this or that

For example of this we had many people saying Horizon Zero Dawn is sexist towards woman because of ''body types'' whatever the fuck thats supposed to mean .. how the Matriarchs aren't a set way and racist because of how they have the the Nora Tribe written same with other tribes and they try to portray the fact the Black guy being a Villian with good intentions as racist despite context which is easily to find explains all of this in universe in a way that viods it of any negative label for all but the extreme minded sorts on one side of political allie and viewpionts

God of war similar case .. Its made in a way that makes iot Clear Krotas while not the best father around is caring and only really does what he well does in relation to his son because he cares and wants him to thrive and live a good life.. even if somethings are harsh.. Only getting his son truly involved in danger out of a have to case otherwise he'd have keep his son out of all the stuff....yet there ispeople who attack it as Kratos being abusive to his kid and endangering him despite the fact is he isn't iether of those things .. He just has trouble expressing himself and feelings in a way that doesn't come across as blunt or abraisive ..

Bloodrayne the use the fact she is well sexy and uses her charm to do things as being a sexist factor towards woman despite she literally is a dramper which is a half vampire and vampires even half ones often was portrayed as creatures of dark fantastys and lustful even seductive beings no matter the sex for so long the context of the mytho's that is blanant for anyone who has read old enough vampire books even somewhat modern ones and ips.. that it shouldn't be sexist labeled at all

Fallout 3 do to how some females are written but thats contexauly do to Bethesda playing up the retro-futurism angle they went for and the racist factor do to ghouls ,the Chinese in operation Ancorge dlc despite that was basically a in universe propaganda simulation thing and ditto to the Paradise falls situation if I recall that simulation location mission right.. which is where onecan to bypass most that mission have a fallsafe thing triggered to end everyone in the simulation via the main enemy in Fallout .. You also have the slave traders and how if one wants to could become one but the slavers are clearly bad and you have bad karma from being one and doing suchj slaver things

..Fallout New vages context is mostly how the faction leader in one case has rules related to woman ,then you have the tribal matter being the postive sterotypes being viewed as racist by specific folks that aren't natives but try speaking for em..

X-blade mainly for her looks not much else

Bioshopck 2 is major spoilers but basically a woman who is pretty much using cult like tactics to run things has agrown up ''little sister'' she uses to control people and she does bad things to if she does what she doesn't want .. like literally almost smothers her among other things and its clearly a bad thing ..

Bioshock infinate already gave the basic context but its related to people viewing it as racist despite the racist stuff is done buy the bad guy and is blatantly wrong even the person you play as sees it as bad and his''daughter'' too and people see how the daughter is written as sexist do to her largely clueless and childlike nature despite she was locked up in a building with pretty much just books to read and no true human contact sense she was young enough it makes sense she'd be like that

Tomb raider mostly body type thing again being too sexy looking for alot of woman apparently and the racist factor do to the tribal portrayals despite not portrayed as a good thing in general

Control oddly is because how she is not basically a mary sue.. yes thats basically one of the things on why alot view her as a sexist male depiction of woman is because she isn't bad ass enough and doesn't quickly know everything or the like despite she quickly does learn things .. get puts in charge and gains powers no one else save for those in her position has.. Another reason the protaganist is seen as sexist by these fools is she is looking for her brother.. her only family

Resident Evil basically the same as control in the sense the woman protagonist isn't basically a bad ass Mary sue and even her body type that isn't honestly that unreasonable if at all compared to others ..

.. Stumbs the Zombie is basically related to the in universe setiing and era

Destory all humans same as Stubbs the zombie factor that and people don't get its a satire and parody basically

Disney classics collection games basically just for the story of the media they are tied to and the look of things aswell ..

Postal should be obvious given how outlandish satireal and crazy edginess one can get in that game ip

They don't need to know what I'm buying or have bought - this information is readily available (much like here on GOG) before any transaction even takes place by simply looking up what the shops have on offer/are selling to customers using this or that payment method.

And there never have been nor are there any signs of PayPal or other payment processors threatening to pull their services from the sites me and other customers are buying from, over what is sold on these sites.

i heard it 2nd hand, but supposedly some japanese merchants threatened to sue payment processors and they immediately backed off.
the affected businesses should push back . but.... as usual Steam bent the knee. expected but sad.

Actually the person you replied to is correct pretty much atleast in the US can't say about Mexico or other places but US wise that seems to be correct from what I can tell exspecially on places like say Ebay or other places like it.. some other stores similar

As with everything this will only last for so long - the more this militant feminist group that's supposedly responsible for this is going to push and demand for games to be delisted (on increasingly ridiculous grounds) the bigger the eventual push-back will be.
It may take a few years at worst but things will eventually even themselves out.