1535
Mastercard deflects blame for NSFW games being taken down, but Valve says payment processors 'specifically cited' a Mastercard rule about damaging the brand (www.pcgamer.com)
submitted 1 year ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
138 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Statement: https://www.mastercard.com/us/en/news-and-trends/press/2025/august/clarifying-recent-headlines-on-gaming-content.html

Mastercard has not evaluated any game or required restrictions of any activity on game creator sites and platforms, contrary to media reports and allegations.

Our payment network follows standards based on the rule of law. Put simply, we allow all lawful purchases on our network. At the same time, we require merchants to have appropriate controls to ensure Mastercard cards cannot be used for unlawful purchases, including illegal adult content.

Media contact

Seth Eisen

seth.eisen@mastercard.com

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I feel like it should be super easy now for smaller competitors to pop up by just offering digital credit services using tap on mobile phones. No need to manufacture and ship out plastic cards, just a digital version people keep on the phone, until they get large enough to be able to provide physical cards.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 4 child comments
    •
  • [–] 20 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    The issues here are trust, security, adoption and so forth. It's not easy to start a competition here I'd say.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Well at least with phone tap there's like a limit of $200, so maybe some company can corner a niche market where they only cover small daily purchases. No $10,000 credit balances or $2000 purchases and points and whatnot, just like $1000 balance limits and max $200 on purchases through tap.

    You wouldn't need quite as much capital that way, and I bet that would eat a good chunk of business from visa and MasterCard.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • [–] 17 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    It's a catch 22. You need a phenomenal amount of capital to stand up a payment network with all those criteria, but anyone with that amount of capital can't actually be trusted not to abuse their position in exactly the same way the existing banking networks have.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Probably not just capital, also political influence and other ways I guess. But yes, it's always a problem if it's like that. If you ask me, there should be a generic independent payment backbone, where many providers could provide payments - like internet or something like that.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent