this post was submitted on 16 Aug 2025

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Steam can't escape the fallout from its censorship controversy (www.polygon.com)

submitted 1 week ago by mintiefresh@piefed.ca to c/games@lemmy.world

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[–] Ulrich@feddit.org 15 points 6 days ago

I really doubt they care.

[–] reluctant_squidd@lemmy.ca 6 points 6 days ago (3 children)

How hard would it be to do direct bank withdrawal? Like governments and taxation firms often do?

There has to be something else relatively easy to use that customers can use to electronically pay stream without these knuckleheads in the middle.

[–] mlg@lemmy.world 10 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Welcome to the bank owned oligopoly lol.

Debit cards use the same PCI DSS backend, which is owned by Visa and Mastercard, both of which were created by banks (I think BofA made Visa)

"ePayment" systems like PayPal, Cashapp, Zelle, etc rely on the same backend, or also publicly owned by several major banks.

Direct bank wire transfers still have a useless transfer fee for literally no reason. I think maybe echecks don't, but they expose your full bank account numbers (for no good reason), and they're still controlled by the bank, and they don't offer it as a solution for rapid payments.

Bitcoin technically solved this problem except the supply system wasn't designed for stability, so the value is way too volatile. Even though there are better crypto currencies that have solved this problem like XRP, the blockchain hype train crashed so a ton of vendors don't accept crypto anymore even though they used to (including Steam).

This entire system is nothing but a highly organized and legalized fraudulent scam to ensure banks can rip off vendors and consumers with transaction fees and debt.

The only thing that bypasses this system at the moment is using physical cash, which doesn't work online.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

FedNow is an option within the USA that uses a government-provided system to cheaply transfer money, and a number of banks have signed on. It’s not in use because it’s not as universally available yet.

[–] weissbinder@feddit.org 2 points 6 days ago

Even Amazon does this, since decades

[–] EncryptKeeper@lemmy.world 2 points 6 days ago

I mean, besides personal checks or money orders? Crypto. About the only thing Crypto is good for really.

[–] threeonefour@piefed.ca 133 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The headline doesn't seem to match the article.

one of PayPal’s acquiring banks decided to stop processing any Steam transactions, which cut off PayPal on Steam for a number of currencies

As of early July, the currencies that can still use PayPal on Steam include EUR, CAD, GBP, JPY, AUD and USD.

It seems like a bank that processes PayPal payments in minor currencies has stopped processing transactions for Steam because of the content it hosts. Shouldn't people be mad at this bank, not Steam?

[–] ordnance_qf_17_pounder@reddthat.com 12 points 6 days ago

Let me just mail my money in an envelope to Valve. That would get rid of the middleman!

[+] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de -35 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

Steam should implement direct bank payments to decentralize the payment infrastructure. Steam is not blameless in this, they could solve this and have simply decided not to do so for the past two decades.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 30 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

What you are saying is basically:

Steam should just have immediately invented its own PayPal, its own payment processing system, that works everywhere, near instantaneously.

I mean... I do think this is something they could actually do, but its kind of nuts to just frame this as if they could have just flipped a switch and such a system would exist, blamo.

No, this would be a huge undertaking, which would, as many other Valve projects and concepts, take time.

You can't just instantly implement what you seem to think you can. None this works that way, at all.

[+] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de -13 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Hence the "past two decades" part of my comment. Sure it would take time, but looking at valves investment into linux gaming, tbey are no stranger to long term gambles. The status quo being the status quo doesnt absolve people from things. If it did, we could never improve anything in the world.

[–] Derpenheim@lemmy.zip 18 points 6 days ago

"My local grocer stopped selling meat for some reason, but really its my fault for not having a 100 acre cattle farm already in the works, since I've been eating meat my entire life"

Why would valve have any reason to need their own payment processing? thats why these services exist, to use them and their infrastructure instead of having to make your own. That's the foundation of an economy your are arguing against here.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Lemme put it this way.

Valve did not prepare for unforseen consequences.

I don't think anyone really thought that what is happening right now was a likely thing that would happen, going back 20 years.

Payment processors had never had a problem with this before, and then blam, they become political/cultural activists in a huge way, an unprecedented way.

Its... dubious to frame this as if this foundational business infrastructure that had never before shown any cracks or signs of wear... should just have been reasonably expected to suddenly shatter into a thousand pieces at some point.

Sure, yes, they could have been more forward looking, but you're already talking about one of the most innovative and forward looking companies in gaming.

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Payment processors had never had a problem with this before

Thats what i dont understand, because yes of course they have. Payment processors and banks cutting off individuals or groups for political reasons is like the oldest fucking trick in the book. The payment system oligopoly has been a ticking time bomb in the eyes of any person actually paying attention. Centralized global infrastructure will always fail, its just a question of when.

This time it was caused by some random weird anti game group, but what do you think will happen to all the US based payment systems once Trump fully manifests his hold over them?

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

In general, yes, payment processors have in the past essentially 'debanked' specific people or businesses.

To the best of my knowledge, this has never before occured to ... something on the scale of the worlds largest digital marketplace for a particular kind of product.

I do not disagree.with you that the current status of things is bullshit, that there have been instances of usually very small businesses getting thrown off...

But the outright scale of dictating Steam around is ... almost as insane as dictating Walmart around.

Up untill this point, yeah, I am again not aware of any prior 'enforcement action' of this magnitude, and... the way corporate America works is that if you are bringing enough money to the table, you get some leeway on this kind of thing, you handle it behind closed doors, in a fairly involved way.

The way MC, Visa, PayPal have gone about this represents a huge breach of those unspoken norms, a massive, flagrant, naked power grab.

What I am trying to say is not that this system has ever been fine, flawless, or good... what I am trying to say is that this is akin to engaging the nuclear option in a MAD scenario, its a thing that would be entirely reasonable for someone like Valve to ... not assume they'd need to worry about this...

... precisely because the alternative actually is for Valve to develop basically its own PayPal, which would be a fairly large loss of business for other, former partnered payment processors.

Apparently the calculus of the situation has changed, in their minds, such that the payprocs seem to no longer fear Valve playing its nuclear option as a response to their own, seem to no longer value Steam as a marketplace.

Either that, or they have massively miscalculated.

...

So, to bring this back around to my original critique:

It is thus still pretty disingenuous to frame this all as if Valve should just reasonably expected these actions from payprocs this whole time, that they could just flip a switch and debut ValvePay.

A whole lot of corporate relationships follow very similar rules as do nationstates... a whole lot of things are based on an expectation of reasonable negotiations and relations, built up trust, and thus one party suddenly abandoning all of that for... what appear to be very confused and counter productive reasons...

No, thats not a reasonable thing to expect to happen.

[–] chameleon@fedia.io 7 points 6 days ago

They already implement instant bank payments in a lot of countries where there's a reasonable consumer-to-business solution for it. I know at least Sofort/iDEAL/Bancontact are supported just fine in their respective countries.

[–] Prime@lemmy.sdf.org 2 points 6 days ago

Wrong angle of attack. What about other companies that suffer from the payment processor? Not everyone can build their own.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 52 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This is insane. This is an insane statement.

I am on the record going after Valve for things when everybody else gives them a pass, but I swear people just want to say things sometimes.

[–] gressen@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Can you please explain what is wrong with an idea of paying with a direct, fast, cheap payment option that half of the world already uses on a daily basis?

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 38 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Handling payments like this puts the responsibility of dealing with fraud at Valve's level and significantly increase their workload, instead of being the payment processor's responsibility.

I don't blame Valve not wanting to deal with this.

[–] gressen@lemmy.zip -2 points 6 days ago

Banks have their own fraud prevention methods that are more mature than whatever is offered by payment processors.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 23 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm not gonna tell you this is impossible to set up for a worldwide online company because unlike the OP I have no problem acknowledging that I don't know enough about something to understand how hard it is.

I will tell you that it's absurd to propose that by working with the three biggest payment processors in the world, covering a huge share of all online payments, Steam has somehow been negligent.

That doesn't follow even a little bit. It's an absolute non-sequitur. It's someone trying very hard to be mad at somebody they know for a thing they don't fully understand.

[–] MurrayL@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Feels like we’re a few moments away from someone unironically suggesting Steam start allowing people to just mail them cash.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 6 points 6 days ago

Hey, I'm all for creating a public online payment processor. An international one, even.

I'm not even pulling any punches. There are no reasons to leave this in private hands.

But this reeks of people being mad at the thing they know and feel have some influence with instead of with the actual problem, and it's a bummer because it encapsulates Internet outrage and why it's so often ineffectual.

[–] Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 6 days ago

Well that's actually not such a crazy idea. Proton accepts cash via mail as well, so apparently it's doable.

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 week ago

I really have no idea what this commenter is so appalled by. Direct bank payments are the norm in lots of places already anyways.

[–] unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de -5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

This is insane.

Why? I am fucking sick of companies relying on private, third party companies as unneeded intermediaries for my financial transactions. Plenty of websites give you the ability to pay without them, so Valve not doing so leaves nobody at fault but Valve. They are a company, they should know that companies act in their own best interest, so if they want to prevent interference in the business model that is Steam, they should make their payment systems as independent as possible.

Valve is not a lost puppy that just happened to be run over by the truck that is payment processors. They know exactly what risks are involved and they did not care enough to prepare for them. If you make a deal with the devil then you shouldnt be surprised to get burned.

[–] arnitbier@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

What in the world would you know about how money is moved from one place to another? Seriously?

You imply its easy by way of hand waving while you say your irritated and they are the reason for it. So tell me exactly, how should they make it function in relation to the actual LAW and the current banking/monetary environment? Hell how does it even work right now? Cause thays something you might need to know to pretend this much 👍

Well? You got time to be placing blame like it's so freaking easy. Let's see it 😗

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 27 points 1 week ago

Valve works with the same handful of payment providers everybody else does. Literally everybody else. I don't have a stance on how feasible it is to handle your own payment processing, but claiming that any company on the planet is negligent for not doing so is insane.

I am all on board for taking regulatory action against anticompetitive practices in this space from the oligopolistic few companies available in it.

My educated guess is that seems too remote for you to feel righteous by being angry at someone specific so we're talking about Valve instead.

Hell, I'm all for taking regulatory action against Valve for their own monopolistic practices. I'm just not here to posture ineffectual anger.

[–] Blaster_M@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Not if the bank won't accept the deposits

[–] absquatulate@lemmy.world 52 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I see it didn't take long for polygon to turn into a clickbait factory post-layoffs