Visa and Mastercard are getting overwhelmed by gamer fury over censorship

Payment processors as de facto censors / infrastructure

• Many see Visa/Mastercard’s move as private censorship: a global duopoly deciding which legal digital goods may be bought.
• Commenters argue they now function like essential infrastructure (power, water, telecom) and should be regulated as such or treated as common carriers that must process all lawful payments.
• Others counter that, as private firms, they have freedom of association and can refuse risky or controversial merchants, analogizing to a bookstore not wanting to stock Nazi propaganda.
• Several note this isn’t new: porn, firearms-adjacent businesses, political causes, and even sword makers and cigar vendors have been quietly “de-banked” or cut off before.

Law, liability, and government pressure

• A recurring theme: payment firms are being pulled into lawsuits (e.g. Pornhub/MindGeek, OnlyFans, child sexual abuse material) and face KYC/AML pressure, so they preemptively avoid anything near legal gray zones.
• Critics respond that the games in question are legal in many jurisdictions; using Australian obscenity law to effectively set global norms via card rails is seen as extra‑territorial moral enforcement.
• Some argue this is a government failure: legislators dodge explicit porn/obscenity rules, then tacitly lean on private rails to do the banning with no judicial process or transparency.

Content, morality, and the slippery slope

• One camp says rape/incest/“rape games” or extreme hentai are “degenerate,” harmful, and fine to exclude; some explicitly analogize to child porn and say err very far on the side of caution.
• Another camp distinguishes between depiction and endorsement, and notes that already‑affected titles include horror and art games (e.g. Mouthwashing, Detroit: Become Human, museum‑shown works) that explore trauma without glorifying it.
• Fear: once payment rails start enforcing one group’s morality, the target list will expand (LGBTQ themes, non‑mainstream art, political dissent), and there’s already precedent with other debanking episodes.

Cash, crypto, and alternative rails

• Cash is defended as the last censorship‑resistant option, but others point out practical limits (no one taking cash in airports, withdrawal limits, serial‑number tracking, asset forfeiture).
• Crypto is repeatedly raised (Bitcoin, Monero, Zcash, stablecoins, Lightning, chaumian ecash). Pushback: volatility, scams, UX, and coming regulation make it a shaky mainstream fix, though stablecoins on cheap chains are cited as workable.
• Non‑card rails like Interac, SEPA, UPI, Pix, ACH/FedNow and bank‑to‑bank schemes are discussed as partial escapes, but coverage is patchy and integrating them globally would take years.

Power concentration and structural fixes

• Many see this as a network‑effects “natural monopoly”: merchants and consumers converge on a few rails, so “just use another processor” is unrealistic.
• Proposed remedies include:
  • Strong antitrust against the Visa/Mastercard duopoly or mandated interoperability.
  • A “no moral filtering of legal commerce” rule, akin to net neutrality or common‑carrier status.
  • Public or cooperative payment rails (national or multi‑national), where censorship must go through law and courts instead of opaque corporate policies.

Activism, politics, and effectiveness of “gamer fury”

• The original campaign against these games reportedly involved ~1,000 targeted calls to processors; gamers are now mirroring the tactic, aiming to jam support lines and create measurable cost.
• Some doubt “porn games” are a politically winnable banner; others argue the frame should be “duopoly deciding what legal content you can buy,” not “gamer porn rights.”
• There’s skepticism about online petitions; direct pressure on regulators, antitrust action, or structural reform is seen as more meaningful than purely reputational campaigns.