After being accused of pressuring Steam and itch.io to remove their more NSFW and explicit games, Mastercard has issued a statement denying the allegations. The company argues it did not urge either platform to remove any games and that it allows any legal transaction to take place.
"Mastercard has not evaluated any game or required restrictions of any activity on game creator sites and platforms," the company said in a statement (thanks GameSpot), adding that any "lawful purchases" are allowed to take place via its network. However, Mastercard says platforms using its services must ensure its payment network isn't used for illegal transactions, including purchases of illegal adult content.
The games deplatformed from Steam and itch.io haven't been proven illegal in any capacity as of yet, and what's more, some of them weren't even so explicit to begin with. Visa, too, denied policing legal content previously, making the whole situation rather unclear.
Both Steam and itch.io claimed their payment processing partners put pressure on them to remove particular games, after an Australian organization called Collective Shout allegedly campaigned for them to do so. The organization celebrated these sweeping measures, which have affected thousands of games it deemed to contain explicit themes, most notably sexual and heinous in nature.
With both Visa and Mastercard now denying participation, it is unclear who precisely is to blame for what can arguably be called the biggest wave of gaming censorship in recent memory.
Itch.io has slowly begun platforming NSFW games again by only allowing free ones on the platform, which should help avoid the ire of payment processors. Whether or not it'll also avoid Collective Shout's campaigns remains to be seen, though the organization's vehemence leads us to believe it almost certainly won't.
It has since started pushing for the removal of Detroit: Become Human, again, and locked its social media accounts.
This whole ordeal should never have happened in the first place, as no entity, private or public, should wield the power to completely deplatform whatever or whomever they deem immoral or unethical.
What do you think, Destructoid? What do you make of Mastercard and Visa's statements? Are they mere attempts at saving face? Let me know below.
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