Just gotta find it. If that's not CCBill, fine. But we gotta find it.
Idea for an adult game site
- Thread starter DoAdventures
- Start date
- Nov 20, 2017
- 7,469
- 17,315
- 944
And how many of the customer you're targeting have neither Visa or Mastercard but another one?
- Jul 20, 2020
- 286
- 388
- 228
Despite the lofty goals, the real opportunity is around the products that visa/mc refuse to service. Who wants to buy a game from some random not-yet-proven adult-oriented site when it's already on Steam? Trying to compete with Steam head-on is a waste of time and resources. BUT, players who want games that can't be listed on any other site are a pretty captive market. The available pie is MUCH, MUCH smaller, but there's not much competition for it. The question is really whether or not a few % of that tiny pie is worth the trouble/risk.
- Jun 10, 2017
- 12,745
- 20,950
- 1,026
I have bad news for you...
[
You must be registered to see the links
]What obviously doesn't mean "porn", but the most offensive kinds of porn; like... Oh, well, I'll let you guess what can be those kinds.
[
You must be registered to see the links
]What are
You must be registered to see the links
? Well, precisely what you want to be rid off by creating your own platform.CCBill exist in order to facilitate the life of small adult business that can't afford the frozen security deposit. Strictly speaking they aren't an alternative to the major payment processors, but an intermediary between you and them.
It's ironic, isn't it, that you actually looks like one.
The issue with PornHUB was the presence of purely illegal content. It's over midnight so I'll not search again for the links, but among the many issues where videos featuring real rape and underage content.
What actually drawn the light on them was a mother being told by an acquaintance that her underage, and missing since months, daughter was in a series of videos there. And, more precisely, their clear refusal to remove the videos when the said mother told them what they were.
Writing this I realized something... If someone is to blame for the pressure against porn content creators, it's more surely PornHUB (and more globally Aylo, ex MindGeek) than payment processors. It's them who gave this bad image of the industry through their fully wildness. By refusing for years to comply to the most basis rules (no real rape, no real underage), while leading the market, in top of being clearly suspicious and mafia owned, MindGeek lead authorities to believe that the whole industry is like the wild west, and that it had to be seriously regulated.
That's not conspiracy, that's strong deny. They fucking are forced to follow the Law, Law that hold them accountable in case they perform transaction they know as being illegal. And this is not new, this predate Internet as you know it, and perhaps even predate your birth since it's like this since the early 90's.
Because the said payment processors don't want to be sentenced to billions fines because they would have proceeded those transaction that are illegals.
It's the regulation, and here too it's far to be something new.
Transactions related to adult content having the highest rate of fraud, international regulations include this frozen deposit in order for the refunds to be covered through the deposit and it's interests.
What mean that, contrarily to what you think, it's a sign of healthy acceptance. The banking system could have just decided to not cover adult content at all, letting smaller structures handle it the way they want. Instead, they came to a solution that permit for payment processors to operate safely, and for platforms to have a stable accounting; they can project their accounting through the time without having to care about the fluctuation of the frauds rate, and don't live in fear that a sudden vague of frauds lead them to bankruptcy.
Since the said platforms do not decide what the rules are, the goal is to break the rules.
This too, you can deny it as much as you want, it will not make it less true.
- Jun 10, 2017
- 12,745
- 20,950
- 1,026
And how those who have Visa or MasterCard are supposed to pledge or, for creators, get their money?
Dealing directly with everyone's bank is even more complicated than letting major payment processors handle it.
- Dec 17, 2020
- 5,274
- 15,232
- 903
CCBill is not unique, all processors play by the same rules. The only difference between CCBill and a mainstream option like Stripe is that CCBill is willing to entertain "high risk" clients by charging them out the ass on fees and holding their funds for months to help with rampant fraud. That said, I feel like there's a fundamental misunderstanding on what these payment processors actually do. Taking Visa as an example:
There are tens of thousands of banks all around the world. There is nothing these banks would love more than to handle all payments for their customers, themselves. They do NOT want to involve Visa, nobody does because Visa has fees and they are another layer of liability for the banks to worry about.
However, Visa does provide a service. Visa provides the umbrella and the framework for every bank to use Visas network to process transactions. This means Spotify, or any other retailer does not need to cater to a different type of credit card for every....single....bank on earth. This makes it easier for the consumer which makes it easier for retailers and the earth continues to go around.
Visa has an entire industry by the balls and no, there is nothing anyone can do about it.
The shorter, simpler answer is that if you want to accept payment for a Visa card then no matter what intermediary you use (Stripe, Amazon Pay, CCBill), at some part of the process you will need to abide by Visa's TOS. If you don't want to abide by their TOS you can simply lie, but really all this does is buy you time before the hammer eventually swings.
A reminder too that adult content is not banned by VISA, it's accepted on onlyfans after all.
At a certain point people need to be realistic about this. Steam didn't remove this content because they didn't like it. They removed it because the company that holds their entire payment gateway hostage demanded they do so.
To round off this effortpost, lets circle back to a company that ran afoul of payment processors and see how things are going for them now. Pornhub:
You must be registered to see the links
Bank transfers, direct deposits or crypto - not a single credit card option.
Lastly, I don't want to be posting here and repeating myself because I feel like it's just ganging up on someone who has an idea and has the drive to try something. When I say something is impossible, I'm just being realistic. If someone wants to spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours developing a platform then go do it!
Just please don't make grandiose claims about how you can do things differently and don't need to play by the rules because at the end of the day, it's not true.
Eh, I'm an optimist. Always was. I'd say sue me, but Visa might take that as a call to action.
I leave realism and pessimism to others.that's for payout, content creators withdrawing money. i dont think you can buy anything from pornhub anymore. you can buy from their "shop",
You must be registered to see the links
, and pay with visa/mc but they dont have porn, just stuff like clothes and sex toys.however, you can buy porn (membership) from brazzers with visa/mc and they are owned by aylo too.
- Dec 17, 2020
- 5,274
- 15,232
- 903
Ah my bad, I thought that premium thing was still an option. I haven't used the site in forever. I've tried searching but they're not showing the payment options, or at least I can't find them. There are other articles saying it's crypto only, though they are a few years old (after the NYT article).
You must be registered to see the links
Also since my last comment I was made aware that adult games are now hidden on itch too. I guess you need to be logged in to see them?
You must be registered to see the links
You must be registered to see the links
actually no. there are only 47 "adult" games even when logged in. something has happened with adult games on itch and it looks like it happened very recently, like a few hours ago. direct links to the pages work but they are no longer indexed...
- Nov 20, 2017
- 7,469
- 17,315
- 944
Could be that after bob69 reported some of those games, cause they where actors who made a new itch page and try to spread malicious SW they take their whole NSFW catalogue out of the index to prevent this.
Obviously that is just a though.
I think a new store is neededThe fight you're trying to fight isn't going to be won because you built another house where nobody is allowed to build houses. Your house will last approximately as long as it takes for you to get on someone's radar and then it's going to be over.
You also won't get much popular opinion outside of the people already upset currently because defending porn isn't something that's high on anyone's list.
Since you have this level of knowledge and skill you should start your own payment processor and then work on getting that going. If you have an uncensored payment processor who's only regulation is to meet the laws of the region its used in, you might have something successful on your hands. You'll still have censoring pro but at least you could try to fight for it in region that don't have laws against something people are trying to block because of nebulous morals.
Or go to Patreon, or Steam, and tell them "look guys, I'm big person XY and I can force your platform to steamroll right over these petty people and here's how we'll do it!" And then you slap down all the stuff your lawyers have because if it works for your future webpage it should also work for existing platforms as well, right?
You save steam, save gamer freedom, and make a boat of money for you and your lawyers who know exactly how to get around all this stuff.
because well... any store that's not exclusively dedicated to this content will prefer to comply to visa and mcc because they have too much to loose
the purpose of a new store is to make it so that visa and mc can't blackmail it.
also i don't think it's so easy to change payment processors mind. they only action is to make it a law.
and steam, patreon etc mind you can't change given that it's not really they're will here.
Last edited:
yeah but seems to be a coincidence. leafo confirmed it was basically what happened to steam
You must be registered to see the links
- Nov 20, 2017
- 7,469
- 17,315
- 944
So, a store without Visa and MC. Therefore, you would need to have other widely accepted payment options, which ones do you propose?
that's the biggest issue in building this and we'll see what it will be in the end. but giving up is not an alternative
- Nov 20, 2017
- 7,469
- 17,315
- 944
So, as written by that post, it was not the Visa or MC who fired on their own. It was
You must be registered to see the links
that leads to act from Visa and MC as before they were either not aware or try to ignore it.Therefore, the action someone would need to take would be more like a change petition to actually address this issue. If enough people would support it the payment processor would seen that even for little NSFW games that are still legal, but shunned upon would be a big enough market to care for.
So, who of those "activist" here will make the counter letter?
The itch discord is doing a pretty good job of that already, they're frothing at the mouth to both get back at itch and send a message to the card processors.So, as written by that post, it was not the Visa or MC who fired on their own. It wasYou must be registered to see the linksthat leads to act from Visa and MC as before they were either not aware or try to ignore it.
Therefore, the action someone would need to take would be more like a change petition to actually address this issue. If enough people would support it the payment processor would seen that even for little NSFW games that are still legal, but shunned upon would be a big enough market to care for.
So, who of those "activist" here will make the counter letter?
yeah..... sureSo, as written by that post, it was not the Visa or MC who fired on their own. It wasYou must be registered to see the linksthat leads to act from Visa and MC as before they were either not aware or try to ignore it.
Therefore, the action someone would need to take would be more like a change petition to actually address this issue. If enough people would support it the payment processor would seen that even for little NSFW games that are still legal, but shunned upon would be a big enough market to care for.
So, who of those "activist" here will make the counter letter?
i don't believe that.
and while i Do believe some actions against visa and mc might be useful and should be taken, I don't think that's a solution and I don't think they this that because of collective shit!
they are just an official reason.
they banned platform in japan that have nothing to do with CS, they restricted patreon years ago, they removes all adult from gumroad a few years ago etc.
that's what they do. it has nothing to do with CS, but it's easy to say: "i just did what people wanted" that "that's what i want and i don't give a shit what you want"
where? need to write one myself. i will try (it WILL be hard) to not use words like "idiots, limpdiks, fuckers and so on"
That's the official story.
Doesn't mean it's the full story though.
Let's be adults here for a second, why in the fuck would Visa & Mastercard give a fuck about some angry letters?
It makes zero sense, until you realize that those demands are perfectly in line with Project 2025 (which was written up by the current Administration in the White House).