The United States is a VERY litigious country. The biggest motivator in America is profit, and the possibility of lawsuits is contrary to profit. Fucking over indie devs selling niche games that makes a few bucks on Steam is a lot cheaper than the legal expenses of a lawsuit and the bad press of “Mastercard funds child pornography”.
Kind of off topic, but this just activated one of my trap card rants,
The problem is not that we’re a litigious society, the problem is we make litigation artificially costly and time consuming by restricting the number of lawyers and judges we create and only trying to address the bottleneck that creates by making courts harder to access (e.g. increasing filing fees, giving defendants more ability to force things into arbitration kangaroo courts, etc.).
Especially in light of how our courts have been just making up bullshit to let cops/soldiers/Republicans do whatever the fuck they since circa 1968/2001/2025, you can’t tell me that people need as many years of education to practice law as we require in this country.
Also, private bar associations are fucking weird, feudal era anti-democratic bullshit that ought to get replaced with proper public licensing agencies that are accountable to democratic systems and accessible to the public
Single payer healthcare systems get all the political attention, but we really need a single payer judicial system. Basically public defenders but properly funded and for prosecution as well.
The US judicial system is also particularly bad because each party is responsible for their own legal fees. Most of the world has the loser pay the winner’s fees.
They are both telling the truth, which is how the best lies work.
Mastercard: “It’s all good as long as it is legal”.
Religious zealots: “Games depict sex with children!!!”
Steam/Itch: “Which games?”
Zealots: “Yes”
Mastercard: “Sex with children is illegal. Get rid of those games.”
Steam/Itch: “Which games???”
Mastercard: “That’s a you problem. Figure it out and get rid of them or lose the ability to process payments.”
Steam/Itch: *pulls most NSFW games while they figure out “which games”
Wouldn’t it be nice if the payment processors required more than being really annoying to get something classified as possibly illegal?
The United States is a VERY litigious country. The biggest motivator in America is profit, and the possibility of lawsuits is contrary to profit. Fucking over indie devs selling niche games that makes a few bucks on Steam is a lot cheaper than the legal expenses of a lawsuit and the bad press of “Mastercard funds child pornography”.
It isn’t about fairness. It’s about profit.
Kind of off topic, but this just activated one of my trap card rants,
The problem is not that we’re a litigious society, the problem is we make litigation artificially costly and time consuming by restricting the number of lawyers and judges we create and only trying to address the bottleneck that creates by making courts harder to access (e.g. increasing filing fees, giving defendants more ability to force things into arbitration kangaroo courts, etc.).
Especially in light of how our courts have been just making up bullshit to let cops/soldiers/Republicans do whatever the fuck they since circa 1968/2001/2025, you can’t tell me that people need as many years of education to practice law as we require in this country.
Also, private bar associations are fucking weird, feudal era anti-democratic bullshit that ought to get replaced with proper public licensing agencies that are accountable to democratic systems and accessible to the public
/end rant
Most other countries don’t do punitive damages, only compensatory. That makes winning in a judgment much less lucrative than in the US.
Single payer healthcare systems get all the political attention, but we really need a single payer judicial system. Basically public defenders but properly funded and for prosecution as well.
The US judicial system is also particularly bad because each party is responsible for their own legal fees. Most of the world has the loser pay the winner’s fees.
American rule (attorney’s fees) - Wikipedia - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_rule_(attorney’s_fees)
You just activated the right wing trap card!
https://youtu.be/AUnPN385wLI
Or, maybe, it’s just MasterCard’s way of saying “It’s Visa”? (Not that I know this. It could well be a lie for all I know. But also, maybe it’s not.)
Games depicting it aren’t, which would be easy enough to state. Cool mental theater, though.
I feel really dirty siding with this sort of thing, but also murder, assault, drugs, theft, vigilantism, the list goes on, is also illegal.
“which games”
The multitude of incest games that litter Steam’s new releases?
they are not illegal tho, also you have to click multiple checkboxes to even see these games, you don’t see them by default