I want to break down the whole "porn game censorship" issue really simply, and hopefully change the minds of some pro-censorship people who are okay with the takedown of these games because they think they're "weird." First, let's talk about Steam:
Steam is adherent to local laws in the United States. Steam has always taken a rather hands-off approach to the sale of video games, with lax rules that essentially amount to "don't break the law." One of those laws (specifically in D.C.), which Steam is incredibly strict about, is erotic or lewd depictions of children, fictional or not.
SO RIGHT AWAY: these censorship advocacy groups are *LYING to you* by stating that the games they targeted sexualized children. Steam carefully reviews *every game* that is submitted for sale to their platform, and they are incredibly strict against the sexualization of minors/loli. So no, these were *not* child abuse games. The 1,000 games banned from Steam were just cheesy incest ero-games that, for most people, would seem rather vanilla, especially by comparison to real porn (which has 'fictional' depictions of incest all the time).
Next, let's talk about payment processors, specifically Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal:
There's about a 99.999% chance that *every single person* reading this post uses, or has used one of these payment services. They essentially have a complete monopoly over non-physical sales: it's kind of like if there was one big, all-encompassing bank controlling *everyone's* money around the globe. Now imagine this giant bank, which has control over what you can/cannot purchase... suddenly has the power to tell stores what they are/aren't allowed to sell... disregarding any actual laws and operating entirely on the basis of what they find "morally acceptable."
Many people find contraception morally unacceptable. Many find abortions unacceptable. Many find violent movies and TV shows unacceptable. Many find violent video games unacceptable. There's most definitely people who would be morally opposed to you earning money through your OnlyFans, or watching any sort of porn, or buying sex toys and/or lewd lingerie. There's even people morally opposed to things like religion, anime, etc.
With all of this in mind: ask yourselves if you think some random strangers, strangers who no one elected or decided should have any sort of power... should be able to just flip a switch tomorrow and decide "x-thing that you enjoy is immoral, and therefore selling it is not okay." That is essentially what just happened to over 1,000 games that were previously being sold through Steam, games that existed on the platform for years without issues. Games that are entirely optional, appropriately age-gated, and consumed by other adults in the privacy of their homes.
Regardless of whether these games offend you or not, the problem is simple: VISA and Mastercard should *not* be deciding what sort of fictional content is/isn't allowed. By essentially forcing Steam to remove these products, they are abusing their monopolistic power by more or less threatening to bankrupt a company in order to enforce the worldview of a select few people. This is a major problem, and it exposes a major problem with the power that these companies currently hold.
Again, even if you personally find these games offensive, there's nothing to stop them from deciding tomorrow that GTA6 is too violent and/or sexual and shouldn't be allowed. There's nothing stopping them from deciding that movies featuring blood/gore shouldn't be allowed on services using their payments or shown in theaters. There's nothing stopping them from targeting services and products you *personally* enjoy or rely on and halting their sale tomorrow.
These people were not elected by anyone, which makes what they're doing wrong. They should simply not have that power. There is no justification for publicly traded corporations that pretty much every retailer in the world relies on to function deciding that things can't be sold, so long as those things are not breaking any laws. Keep in mind these are the same companies that happily offer their payment services to things like online gambling, psychic hotlines, companies which exploit child slave labor and/or sweatshops, and real-life legal prostitution services which are often directly tied to human trafficking.
Their motivation is not "doing the right thing" and if it was, they'd be going after these businesses instead. Their motivation is power and control, and that should put you against them by default. We MUST regulate Visa and Mastercard and stop them from working in the shadows to undermine the legal sale of digital goods and products at the behest of braindead, shady activist groups like CollectiveShout.