Mastercard & Visa not accepting payments for popular videogame marketplaces

As censorship has been growing for online media, payment processors have also decided to step in. Visa and Mastercard, are probably the most recognizable payment processors in the world of credit cards. As this is the case, they control a huge market in this.

On July 11th, 2025, an organization called “Collective Shout” had given an open letter to some of the largest payment processors, including Paypal, Mastercard, Visa, Paysafe limited, Discover, and Japan Credit Bureau. They reasoned that the two companies they had done business with, itch.io and Steam, have been facilitating a place for unsafe content (videogames). Two companies responded, Mastercard and Visa. The response was to tell Steam and itch.io to remove these games or else they would leave. Steam and itch.io were pressured to remove these games because Mastercard and Visa have been the biggest payment processors they used. Steam removed their games on July 16th, 2025. itch.io followed suit with their removal on July 24th, 2025. 

After these actions, consumers and gamers of this saw this as censorship.Many petitions and reports have been filed against these two companies. There are over 257 thousand signatures on change.org about this. The people who are against it see it “as controlling what we can watch, read, or play.” They are against Mastercard, Visa, and Activist Groups such as “Collective Shout.” 

For developers or authors, it affects them as itch.io was a big host for indie games. Indie games are made by small companies or even down to a few people. These people do not see much money in the big gaming market. They even make these games out of passion. 

At the end of the day, this likely doesn’t affect most people who do not play these types of games, or even play videogames at all. But, it shows the power that activists, payment companies, and other companies have over what they want to see. This was from the companies, not from the government’s choices.