Not What I had Planned
I had a blog post planned about live music and being a forever GM, but that is getting pushed back, because of an issue plaguing the gaming community. I also tend to avoid politics while wearing the company colours, because real world politics don’t belong at the table, but this issue affects all of us and we all have a duty to fight for our rights.

It is safe to assume that unless you have been living under a rock, you know about the censorship issue, so I’ll keep it quick. A group of extremists from Australia, called Collective Shout have targeted the gaming industry by complaining to major payment processors, such as Visa, Mastercard and PayPal. These payment processors have in turn used their monopolies to bully large companies in the gaming world, successfully getting Valve and Itch.io to take down thousands of “Adult” games, despite these games being perfectly legal.

I will be hyperlinking to relevant sources throughout this post, so everyone can do their research and understand the full magnitude of what is happening.
What I will not be linking is the main page for Collective Shout, as I do not want to give them an increased view count, as any extremist group would use that to think they are winning a fight mark my words, they will lose!

The Atrocities Being Committed
While many people are calling this out as a violation of our right to freedom of expression, we need to look a little deeper and see the parallels, so people fully understand what is going on here.
On May 10th of 1933 The German Student Union began a campaign which many of you will remember as the Nazi book burnings, which took place over much of the year.
The books that were burned were those that were seen as un-German. This included authors with socialist and communist ideologies, such as Karl Marx, August Bebel and Karl Kautsky, Jewish authors like Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud and Heinrich Heine, Authors who criticized the Nazi regime, such as Thomas Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger and Erich Maria Remarque, who’s book All Quiet on the Western Front was a particular sore spot for the Nazis, with Joseph Goebbels calling it “unpatriotic”.
Others burned were those seen as corrupting the people, such as the works of Jack London, Ernest Hemingway, Helen Keller and Magnus Hirschfeld, who was an LGBTQ advocate.
During these book burnings there were speeches, attacking the authors in large and very public events.
As a German descendant, I notice the similarities between censoring games and censoring books, because it is the exact same thing, with Collective Shout acting as the Students Union and the payment processors eager to become The Third Reich.

Land of the Rising Sun
There is some good news and that is that Japan is fighting back, with the Japanese politician Kuri Shita making a push to hold them accountable and working with Madamsavvy to get all the facts to the Japanese government.
The Japanese government has hit Visa’s Singapore location with penalties over anti-monopoly laws, though in my research it seems like it’s not about the censorship, but rather because Visa forces many stores to use their platform or go out of business.
We have also seen Manga Library Z, which sells out of print manga, shut down due to being locked out by credit card companies.
Fortunately Taro Yamada, a politician that very strongly supports free speech has just been reelected and will sit for another 6 years. Additionally, he has been working with Ken Akamatsu to protect the rights of creators.

So, …what now?

We have to fight. That much is clear, but many people are confused on how individuals can fight against a global monopoly and a group of extremists, so lets go over some options.

Fighting Fire With Fire
Collective Shout complained to payment processors, so we can do the same. Already many people are spamming phone lines and e-mails for these companies, and every little bit helps, but in my opinion, the phone lines are more vulnerable, because calling them creates a longer waiting line for customers who have normal complaints, which can make regular non-gamers angry as well.

• Visa: They are stupid enough to give a drop down list of toll free phone numbers for every country. Check it out here and start spamming. The bigger countries, like USA, Canada, UK, EU, Australia, etc. are the main focus.
• Mastercard: This one has a PDF with all their numbers, which can be found here.
• PayPal: They have a single number. That makes it easy, just call 1 (877) 569-1116.

If you can setup a robocaller, even better and of course spamming the e-mails will also help. The goal here is to make their systems unusable for normal customers.

Just Use Crypto!
Valve tried BitCoin years ago, but dropped it because of market volatility. Stable coins to sort of fix this, but there is one major problem and it is called …Canada.
For many people, crypto makes sense, but in Canada it is treated like property, which means that every transaction triggers a tax event. This means that if I use crypto to buy a coffee I have to keep a record of that purchase for my taxes. As a business I am used to recording every cup of coffee, but for a normal person this is insane.
Another problem is that USDT or Tether is the big stable coin and we are not allowed to use that in Canada, due to the government forcing the exchanges to delist it.

E-Transfer / Bank Transfer
This should be a viable option. I use this to pay bills, this is how I pay my artist, this is how I get paid when I withdraw from Square. There is really no reason we can’t do this and drop credit card companies. We just have to convince stores like Steam to setup a system so we can add to our wallets using our bank accounts.
It might be a good idea to start pestering Valve and Itch.io.

Use Cash
Obviously this doesn’t work online, but in person at your local game store or conventions use cash. This takes fees away from banks and payment processors, which hurts their bottom line.
Whenever I go to a convention I have to stay in a hotel. I have to use a credit card to secure my reservation, but I pay when I check-in. Usually this is also done with credit card, but I am going to start using cash. It’s only a few hundred per convention, but it adds up and if a lot of people start doing this that will make a dent.
Money is money, whether it is physical or digital and most stores will not say no to cash. In fact for many small game stores asking people to use cash is probably the most effective way for them to fight back without ruining their business.

Harass Bigger Companies
Valve may have caved, but we do have to remember that despite them being big, gaming is still fairly small. What about companies like Amazon or Netflix? I think it is unlikely that the credit card companies would mess with them, but we can.
Complaining to these companies may be a good way to trigger a preemptive strike. With Hazbin Hotel on Prime, that is a juicy target for censorship and we may be able to get them scared.
Another notable option is Paramount, who just signed a $1.5 billion dollar deal for South Park. Matt Stone and Trey Parker absolutely will not back down, so it may be wise to get them involved.

Call Your Politicians
Everybody keeps telling us to call our representatives, and while I think most of them don’t really care about human rights, there is no problem with making sure that they are aware of the situation. Maybe we get luck and one of them actually takes a stand and brings this to light for the general public.

Divide & Conquer
During World War II the allies worked with the USSR to beat The Third Reich. We knew that they were bad news, but we needed combined firepower to beat the Nazis.
We may need to do this again and side with the lesser evil to beat the ever-living crap out of the bigger one.
Choosing a payment processor that didn’t push for censorship and abandoning the others could help shift the tide. So far, I don’t think GooglePay has taken a side, but they do tend to cave to government pressure, so take that with a grain of salt.
Getting people to side with Mastercard (the smaller one) to hurt Visa is a hard sell, because most people react emotionally rather then strategically, but it is an option.

Fight Fear With Fear
Companies are scared for their ability to operate and gamers are scared for the future of their hobby. We have a word to people and groups who weaponize fear and that word is not “Activist”. It is a word we use for people who ram airplanes into buildings.
Collective Shout has protected their Twitter account, which makes it clear that they are scared of the backlash that is happening. They used fear as a weapon, so we need to do the same. Constantly remind them that they have awoken a sleeping dragon and make sure that they know fear.

Petitions
There is a petition on Change.org, here. This may get taken down, as the extremist group has already complained to Change.org about another petition and they did remove it, but as a society, we can just continue to spam it until they leave it alone.
Unfortunately petitions don’t have any legal power, but it does draw attention.
If you are in the EU, push for a citizens initiative like Stop Killing Games. These types of things actually do have legal power and Europe is a large enough market that you can force a change.

Who is Next?
Video games, anime and manga seem to be the big targets right now, but how long before it comes to the tabletop community?
When thinking about where this could go, my mind keeps coming back to DriveThruRPG. While I don’t agree with their monopoly, I do have products hosted on their site and I have noticed that they have a very, very large number of LGBTQ products, and they rely very heavily on credit cards. This makes them a prime target for the extremists, and I suspect that when tabletop comes into the spotlight, this is where it will start. I also suspect that even though DRTPG has several activists on their admin team, they will comply when threatened, just as Valve did.

What About Trapped Chest?
Currently I don’t have any NSFW games, but I do have an adult themed version of Essence of the Arcane planned and in my WIP folder there is a satirical social deduction game that mocks the paranoia of Adolf Hitler.
I am a very small fish, so I don’t see anyone targeting me specifically, but I do have to work with larger companies that could get hit.
Regardless, games are my whole life, so I will continue to fight.

We are strong and I do believe that we can win this fight, but it requires us all to stand united, be relentless and show our enemies that we will never back down!