As games face censorship on Steam and beyond, Japanese site says fine, we'll make our own dang payment method, and actually pulls it off

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DLsite finds an alternative amid Visa and Mastercard moral crackdown

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky heroine against blue sky
(Image credit: Nihon Falcom / XSEED Games)

The moral policing of games and other digital art by payment processors like Visa and Mastercard never actually went away following a spike in delisted and deindexed works on platforms like Steam and Itch.io earlier this year. Even if it were walked back overnight, the fact that this happened at all has sent many creators and stores searching for safe, reliable alternatives to handle sales. Japanese site DLsite, specializing but not exclusively dealing in adult games and comics, has found one by making its own.

As Automaton reports, DLsite announced a new payment method on October 6. The (machine translated) announcement reveals "Minna no Bank Payment," a payment method derived from a new branch of the Japanese digital bank Minna no Bank (loosely translated as Everyone's Bank) opened by DLsite's own parent company. DLsite really up and said it would build its own theme park with blackjack and hookers, but this time, it didn't forget the park.

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

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