I do kind of wonder of any of these game devs could go after these payment processing companies for loss of income? I’m not a lawyer, but I’d definitely be looking into it if I was a Dev that has been effected by this.
Loss of income is really difficult to sue for. Especially if you’re an indie company in another country, trying to sue an international company. You either sue locally, or open up a office in their nation.
And your case has to be rock solid.
Like tech companies still lose cases around loss of income, even when it’s obvious to the average person that the major company is going out of their way to stamp out competition.
Valve, on the other hand, should be sueing if the Mastercard statement proves false and it was in fact their policies forcing the Steam and Itch io takedowns.
Yeah, I figured it would probably be something more like that order of operations. But I’m also sure there is probably a clause in the agreement between dev and store that says they can pull your game for any reason without notice, so there’s probably nothing that can be done.
correct, but it could be argued the clause is too broad and doesn’t fit into the current circumstances considering it wasn’t a choice itch made, but a choice their payment processor forced them to make.
that in itself could be a bridge that leads to a direct confrontation between developers and mastercard.
I do kind of wonder of any of these game devs could go after these payment processing companies for loss of income? I’m not a lawyer, but I’d definitely be looking into it if I was a Dev that has been effected by this.
Loss of income is really difficult to sue for. Especially if you’re an indie company in another country, trying to sue an international company. You either sue locally, or open up a office in their nation.
And your case has to be rock solid.
Like tech companies still lose cases around loss of income, even when it’s obvious to the average person that the major company is going out of their way to stamp out competition.
Likely not, the devs don’t have an agreement of any kind with the processor.
Valve, on the other hand, should be sueing if the Mastercard statement proves false and it was in fact their policies forcing the Steam and Itch io takedowns.
correct. so they could sue itch, which does have an agreement with them. and itch can sue the processors.
Yeah, I figured it would probably be something more like that order of operations. But I’m also sure there is probably a clause in the agreement between dev and store that says they can pull your game for any reason without notice, so there’s probably nothing that can be done.
correct, but it could be argued the clause is too broad and doesn’t fit into the current circumstances considering it wasn’t a choice itch made, but a choice their payment processor forced them to make.
that in itself could be a bridge that leads to a direct confrontation between developers and mastercard.