The holiday rush is finally winding down. You’re likely sitting there with a leftover pile of wrapping paper, a stomach full of leftovers, and that one specific thing: a $50 or £50 gift card. It might be for Steam, the PlayStation Store, Xbox, or maybe just a generic Amazon balance. It’s a great position to…
The post How to Spend Your $50/£50 Gaming Gift Card: Best Games and Gear Right Now appeared first on VGamerz.
Deckonauts is a factory-style game, where you play as a person in charge of commanding robots to build, terraform, and power up bunny planets. I played a demo at BCN Game Fest...
The post ‘Deckonauts’ Has You Building and Powering up a Bunny World appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
After years of remasters of old Ark expansions, it's time for something truly new. Sure, they're classics that Ark fans loved from the Survival Evolved days, but Ark Survival Ascended has been crying out for some proper originality - especially given that Ark 2 still feels like a long way off. However, Lost Colony will finally provide the goods. A star-studded, all-new expansion that tees up the narrative stakes for Ark 2, Lost Colony was initially meant to launch in November before being nudged into December. Now, Studio Wildcard has confirmed the exact date it'll arrive, and has also unleashed its final portion of drip-fed teaser content into Ark Survival Ascended.
Read the full story on PCGamesN: Ark Survival Ascended confirms exact release date of its most ambitious expansion yet and unleashes a new beast
It's been so long since dino-survival sequel Ark 2 was unveiled, its preposterous Vin Diesel-starring CGI trailer almost feels like a dream. But developer Studio Wildcard remains adamant it's still happening, and it's paving the way for its arrival with a brand-new Ark: Survival Ascended expansion, Ark: Lost Colony, launching on 16th December.
In July 2025, Valve changed its rules. It now bans any content that "may violate the rules and standards" of its payment partners, specifically targeting "certain kinds of adult‑only content" (Ars Technica, GamesRadar+). As a result, hundreds of games, many with titles containing words like “incest” or “slave” were quietly removed from Steam in just a couple of days (Newstarget.com). Valve admitted that this was to avoid losing payment methods entirely (PC Gamer, GamingOnLinux).
Valve tried reaching out to ask which games were problematic but learned that Mastercard’s acquiring banks cited rules like “Rule 5.12.7,” which bans anything that could "damage the goodwill" of Mastercard (PC Gamer, Wikipedia). Meanwhile, Mastercard states it only enforces “rule of law” measures and doesn’t censor lawful purchases (GameSpot). Visa echoed similar sentiments, saying it doesn’t make moral judgments on legal purchases (GameSpot).
So yes, if a paying adult tries to legally buy an adult‑only game on Steam, the transaction might get blocked not because it’s illegal, but because a payment processor thinks it’s too edgy.
By contrast, Roblox is a platform aimed at kids and it’s currently under fire. Lawsuits are piling up. One filed in California tells the story of a 10‑year‑old girl groomed via Roblox and later abducted. Across the U.S., hundreds of lawsuits are accusing Roblox of failing to protect children (People.com, That Park Place, WIRED).
Reporter data shows Roblox’s self‑reported child exploitation cases exploded from 675 in 2019 to over 24,000 in 2024 (WIRED). Even sting‑operation YouTubers hunting predators on Roblox have been banned or hit with cease‑and‑desist from the platform (Wikipedia). Yet, Visa, Mastercard, and PayPal continue to process billions of dollars in transactions on Roblox as if nothing’s wrong (That Park Place).
It’s not because Roblox is safer. It’s because Roblox is hugely profitable, and cutting ties would hit Visa/Mastercard’s bottom line whereas blocking niche Steam games doesn’t really cost them much (That Park Place).
No. But their inaction and inconsistency looks suspicious. If you censor consenting adults while continuing to fund a platform accused of enabling child exploitation, it doesn’t matter if the lack of reaction is profit‑driven. The result is the same: children remain at risk while adult expression is restricted.
Anything less than enforcing the same safety standards across platforms feels hypocritical.
