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Two weeks after Valve confirmed it had removed a pile of NSFW games from Steam because of pressure from credit card companies—and one week after Itch.io followed suit—Mastercard has released a statement denying responsibility for the takedowns, saying it "allows all lawful purchases" to be processed through its systems.
"Mastercard has not evaluated any game or required restrictions of any activity on game creator sites and platforms, contrary to media reports and allegations," the company says_._
"Our payment network follows standards based on the rule of law. Put simply, we allow all lawful purchases on our network. At the same time, we require merchants to have appropriate controls to ensure Mastercard cards cannot be used for unlawful purchases, including illegal adult content."
It's an odd statement at first glance, because while the content removed by Steam and Itch.io may violate laws in some countries, it's fully legal in the US—objectionable and gross as hell in some cases, sure, but still within the boundaries of the law. Apart from that, both Valve and Itch.io explicitly stated that payment processors are the reason games were deindexed or removed from sale entirely.
Mastercard's 'out' here seems to be found in the structure of its operations. The company's website says it is "neither an issuer [a merchant bank] nor an acquirer [a bank, credit union, or other entity that provides debit cards or lines of credit to consumers]," but rather that it "provide[s] the technology and the network that power transactions." In other words, Mastercard does not process payments, it facilitates the systems that do.
In the case of Itch.io, the platform specifies in its "" that its payment processors are Paypal and Stripe—and Stripe, which supports a including Visa and Mastercards, was the one "suspended the ability to pay with for 18+ content for the foreseeable future."