Surugaya, a major retailer in Japan, recently restricted access to the adult PC game and adult doujin pages of their online shop, which quickly prompted concerns about credit card companies imposing restrictions. As Game*Spark reports, Surugayas’s listing management system partner company Talos EC published an official statement regarding the problem on May 20, explaining that the mature content sold on Surugaya will be unavailable indefinitely, but that they are making plans to get the content back online as soon as possible.
In their statement, the company explained that they are currently “in a situation where it is necessary to discuss payment processing methods with our providers.” Through these discussions with payment service providers, they are planning to establish concrete rules regarding the handling of their products in order to bring back adult content to their listings. The exact reason for the sudden unavailability of mature games and doujins wasn’t made clear, however, looking at their statement, it is very likely that Surugaya has been hit with some kind of restrictions or conditions by payment processors, resulting in them having to restrict access to the content from the time being.
Since 2024, there have been many reported cases of credit card companies or payment processors suspending their services for transactions involving adult content. The restrictions have been hitting many major Japanese platforms that allow selling of adult content, such as DLsite, Fantia, Skeb, DMM and many more.
As reported by IT media Japan in 2024, Taro Yamada, a member of Japan’s House of Councilors, pointed out that between the credit card brands and retailers, there are many companies that make the payment processing framework more complicated. Apparently, in many cases, inquiries regarding the suspension of some credit cards are requested from the payment processing agencies themselves. For example, pictSPACe, a doujin website specializing in boys’ love manga, was, without any explanation, informed by their payment agency that their products will not be available for purchase via Mastercard or Visa. Yamada also explained that it is still difficult to pinpoint which party is enforcing the payment processing restrictions, and that they have made no progress collecting information regarding these cases.
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