I recieved this email from Shopify about our events:
I responded, explaining that we host events, where people can play different trading card games (Pokemon, Magic the Gathering, ETC.) or war games(40k, ETC.) and we have been running these types of events for over a decade.
Today, one day after responding to the form, I recieved this email.
What followed was a long list of our events, ending with:
All of our events that we host correspond with local laws, so I am confused as to why the change is happening.
Was there some kind of change in TOS that happened recently, becasue this change will significantly affect how I, and several others in our industry, do business.
Following this as there are thousands of game stores in the USA who run Pokemon, Magic the Gathering, and a wide range of other events who will be impacted by this change if this was indeed as Shopify intended. Pokemon and Magic have been running events like this for ~30 years. Around the world, not just in the USA. So I’m quite concerned if all of us are going to suddenly lose the ability to host these events going forward without finding some alternative way to collect payment.
I would also like to find out about this
For anyone following along, here is the response back so far with early level customer support attempts. Note that if Shopify continues to treat playing in events in the typical manner game stores and companies like The Pokemon Company have been officially running them as for the last few decades, it will ensure that every game store on the platform has to rather suddenly find a different payment processor. These are sanctioned events being run as required by the company rules (Wizards of the Coast for Magic the Gathering, The Pokemon Company for Pokemon, Bandai for a wide range of games, Ravensburg for Lorcana, etc.). The companies do things like providing prize support for 1st place along with strict rules on handing those out. Failure to abide by the rules set can lead to the removal from being able to get future product and run future events. So it’s wild that these rather harmless events that have been going on for decades are suddenly being ruled in violation with Shopify payments, meanwhile every other TV commercial here in the USA is for gambling websites where actual non-skill based gamling is rampant (often with insider knowledge). I feel like we are being lumped in somehow incorrectly, and Shopify support isn’t seeing the differences here.
