Payment processors have been forcing platforms like Valve and Itch.io to crackdown on certain games, and GOG has offered their thoughts on the situation.
It extremely is, unfortunately the whole space is still unregulated and 99.9% of coins are just vehicles for speculation and serve no real use as a financial product due to transaction speeds and fees.
I’ve been around the crypto space for quite a while now and its way more regulated than it ever was. 10 years ago, it seemed like it was a way for the people to control their money (before investment minded crypto bros ruined it all). Steam accepted it, you could buy things with it. Now it’s hard to get it without sending a photo of your ID to some exchange.
Sure but I’ve bought things where the site used a credit card crypto system where you bought some crypto that got immediately paid to the site. Sure it’s a shifty middle man situation but adding crypto address to steam payments could be a way to get around credit cards. Ie you can only buy Tentacle Demon Titty Twisters with Solana or whatever.
True, the best bet currently would be to stick to a ‘stable coin’ to avoid the drastic price fluctuations - but even having to deal with that will largely be a bridge too far for most would-be customers, I fear.
You could allow buying store credit or steam wallet funds in this case. Your crypto gets converted to a “stable currency” at the time of sale. You can do that right now by buying steam gift cards, just not directly from steam.
That’s definitely another workaround, for sure! I think our supermarkets here carry Steam gift cards - for example.
Though I imagine that those same payment processors could threaten to pull out of stores that carry Steam gift cards, and we’d be back to square one.
Additionally, it puts more burden on the end users to have to physically shop somewhere ahead of time - lowering convenience. Ultimately, as Valve themselves put it - piracy is a service problem. Any additional hurdles will deter some potential customers.
So in order for people to be able to spend their own money how they see fit, we need a new player in the field - either fiat (eg. via the EU) or reliable, low/no fee stable coin(s).
Even getting stable coins is an annoying process for the average person since either they take on large fees to get it, or have to get verified taking pics of themselves and give their ID to try to get into an exchange with lower fees.
Just an overall annoyance. And number of people willing to do that is so small compared to a majority of consumers which is what gives payment processors such influence.
It’s like trying to convince people to use fediverse alternatives over mainstream social media.
And biggest move payment processors have is pulling out completely if alternative payment methods they don’t like are added, which would pretty much lose all the consumers that matter financially.
Most realistic solution is likely Europe coming up with their own mainstream alternative to visa and mastercard than crypto to serve as an actual viable alternative with financial institution backing.
Bitcoin is the one that’s useless. It was the first crypto using very inefficient methods that don’t scale well, resulting in extremly high fees, times and power consumption, which equals to consumption of entire AI industry
But it’s the easiest to acquire and the most universally accepted, I’ve used it to buy things and it wasn’t hard.
I’m not saying it’s perfect, I’m not commenting on the ethical aspects, the environmental impact, any of that. Your thoughts on that are probably perfectly valid. But, if your goal is to use money that nobody can stop you from using, Bitcoin is the right choice.
It extremely is, unfortunately the whole space is still unregulated and 99.9% of coins are just vehicles for speculation and serve no real use as a financial product due to transaction speeds and fees.
I’ve been around the crypto space for quite a while now and its way more regulated than it ever was. 10 years ago, it seemed like it was a way for the people to control their money (before investment minded crypto bros ruined it all). Steam accepted it, you could buy things with it. Now it’s hard to get it without sending a photo of your ID to some exchange.
But regulating crypto is the best way to kill it. It’s a pain to have to go though KYC currently
Sure but I’ve bought things where the site used a credit card crypto system where you bought some crypto that got immediately paid to the site. Sure it’s a shifty middle man situation but adding crypto address to steam payments could be a way to get around credit cards. Ie you can only buy Tentacle Demon Titty Twisters with Solana or whatever.
Sorry you’re learning this now but… you just paid through a normal card. The crypto is just sold in real time and makes up the balance
It wouldn’t help in the situation where the payment processor refuses
We need a proper KYC-less way of paying in crypto, and have games that can only be bought in crypto instead of being removed from the store
I checked… This isn’t a real game (yet).
I’m slightly disappointed.
True, the best bet currently would be to stick to a ‘stable coin’ to avoid the drastic price fluctuations - but even having to deal with that will largely be a bridge too far for most would-be customers, I fear.
You could allow buying store credit or steam wallet funds in this case. Your crypto gets converted to a “stable currency” at the time of sale. You can do that right now by buying steam gift cards, just not directly from steam.
That’s definitely another workaround, for sure! I think our supermarkets here carry Steam gift cards - for example.
Though I imagine that those same payment processors could threaten to pull out of stores that carry Steam gift cards, and we’d be back to square one.
Additionally, it puts more burden on the end users to have to physically shop somewhere ahead of time - lowering convenience. Ultimately, as Valve themselves put it - piracy is a service problem. Any additional hurdles will deter some potential customers.
So in order for people to be able to spend their own money how they see fit, we need a new player in the field - either fiat (eg. via the EU) or reliable, low/no fee stable coin(s).
Even getting stable coins is an annoying process for the average person since either they take on large fees to get it, or have to get verified taking pics of themselves and give their ID to try to get into an exchange with lower fees.
Just an overall annoyance. And number of people willing to do that is so small compared to a majority of consumers which is what gives payment processors such influence.
It’s like trying to convince people to use fediverse alternatives over mainstream social media.
And biggest move payment processors have is pulling out completely if alternative payment methods they don’t like are added, which would pretty much lose all the consumers that matter financially.
Most realistic solution is likely Europe coming up with their own mainstream alternative to visa and mastercard than crypto to serve as an actual viable alternative with financial institution backing.
100% in agreement; those are the factors that I was alluding to when I said it would be too much for end users to deal with…
…and that’s all before we even begin to take into consideration regional pricing!
Ok, but who cares about the 99.9% of coins… If you’re buying something, use Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is the one that’s useless. It was the first crypto using very inefficient methods that don’t scale well, resulting in extremly high fees, times and power consumption, which equals to consumption of entire AI industry
But it’s the easiest to acquire and the most universally accepted, I’ve used it to buy things and it wasn’t hard.
I’m not saying it’s perfect, I’m not commenting on the ethical aspects, the environmental impact, any of that. Your thoughts on that are probably perfectly valid. But, if your goal is to use money that nobody can stop you from using, Bitcoin is the right choice.
Bitcoin is probably one of the worse options for regular transactions imho
Use monero, it’s what bitcoin was supposed to be.