It seems Valve aren't a big fan of cryptocurrencies or NFTs as they've updated their onboarding guide with a new point about disallowing games that allow you to exchange them.
Under the Rules and Guidelines heading where it mentions "What you shouldn’t publish on Steam" there's a new line that states "Applications built on blockchain technology that issue or allow exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTs".
One game that has already been hit by this is Age of Rust, with the Steam store page no longer appearing in the search. If you manage to get to the store page, Valve has put up a notice that reads "Notice: At the request of the publisher, Age of Rust is no longer available for sale on Steam.". Age of Rust clearly states how it lets players gain various NFTs, plus it also used NFTs from other games using the Enjin Platform.
Speaking on Twitter the developer put up a short thread where they explained they've been upfront and had good communication with Valve but ultimately they lost the battle. In it they said "[…] Steam's point of view is that items have value and they don't allow items that can have real-world value on their platform. […]"
Other games that include NFTs include the popular MIR4 which is still online and the upcoming Mist which still also has the store page live but it's not actually released on Steam yet.
What do you think about this news? Let us know in the comments.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: SamsaiQuoting: superboybotCrypto-based transactions are more complicated. I think that games that allow both buying and selling crypto-assets will descend into Coinbase with pretty graphics. However, simply using crypto as a transactional currency to purchase in-game items should be allowed. The only counterpoint I can think of is that regular people do not understand crypto enough to treat it responsibly. I believe there is some truth to that, but I can see this becoming less and less of a factor in the next year or two.This is just in-game currency with more steps.
Depending on the game, normally in-game/in-platform currency cannot be converted back to real world money. IMO, that's what they are fighting here. A valid discussion would be on why they don't do something against the many bots in Steam that allows the operation of external sites that do convert in-platform items into real world money.
Quoting: x_wingDepending on the game, normally in-game/in-platform currency cannot be converted back to real world money. IMO, that's what they are fighting here. A valid discussion would be on why they don't do something against the many bots in Steam that allows the operation of external sites that do convert in-platform items into real world money.Wouldn't it then be easier to demand that games allow you to refund your in-game currency, instead of trying to do some weird manoeuvre where you first have to convert real money into a cryptobro Monopoly money and then you can take your Monopoly tokens and cash them out at a wildly different rate back to human currency? The in-game currency you can always peg to the user's currency, after all.
Last edited by Samsai on 16 October 2021 at 4:05 pm UTC
GustyGhost Oct 16, 2021
What does seem to be a priority is that you must have an specific wallet on your mobile device even if you're not buying anything, which indicates what the real priorities here are.
TheRiddick Oct 17, 2021
Quoting: GustyGhostsalty about cryptocurrency because of their experiences with inflated GPU prices.
I'm mostly salty over it because it drives up energy costs dramatically (I've seen %40 rise here since Crypto took off a few years ago), and also the cost on the environment is HUGE.
Just do the math on how much coal needs to be burnt in order to perform a full bitcoin transaction, scary.. not sustainable at all and will likely kill us off as a species if we continue in this way.
Quoting: GustyGhostI suspect that a good portion of the gamer crowd is salty about cryptocurrency because of their experiences with inflated GPU prices.
Or maybe they're looking beyond their own nose. Like caring for environment.
QuoteAnyway, does anyone remember nearly a decade ago when you could actually buy games on Steam with Bitcoin? The glowies shut that down pretty quick. The state can't have people using sound currency.
Bitcoin is not an effective currency.
It quickly degraded into an object of speculation.
GustyGhost Oct 17, 2021
Quoting: EikeOr maybe they're looking beyond their own nose. Like caring for environment.
Bitcoin is not an effective currency.
It quickly degraded into an object of speculation.
The same banking system which formulated that argument to peddle to joe normie in actuality uses much more energy.
"We aren’t touching NFTs as the whole field is currently tangled up with an intractable mix of scams, interesting decentralized tech foundations, and scams."
Tim Sweeney on 15th October:
"Epic Games Store will welcome games that make use of blockchain tech provided they follow the relevant laws, disclose their terms, and are age-rated by an appropriate group. Though Epic's not using crypto in our games, we welcome innovation in the areas of technology and finance."
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