Valve to kick all blockchain games off Steam

Daniel Sims

Daniel Sims

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A hot potato: Valve reportedly plans to remove all games from Steam that use blockchain to exchange cryptocurrencies and non-fungible tokens (NTF). Using NFTs in games has become a controversial issue since some have been accused of being scams.

Valve notified developer SpacePirate Games that it is removing the studio's NTF game Age of Rust from Steam along with all other blockchain games. Valve said that it does not allow games involving the sale and transfer of items with a real-world value on Steam. The developer shared a photo where Valve lists things it discourages developers from publishing on Steam, with blockchain games using crypto and NFTs at the bottom of the list.

Age of Rust is a single-player sci-fi action and puzzle game that was due out sometime this year. It incorporates NFTs as in-game tradeable items. The developer's Steam description says Age of Rust uses Enjin platform NFTs, some of which players can earn as achievements for completing certain puzzles. It also uses NFTs from other games like Epochrome, Forgehammer, Stormwall, Shadowsong, Oindrasdain, and APG-M55. SpacePirate Games says it will continue working on games and NFTs outside of Steam.

Earlier this month, the creator of the Evolved Apes set of NFTs disappeared along with a website, a Twitter account, and millions of dollars in cryptocurrency. Customers who bought the NFTs could use them in a fighting game and earn Ethereum crypto. Evil Ape had sold thousands of NFTs before he vanished with investors' money that was supposed to be used to develop and market the project. So Valve's hesitancy of NFT games is not unfounded.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/91780-valve-kick-all-blockchain-games-off-steam.html

 
Sausagemeat said:
I don’t blame Valve, I’d wash my hands of this kind of thing too.
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I'm not a fan of crypto. But of all the trash on steam. Concerns over crypto is the least to worry about.

I agree with @Squid Surprise. This is more to do with their cut than scamming. They are shifting blame away from their finances. They are attempting to avoid entering the hot topic of Epic vs Apple.
 
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cliffordcooley said:
I'm not a fan of crypto. But of all the trash on steam. Concerns over crypto is the least to worry about.

I agree with @Squid Surprise. This is more to do with their cut than scamming. They are shifting blame away from their finances. They are attempting to avoid entering the hot topic of Epic vs Apple.
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there is an enormous amount of garbage on steam I agree and sure it would be less likely to go if they could profit from it. But these blockchain based games could be used by all sorts of criminals, money launderers etc and I think Valve are also afraid of future lawsuits which would cost them both money and reputation.
 
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cliffordcooley said:
From that standpoint it still comes back to their finances. When it comes to people being scammed. I find it hard to believe Valve cares.
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I don’t think Valve care about people being scammed. But they might care about any legal attention for that pointing in their direction.

But Valve provide a lot of free services on steam that they make no profit from. As much as I think steam has stagnated and offer poor value compared to other game marketplaces I don’t think they are operating with only profits in mind here.
 
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One day Valve will accept Crypto directly as payment. It's not if but when. Everything I buy from steam is with Crypto.
 
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Squid Surprise said:
Yes... they're banning crypto because of scams... not because they wouldn't see a % of any sales from it... definitely because of scams...
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I'd ban it on principle, it's only a matter of time before governments either 1- use it and ban all the others or 2- ban it all together.
Crypto for the most part is a kind of scam that resembles a pyramid scheme and is highly manipulatable with no oversight. US law states outright the US only has 1 currency and all others are illegal, back in the day the government sued arcades for tokens as they could be traded back and forth for value on the same principle, I can eventually see crypto going bye bye as we know the market now.
 
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Pwnjuice said:
One day Valve will accept Crypto directly as payment. It's not if but when. Everything I buy from steam is with Crypto.
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Money for all intents and purposes has a definite value, crypto has none it's a gamble so why would a business subject themselves to gambling value unless you would want to have half the chance to have nothing in the end.
 
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From what I've heard, they're doing it more to avoid the potential gambling aspects of it.
They had to do something similar in 2018...
 
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Rayneofpayne said:
Money for all intents and purposes has a definite value, crypto has none it's a gamble so why would a business subject themselves to gambling value unless you would want to have half the chance to have nothing in the end.
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Then stocks are a gamble too. One lawsuit and you loose your money invested in stocks
 
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0dium said:
Then stocks are a gamble too. One lawsuit and you loose your money invested in stocks
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Uhm yeah, stocks were always high brow gambling.
There is no guarantee on investments, the delusion of people thinking you are entitled is part of the problem with the economy.
 
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I don't know why people are worried that Valve has some profit motivation or wants to limit their liability. Valve is a business. I get being upset at the pretty large cut they take, but in terms of controlling all aspects of revenue, they really actually are a lot more hands off than Apple, or Google, or really even Epic.
 
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Phyzzi said:
I don't know why people are worried that Valve has some profit motivation
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I'm not, I just think they are intentionally being deceptive in their reasoning. It's like they are sneaking around in an attempt to keep from waking a beast.
 
Sausagemeat said:
there is an enormous amount of garbage on steam I agree and sure it would be less likely to go if they could profit from it. But these blockchain based games could be used by all sorts of criminals, money launderers etc and I think Valve are also afraid of future lawsuits which would cost them both money and reputation.
Click to expand...

Except, as so much recent info has shown, most people laundering money are perfectly capable of doing it in USD and it’s far easier, too. You can’t easily launder money with most crypto because the ledger is public and everything can be tracked. Only privacy coins like Monero can do this.

Crypto doesn’t mean money laundering, far from it.
 
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