ign Valve Bans NFTs from Steam

[UltraMega]

Original title: Gabe Newell Banned NFTs from Steam Due to 'Sketchy Behavior' and 'Out of Control' Fraud

 

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In an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Newell noted that it's important to separate NFT technology from nefarious users. The concepts of digital ownership and shared universes are fine by themselves, he said, but he thinks that the bad actors in the NFT community outweigh any of the potential positives.

 

"The people in the space, though, tend to be involved in a lot of criminal activity and a lot of sketchy behaviors," he said. "So it's much more about the actors than it is about the underlying technology."

 

He further explains that these people aren't the kind Valve wants to do business with. To him, the space is filled with people who use NFTs as an opportunity to rip customers off or engage in money laundering.

 

Additionally, when Steam was accepting cryptocurrency as payment for games, the huge volatility that came with it was problematic for users. When it comes to purchasing everyday items, customers don't want the price to fluctuate so much. "Like, why did I spend $497 one day to buy a game, and the next day I spent 47 cents, what's going on here? Volatility is a bad thing in a medium of exchange," he explained.

Gabe Newell Banned NFTs from Steam Due to 'Sketchy Behavior' and 'Out of Control' Fraud - IGN

WWW.IGN.COM

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Valve president Gabe Newell explains why Steam doesn't allow NFTs or cryptocurrency, citing that while the underlying technology isn't in a problem, bad actors use them for nefarious means.

 

Glad to hear this. If NTFs are not allowed on Steam, that will me a major barrier towards getting them into popular games. 

[pioneerisloud]

I agree, I am also glad to hear this.  I'm not even sure what all this NFT stuff is all about, but from my understanding of it you're just paying for digital art basically in so many words.  It's bad enough that our games are no longer physical in any sense of the word.  It's bad enough that there's day one DLC's and stuff of that nature.  We don't need to be adding even more "nothing" that we're paying for.  If people want to buy NFT's, that's fine.  But please, powers that be, don't start putting these ridiculous things into places they don't belong.

 

As far as their quote on crypto though, I do think they're a little mislead.  And I quote, "Like, why did I spend $497 one day to buy a game, and the next day I spent 47 cents, what's going on here? Volatility is a bad thing in a medium of exchange,".  That right there tells me they weren't accepting crypto as a payment, but instead as an alternative payment for the USD.  If I spend 0.01 BTC on something, I've spent 0.01 BTC.  The price of the dollar has nothing to do with the amount of crypto you've spent other than if you want to exchange that crypto for another currency form.  It's like complaining about exchange rates of the Canadian dollar, or the Euro.  Another example would be holding crypto too though.  If I'm holding say 1 BTC, I'm not holding $40,000.  I'm holding 1 BTC.  The value of that 1 BTC doesn't matter until I try to exchange it for a different currency.  Stocks are the same way.  If you have 100 shares in Microsoft, you have 100 shares of Microsoft.  You don't have $29,700.  You have 100 shares.  If you sell half of your shares for roughly $15k today and tomorrow the price sky rockets, you still have 50 shares left.  You didn't magically lose money.