Valve Bans Blockchain Games and NFTs On Steam (theverge.com) 33
Games that use blockchain technology or let users exchange NFTs or cryptocurrencies won't be allowed on Steam, according to a rule added to Valve's "What you shouldn't publish on Steam" list. The Verge reports: The change was pointed out by SpacePirate, a developer working on an NFT-based game, who said that the change was because the company doesn't allow game items that could have real-world value. But Steam could also be avoiding controversy with the move. Steam has a history of making controversial moderation decisions, especially when it comes to games with sexual content. In this case, though, it doesn't seem like people are pressing F to pay respects to NFT games -- a majority of the replies and quote tweets to SpacePirate's tweets are praising Valve for the move (or mocking those that are upset about it).
It's perhaps understandable why Steam would want to avoid having NFTs on its platform. Besides the justification cited by SpacePirate that they could have real-world value (which seems a bit weak, given the massive commercial communities around things like CS:GO skins and Team Fortress 2 hats), NFT and crypto-based games don't have the best reputations. There's the infamous Evolved Apes saga where a developer sold NFTs with the promise that they'd be included in a fighting game but then seemingly took the money and ran. There are some potentially interesting game concepts that use NFTs, but it's hard to say how many of them would've been a good fit for Steam even if they were allowed.
It's perhaps understandable why Steam would want to avoid having NFTs on its platform. Besides the justification cited by SpacePirate that they could have real-world value (which seems a bit weak, given the massive commercial communities around things like CS:GO skins and Team Fortress 2 hats), NFT and crypto-based games don't have the best reputations. There's the infamous Evolved Apes saga where a developer sold NFTs with the promise that they'd be included in a fighting game but then seemingly took the money and ran. There are some potentially interesting game concepts that use NFTs, but it's hard to say how many of them would've been a good fit for Steam even if they were allowed.
good (Score:5, Interesting)
thank god not all tech companies have gone insane. nft's are just infinitely reproducible baseball cards without even the card to own.
Re:good (Score:5, Informative)
NFTs are Star Naming Markets for the Gen Z.
https://twitter.com/smdiehl/st... [twitter.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Pretty much.
NFT is just taking Gachapon/lootbox mechanics to the next level where you neither own the item, now you only own a serial number. Should the service dealing with it shutdown, now you have exactly nothing, just like gachapon and lootboxes.
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You should realize that "the item" in your inventory in a video game is already just that: a serial number. If the servers shut down, you lose your item. Poof! Gone.
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You obviously don't understand what I'm talking about.
If Team Fortress 2 shuts down, you lose all the funny hats you bought in that game.
If Artifact shuts down, you lose your cards/decks.
If Warzone/MW 2019/Black Ops: Cold War shut down, you lose your skins and guns.
Get it?
Re: (Score:3)
I don't think you understand the impact NFT will have. Set aside if some "sells it" just to transfer a net value to someone (a very questionable twin brother of potential laundering), it's more like selling "rights" to anything. Be it something in a game, a business, a casino. It's the ultimate money making scheme, that will leverage addiction (such as games that are addictive, require items that are 'costly'), gambling (betting), prestige (celeb factor), need (say a NFT that can be redeemed for icecream, just saying a dumb example), crafting (an even more powerful force than plain betting),mixed with pyramid schemes, legal ponzi's, and so on.
The reason Steam bans it is threefold:
1) The right for them to control the issuance in the future. If they allow it now, the genie will be outside Steam's control
2) Right now, a lot of children are in their platform. Having items that can be traded for value is illegal and can mean criminal charges, fraud, etc against Steam
3) A lot of huge questions, but the most obvious one, that many use cases or forms will be akin to gambling, so again, this could make it so Steam could be sued and go bankrupt.
I can assure you, it has NOTHING to do with doing the right thing or not. Take it at face value: right now Valve is banning it, and if they could find a way to own or collect royalties for profits arising out of Steam's NFT use, you'd have wished you'd own shares (unfortunately, it's private). They could be the next Microsoft or Tesla in valuation. This doesn't mean Valve leaders are greedy or generous. It's business, and they will decide in the future and there are a lot of open questions. One thing I am sure is Valve leaders, and many other game makers and publishers are salivating at the wealth NTFs opens up for them.
Valve is already makes a tidy prophet selling silly hats and guns without needing to use a blockchain and not using it gives them more control over their market than if they did. so what advantage is there to them. implementing a blockchain tracking system and market would just be more overhead.
Re: (Score:2)
Valve is already makes a tidy prophet [...]
Valve makes Marie Kondo ?
Steam is going to go full Blockbuster (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Same thing here.
The steam platform is for entertainment and gaming. Why should they allow trading art, or securities, or whatever the fuck NFTs and cryptocurrencies are supposed to be?
Re: (Score:2)
They already allow traders to make a profit on virtual items in certain games. Games they publish.
Re:Steam is going to go full Blockbuster (Score:5, Informative)
And game makers are still free to add such virtual items in their games: plenty of non-Valve Steam games (PUBG, Rust, Payday 2 just to name a couple) have a virtual item marketplace. The problem with NFTs and various other crypto-assets is that they inherently represent non-in-game "value", since the blockchain that they exist on is fundamentally outside the game itself. Also, NFTs right now are really only useful for a) scams, b) money laundering (or other potentially criminal behavior), or c) wild speculation, all of which Valve (understandably) doesn't want on their platform.
Re: (Score:2)
Then compared to the system currently in games where you are locked into a developer's servers and their APIs, NFTs would give more freedom to players to potentially own an asset that the developer/publisher doesn't control.
Personally I would love to have been able to take items from . . . I don't know, Everquest, and use them in Everquest 2 or World of Warcraft by owning them as an NFT on a blockchain. Of course the developer of the other game would have had to have supported the move, but still.
Leave it
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
What's funny is that there are fully-developed marketplaces around Steam's API and games like CS:GO and Team Fortress 2 (mentioned in article).
Valve seems comfortable about easy resale of digital property as long as its tied to accounts in games they publish. Anything else? Maybe not so much.
"Potentially interesting NFT game concepts" (Score:1)
Tell me two NFT game concepts you can't implement without.
Re:"Potentially interesting NFT game concepts" (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:"Potentially interesting NFT game concepts" (Score:4, Funny)
Pretty sure GTA5 is on steam.
Re: (Score:3)
Because gamers are in the lookout for gaming platforms which "monetize blockchain"?
Pretty sure what 99% of users care about is just playing Counter Strike and the likes.
Re: (Score:2)
Those things you're describing are not games, or at least should not be games.
Re: (Score:3)
Counterpoint (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
He has a point. If you owned a blockchain asset, another publisher could unlock a different-but-similar item on their platform based on which NFT you owned. Currently you can't do that in a game without having access to the item database on a different game.
Re: (Score:2)
No. But hey keep up with the pointless ad hominem.
No good examples (yet) (Score:2)
Blockchain-aware games have been a goal for awhile, going back at least as far as Huntercoin (now Xaya). The game on which Huntercoin (HUC) was based was . . . terrible, to say the least. But given the number of games out there that expect players to fork over USD/EUR/GBP for in-game currency, it would make sense from the player's perspective to give them a fungible blockchain asset instead. Might not work out well for the dev/publisher though, and that's why I think there's resistance to the idea.
Does A
Re (Score:1)