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Steam store becomes bitcoin payment friendly

by Mark Tyson on 28 April 2016, 12:31

Tags: Valve

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It has been announced that Valve has integrated a new payments method into Steam. Users worldwide are now able to enjoy the digital simplicity of making their purchases with bitcoins, according to the BitPay blog. There had been rumours pointing to this move previously, and now Valve's Steam platform has joined Green Man Gaming, Ouya and Xbox in accepting the (in)famous cryptocurrency.

The Steam platform has millions of active users but would like to make payments simpler and faster in emerging markets such as India, China and Brazil. Bitcoin was the solution Valve was looking for; as such developing countries have many people without access to traditional online payment access via credit and debit cards. "Bitcoin will allow Steam to easily reach gamers in every market around the world – without the high fees or the risk of chargeback fraud that come with card payments," explains the BitPay Blog.

As yet Valve hasn't made any announcement concerning the acceptance of bitcoins but I have just checked to see if the payment option is available here in the UK and it is (see above). After adding a game to the 'cart' and then moving on to the 'checkout' stage you simply select 'bitcoin' from the many options that pop up when you 'select a payment method'. Bitcoin is right at the bottom of the list.

BitPay tells us to look forward to it partnering with more online game stores. However it will be interesting to see if this 'international' payment option will open up more issues in the location sensitive pricing plans and digital games sales refunds from the likes of Steam.



HEXUS Forums :: 4 Comments

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at £306 each it'l take a while to spend one coin
Why not Dogecoin? I find currency with a dog face on it way more trustworthy. But then again… anything is more trustworthy than USD :D
I think the bitcoin craze is over tbh, I cant see people wanting to spend 0.000232773912blahblahetc coins on a game.

Digital currency may have a future but I don't think its in bitcoin. I could be wrong.
Considering the amount that's has been spent using Bitcoin… definitely will be around.

Millions or Billions even has been spent buying illegal goods/services.