Payment processors have been forcing platforms like Valve and Itch.io to crackdown on certain games, and GOG has offered their thoughts on the situation.
True, the best bet currently would be to stick to a ‘stable coin’ to avoid the drastic price fluctuations - but even having to deal with that will largely be a bridge too far for most would-be customers, I fear.
Even getting stable coins is an annoying process for the average person since either they take on large fees to get it, or have to get verified taking pics of themselves and give their ID to try to get into an exchange with lower fees.
Just an overall annoyance. And number of people willing to do that is so small compared to a majority of consumers which is what gives payment processors such influence.
It’s like trying to convince people to use fediverse alternatives over mainstream social media.
And biggest move payment processors have is pulling out completely if alternative payment methods they don’t like are added, which would pretty much lose all the consumers that matter financially.
Most realistic solution is likely Europe coming up with their own mainstream alternative to visa and mastercard than crypto to serve as an actual viable alternative with financial institution backing.
You could allow buying store credit or steam wallet funds in this case. Your crypto gets converted to a “stable currency” at the time of sale. You can do that right now by buying steam gift cards, just not directly from steam.
That’s definitely another workaround, for sure! I think our supermarkets here carry Steam gift cards - for example.
Though I imagine that those same payment processors could threaten to pull out of stores that carry Steam gift cards, and we’d be back to square one.
Additionally, it puts more burden on the end users to have to physically shop somewhere ahead of time - lowering convenience. Ultimately, as Valve themselves put it - piracy is a service problem. Any additional hurdles will deter some potential customers.
So in order for people to be able to spend their own money how they see fit, we need a new player in the field - either fiat (eg. via the EU) or reliable, low/no fee stable coin(s).
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True, the best bet currently would be to stick to a ‘stable coin’ to avoid the drastic price fluctuations - but even having to deal with that will largely be a bridge too far for most would-be customers, I fear.
Even getting stable coins is an annoying process for the average person since either they take on large fees to get it, or have to get verified taking pics of themselves and give their ID to try to get into an exchange with lower fees.
Just an overall annoyance. And number of people willing to do that is so small compared to a majority of consumers which is what gives payment processors such influence.
It’s like trying to convince people to use fediverse alternatives over mainstream social media.
And biggest move payment processors have is pulling out completely if alternative payment methods they don’t like are added, which would pretty much lose all the consumers that matter financially.
Most realistic solution is likely Europe coming up with their own mainstream alternative to visa and mastercard than crypto to serve as an actual viable alternative with financial institution backing.
100% in agreement; those are the factors that I was alluding to when I said it would be too much for end users to deal with…
…and that’s all before we even begin to take into consideration regional pricing!
You could allow buying store credit or steam wallet funds in this case. Your crypto gets converted to a “stable currency” at the time of sale. You can do that right now by buying steam gift cards, just not directly from steam.
That’s definitely another workaround, for sure! I think our supermarkets here carry Steam gift cards - for example.
Though I imagine that those same payment processors could threaten to pull out of stores that carry Steam gift cards, and we’d be back to square one.
Additionally, it puts more burden on the end users to have to physically shop somewhere ahead of time - lowering convenience. Ultimately, as Valve themselves put it - piracy is a service problem. Any additional hurdles will deter some potential customers.
So in order for people to be able to spend their own money how they see fit, we need a new player in the field - either fiat (eg. via the EU) or reliable, low/no fee stable coin(s).