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.
Here in Europe, GOG support pretty much all the local payment systems (they’ll make available as selection the ones for your country on checkout) most of which are pretty straightforward to use nowadays an even come integrated with the banking phone apps.
Personally I switched from Paypal to one of those on my GOG purchases due to the whole censorship debacle.
It extremely is, unfortunately the whole space is still unregulated and 99.9% of coins are just vehicles for speculation and serve no real use as a financial product due to transaction speeds and fees.
I’ve been around the crypto space for quite a while now and its way more regulated than it ever was. 10 years ago, it seemed like it was a way for the people to control their money (before investment minded crypto bros ruined it all). Steam accepted it, you could buy things with it. Now it’s hard to get it without sending a photo of your ID to some exchange.
Sure but I’ve bought things where the site used a credit card crypto system where you bought some crypto that got immediately paid to the site. Sure it’s a shifty middle man situation but adding crypto address to steam payments could be a way to get around credit cards. Ie you can only buy Tentacle Demon Titty Twisters with Solana or whatever.
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.
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).
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.
Bitcoin is the one that’s useless. It was the first crypto using very inefficient methods that don’t scale well, resulting in extremly high fees, times and power consumption, which equals to consumption of entire AI industry
But it’s the easiest to acquire and the most universally accepted, I’ve used it to buy things and it wasn’t hard.
I’m not saying it’s perfect, I’m not commenting on the ethical aspects, the environmental impact, any of that. Your thoughts on that are probably perfectly valid. But, if your goal is to use money that nobody can stop you from using, right now, Bitcoin is the right choice.
I mean, there is another good reason - privacy. Bitcoin is hardly private, which is the reason even dark web stopped using it and moved to privacy coins.
I mean as a buyer, use whatever coins you want, that’s fine. It’s not like you have to choose just one. You’re only limited by what coins any given store is willing to accept. That said, Bitcoin is accepted in more places than any other crypto. Similarly, there are more people with Bitcoin accounts than any other crypto. So as a seller, if you want to offer an option that more people can use, Bitcoin also makes sense from that angle.
But honestly, do whatever you want. Really that is the strength of crypto, the freedom to make your own choice and the inability of anyone else to stop you.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Rules
1. Submissions have to be related to games
Video games, tabletop, or otherwise. Posts not related to games will be deleted.
This community is focused on games, of all kinds. Any news item or discussion should be related to gaming in some way.
2. No bigotry or harassment, be civil
No bigotry, hardline stance. Try not to get too heated when entering into a discussion or debate.
We are here to talk and discuss about one of our passions, not fight or be exposed to hate. Posts or responses that are hateful will be deleted to keep the atmosphere good. If repeatedly violated, not only will the comment be deleted but a ban will be handed out as well. We judge each case individually.
3. No excessive self-promotion
Try to keep it to 10% self-promotion / 90% other stuff in your post history.
This is to prevent people from posting for the sole purpose of promoting their own website or social media account.
4. Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
This community is mostly for discussion and news. Remember to search for the thing you’re submitting before posting to see if it’s already been posted.
We want to keep the quality of posts high. Therefore, memes, funny videos, low-effort posts and reposts are not allowed. We prohibit giveaways because we cannot be sure that the person holding the giveaway will actually do what they promise.
5. Mark Spoilers and NSFW
Make sure to mark your stuff or it may be removed.
No one wants to be spoiled. Therefore, always mark spoilers. Similarly mark NSFW, in case anyone is browsing in a public space or at work.
6. No linking to piracy
Don’t share it here, there are other places to find it. Discussion of piracy is fine.
We don’t want us moderators or the admins of lemmy.world to get in trouble for linking to piracy. Therefore, any link to piracy will be removed. Discussion of it is of course allowed.
Here in Europe, GOG support pretty much all the local payment systems (they’ll make available as selection the ones for your country on checkout) most of which are pretty straightforward to use nowadays an even come integrated with the banking phone apps.
Personally I switched from Paypal to one of those on my GOG purchases due to the whole censorship debacle.
PS: Steam is the same, by the way.
This whole payment crackdown situation seems like one of the actually valid uses of crypto.
It extremely is, unfortunately the whole space is still unregulated and 99.9% of coins are just vehicles for speculation and serve no real use as a financial product due to transaction speeds and fees.
I’ve been around the crypto space for quite a while now and its way more regulated than it ever was. 10 years ago, it seemed like it was a way for the people to control their money (before investment minded crypto bros ruined it all). Steam accepted it, you could buy things with it. Now it’s hard to get it without sending a photo of your ID to some exchange.
But regulating crypto is the best way to kill it. It’s a pain to have to go though KYC currently
Sure but I’ve bought things where the site used a credit card crypto system where you bought some crypto that got immediately paid to the site. Sure it’s a shifty middle man situation but adding crypto address to steam payments could be a way to get around credit cards. Ie you can only buy Tentacle Demon Titty Twisters with Solana or whatever.
I checked… This isn’t a real game (yet).
I’m slightly disappointed.
Sorry you’re learning this now but… you just paid through a normal card. The crypto is just sold in real time and makes up the balance
It wouldn’t help in the situation where the payment processor refuses
We need a proper KYC-less way of paying in crypto, and have games that can only be bought in crypto instead of being removed from the store
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.
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).
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!
Ok, but who cares about the 99.9% of coins… If you’re buying something, use Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is the one that’s useless. It was the first crypto using very inefficient methods that don’t scale well, resulting in extremly high fees, times and power consumption, which equals to consumption of entire AI industry
But it’s the easiest to acquire and the most universally accepted, I’ve used it to buy things and it wasn’t hard.
I’m not saying it’s perfect, I’m not commenting on the ethical aspects, the environmental impact, any of that. Your thoughts on that are probably perfectly valid. But, if your goal is to use money that nobody can stop you from using, right now, Bitcoin is the right choice.
I mean, there is another good reason - privacy. Bitcoin is hardly private, which is the reason even dark web stopped using it and moved to privacy coins.
I mean as a buyer, use whatever coins you want, that’s fine. It’s not like you have to choose just one. You’re only limited by what coins any given store is willing to accept. That said, Bitcoin is accepted in more places than any other crypto. Similarly, there are more people with Bitcoin accounts than any other crypto. So as a seller, if you want to offer an option that more people can use, Bitcoin also makes sense from that angle.
But honestly, do whatever you want. Really that is the strength of crypto, the freedom to make your own choice and the inability of anyone else to stop you.
Bitcoin is probably one of the worse options for regular transactions imho
Use monero, it’s what bitcoin was supposed to be.