- Steam’s new regulations will have negative effects on crypto-based games
- Developers are already voicing their concerns over the decision
- Epic embraces crypto-based and NTFs unlike its main competitor
Steam’s new rules and regulations ban all crypto-based games from their online store. On the other hand, Epic seems to embrace them.
Steam Effectively Bans Blockchain Games
Ever since its creation in 2003, Steam has been a staple in the gaming industry, accounting for a massive part of the online sales and distribution of games, with some people even accusing them of monopolizing the market. Whether these claims are true or not, the numbers speak for themselves as Steam services over 125m active users and has over 50k games on its store.
With so many games and users, the platform needs moderation on payment methods and recently these have been updated. The new changes specifically make mention of cryptocurrencies. On October 14, Steam specifically mentioned “applications built on blockchain technology” in their onboarding rules. This new ruling will effectively ban all crypto-based games from its online store.
Game Developers Are Not Happy
Naturally not everyone is pleased with the new changes, as it will affect not only buyers but also the game creators themselves. The Age of Rust developers expressed their concerns in a Twitter thread.
As well as voicing their concerns, the devs also said they had good communication with Steam and wanted to explain their point of view. They said that Steam thinks that items have value and they don’t allow items that can have real-world value on their platform.
The changes will impact other games with blockchain integration, such as Mir4. According to the game’s official website, a player can earn DRACO, which is its own custom cryptocurrency, which was already a point of controversy amongst the player base, probably leading to the game’s increasing number of negative ratings.
Epic Welcomes Crypto
Epic has been rising in popularity in the last few years, becoming one of Steam’s biggest competitors. So the fact that the company announced they will be embracing games that support cryptocurrency or blockchain-based assets probably shouldn’t surprise many people.
Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic, posted on Twitter about the decision, saying that as long as games follow the relevant laws, disclose their terms, and are age-rated by an appropriate group, then they are welcomes to the platform.
He said one reason for this decision is that Epic would like to work for innovation in the areas of technology and finance. The company would be willing to work with “early developers” in the world of NFTs, too.
Epic has been trying to climb up the ladder of major games distributors, and perhaps Steam’s decision will be a mistake they will regret in the future.
