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.
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).
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.
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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).