Users have been lobbying for Valve to introduce bitcoins as a form of payment to the digital marketplace for years, and as of this morning it looks like the company has finally agreed.
A user on reddit has posted a screenshot from the private Steamworks Development group on Steam, where it was supposedly announced today that Steam will begin accepting bitcoin payments.
The post reportedly says that users are charged the local currency price at checkout — that’ll be US dollars for Australians, because AUD still isn’t supported — and then an external payment processor will convert that figure into bitcoins using a daily exchange rate.
“The user pays [the developer] in bitcoin, and the processor pays us in traditional currency. At no point does Valve receive or hold bitcoin,” the post reads.
Valve also confirmed to CoinJournal that they sent a letter to publishers and developers about the upcoming change.
Update: We’ve heard from Valve, confirming that the letter was sent from them to developers and publishers #Bitcoin pic.twitter.com/u7N9wiJPTN
— Coinjournal (@CoinJournal) April 22, 2016
Some sites already accept bitcoins as a form of payment for third-party Steam keys, and the alliance between the digital marketplace and the digital currency makes sense.
I can imagine who stocked up on bitcoins early on, and now wants a HTC Vive is feeling pretty good. It also represents the first opportunity Australians will have to pay for games in local currency, as we would be able to convert AUD to bitcoin first, rather than having to convert AUD to USD.
Comments
7 responses to “You’ll Be Able To Buy Steam Games With Bitcoins”
Now you can spend it on more than just drugs and child porn.
iphones, waffles, pizza, house, cars, shoes, maybe you should look next time.
Shithead only likes 3 things in life. Games, drugs and child porn. Leave him be.
REALLY? How dare you say that? I do not care about games.
For the best really, games are far more addictive than crack
You can buy a house with bitcoins?!
In Australia?
Not allowed to link it, but there was a house for sale in Perth back in 2013 for $1.4mil which was one of the first in Aus.
Also, I understand that many real estate agencies in Sydney now accept bitcoins (though mainly for international *cough*Chinese*cough* investors, so it’s not really advertised locally – but you can always ask!). They should at least accept deposits.
Settlements are done in AUD just like any regular foreign currency transaction.
Figures that they’d add Bitcoins before AU$. I suspect they will add a goat-based barter system before they get around to us.