According to Neowin, the changes were first spotted by SpacePirate Games, the developer behind the blockchain-based Age of Rust game. The report says Valve has given the company a notice saying that it will be phasing out games based on blockchain technology that allow for the exchange of cryptocurrencies or non-fungible tokens (NFTs). The reason Valve gives is that Steam’s stance is not to allow items of real value on their platform. NFTs and games based on blockchain technology would not fit this view.
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Steam may have to rethink its new regulations? |
It is also worth noting that Valve has a dedicated marketplace that allows the exchange of in-game items. These items can be worth several hundred or even thousands of dollars in real-world currency depending on their rarity and need. Valve also cuts all transactions, so it makes no sense for the company to apply the rule to blockchain-based technologies and ignore its own operations.
In addition, Valve also added rule number 13 to its list of guidelines, which prohibits content that incites hate speech or sexual images of real people, among other things. However, Valve has yet to make an official comment on the matter.
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While Valve says no to blockchain-based games, Epic Games CEO and co-founder, Tim Sweeney, tweeted that the company’s store is open to blockchain-based games. The Epic Games Store will welcome games that use blockchain technology as long as they follow relevant laws, disclose their terms, and are age-categorized by an appropriate group, the Epic CEO said. . While Epic does not use crypto in our games, we welcome innovation in the areas of technology and finance.”
“As a technology, blockchain is just a distributed transactional database with a decentralized business model that encourages investment in hardware to expand the capacity of the database. This has utility whether a particular use succeeds or fails,” added Sweeney.
While the current blockchain-based game market may not be large, it remains to be seen whether the mass departure of affected developers from Steam to the Epic Games Store will force Valve to revert its policies. myself again or not.
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