This year has very much been the year that NFTs rose to prominence thanks to auctions fetching millions of dollars and an ecosystem that is constantly growing.
In recent months you’ve likely come across games that make use of cryptocurrency or NFTs, but you won’t find those games on Steam, at least not anymore.
According to a report from Engadget, Steam made a quiet change to its Steamworks onboarding rules in early October. Among the myriad rules for what you shouldn’t publish on Steam a new rule reads, “Applications built on blockchain technology that issue or allow exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTs”.
It’s unclear why Steam made this change, but some developers have said that it’s because NFTs have value and Valve doesn’t want to allow games and applications that offer items with real-world value on the platform.
Community: A few minutes ago, we were notified that @Steam will be kicking *all blockchain games* off the platform, including Age of Rust, because NFTs have value. Behind the scenes, we've had good communication and have been upfront with Steam. #blockchaingames #NFT
1/4 pic.twitter.com/W4pR3Xl63q— Age of Rust (@AgeofRust) October 14, 2021
This makes a degree of sense given that these systems could be gamed and insuring that doesn’t happen would surely be a headache for Valve.
What is unclear at this stage is how many games and developers this rule change affects. According to Engadget’s report, there are at most 64 games that would be removed from Steam.
Where would they go? It seems as if Epic Games would be open to allowing games that make use of blockchain tech onto its platform. Of course, this isn’t a guarantee but there is clearly a market for games that use blockchain technology and if Epic can capitalise on the demand, it could create a unique offering for the platform that Steam isn’t invested in.
Of course, an entirely new player could enter the market specifically for blockchain based games but how the future plays out is unknown.
[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]
