Valve Bans Games with Cryptocurrency on Steam

Recently, it seems that Steam has started banning games that allow for the trading of exchange of cryptocurrencies and NFTs on their platform. This is after an update to their Onboarding page for Steamworks users right here. Steam mentions that users should not publish “applications built on blockchain technology that issue or allow exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTs”.

What Happened?

On Twitter, some developers have also commented on this new rule including SpacePirate, the developer of Age of Rust. Age of Rust is a first-person adventure game which allows players to collect NFTs as a reward for solving puzzles. In a Twitter thread, they said that they are disappointed at the fact that Blockchain games as a whole are affected by this, and not only their game. They also say that Steam does not allow items with real-world value on their platform.

What’s an NFT?

NFTs stand for Non-Fungible Token. The “Non-Fungible” part means that they are one-of-a-kind. That means that no one else can acquire an NFT you already own. According to Forbes, NFTs are unique digital assets which represent real-world items. It could be things like art, music and in-game items. 

It isn’t clear how many Steam games will be affected by this rule. Currently, you can still find games with “crypto” and “NFT” in the title, though, not all of them allow for the trading of those things in-game. One of those games is Crypto Mining Simulator, which only lets you experience the “joys” of mining, without any actual results.

As far as we know, this new rule is not directly due to any cryptocurrency scandals or controversies. However, it seems that Steam’s competitors are also on the same page. CEO of the Epic Games Store, Tim Sweeney, tweeted that the company does not plan on touching NFTs, due to the whole field currently being intertwined with scams.

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