Steam, the world’s largest digital game distribution platform, has updated the Participation Process section on the Steamworks Documentation page. He made an addition to the rules he set for developers who will publish games in the store, which will attract the reaction of those who are closely related to the crypto money industry. The company stated that it will no longer allow NFTs (Non Fungible Tokens) and cryptocurrency trading.
“What should you not post on Steam?” under the heading Rules and Guidelines. In the 13th article, which was newly added to the section, the company explained the rule as follows: Applications built on blockchain technology that host cryptocurrency trading or NFT. According to the news on Engadget, this item was added to Steam on October 6th.
Reaction from game developers to Steam’s cryptocurrency ban
After the cryptocurrency trading and NFT embargo were exposed, reactions began to come to Steam. SpacePirate Games, the developer of the game Age of Rust, which gave NFT as a reward to users, said in a statement from its social media account:
Steam has informed us that it will remove all blockchain-based games from the platform. We’ve been honest about blockchain games and NFTs. But at the end of the day, we lost our battle with Steam. The removal of Age of Rust was disappointing. The bigger issue is the fact that blockchain games will be removed en masse.
Steam added cryptocurrency item to Rules page
SpacePirate further explained that Steam’s point of view is to not allow items of real world value. Adding that they respect this decision of the company, the developers expressed that they believe that NFTs and blockchain-based games have a future. Underlining that they will continue to produce more NFTs, SpacePirate emphasized that they will turn to other game stores.
The balance sheet of Steam’s cryptocurrency ban is not yet known. However, when the words “crypto” and “NFT” are searched in the store, more than 50 games come out. Of course, not all of them will be affected by the ban. Only those that are intended for cryptocurrency trading will be removed. For example, a game developed to simulate cryptocurrency mining will be exempt from Steam’s embargo.
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