The team behind Steam, a digital distribution platform developed by Valve Corporation offering digital rights management, multiplayer gaming and social networking services, has announced that the platform will officially begin to accept payments via bitcoin.
Cointelegraph has reached out to Bitpay for more information about their partnership with Steam. We will continue to update the article as we receive more information from the Bitpay team.
Implementation of a third party Bitcoin application
Gaming giant Valve and the developers behind Steam hinted the integration of Bitpay on February 9, 2016, when some Steam users discovered a series of Bitpay command lines from Steam translation servers.
Some of the command lines included “bitcoin_payment_tips_text,” which are needed by Steam users to purchase rights to games and various services using bitcoin.
On April 21, the company officially announced the implementation of a third party Bitcoin application to enable its DRM users to purchase products and services using bitcoin.
“We are excited to announce that Steam is going to start accepting payments via bitcoin.,” said Valve Corporation software engineer Kurtis Chinn
Reaching more customers
The Steam development team will introduce its bitcoin payment option to Steam users in its next update.
Kurtis Chinn says:
“We’re using an external payment provider to process bitcoin payments to help partners reach more customers on Steam. Bitcoin is becoming an increasingly popular online payment method in some countries, and we’re enabling a system that insulates partners from risk and volatility while still providing value to end customer.”
Although the date of it is still undisclosed, Chinn explained that users that choose to pay using bitcoin will undergo the same payment process as normal users using credit cards or online payment processing platforms such as Paypal to purchase games and services.
While many bitcoin enthusiasts and online communities predict the integration of Bitpay considering the discovery of Bitpay command lines a few months ago, the Bitpay team hasn’t released any statement yet regarding their partnership with Steam.