The gaming landscape has changed greatly in the past few years, with trends around microtransactions (MTX), loot boxes, and pay to win mechanics taking hold. It's an unfortunate reality, but one largely fueled by bottom lines - what is the maximum value that can be extracted from players? As such, it's not a surprise Valve blocked blockchain games from its Steam platform.
A Steamy Situation
Steam is the arguably largest and most well known of the various PC gaming platforms. Age of Rust and Lightnite have been removed already, though Synergy of Serra's listing still remains as of the time of writing. If it will remain past the game's release is unknown. These removals are an effect of the change to the Rules and Guidelines for publishing on Steam:
13 . Applications built on blockchain technology that issue or allow exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTs.
So why are blockchain games bannable, but not games that are "asset flips" or have thousands of dollars of DLC? It's speculation, but likely for reasons brought up in the Epic versus Apple battle - Valve earns approximately 30% of sales through the platform. Allowing outside marketplaces for items/in game currency would cut into their share. More substantially however, is the freedom it'd give to gamers to sell their items and cash out.
Valve is no stranger to in game items, with loot crates and cosmetics implemented in games such as Team Fortress 2 and Counter Strike: Global Offensive. In fact the Steam Community Market allows players to "sell" those in some cases. The differences between this and NFT markets are stark though. While Valve does get a cut (5-10% of the listing), the credits are stuck in the Steam Wallet. The possibility of credits or items leaving Valve's control could have been a strong motivation for this policy implementation.
Is Epic the Answer?
Not wanting to waste an opportunity, Tim Sweeney tweeted out that blockchain games are welcome on the Epic Games Store. Previous comments indicate that Epic largely has no current plans to integrate blockchain tech with their own games - so likely no Fortnite NFTs in the near term. At best, this could be seen as a "status quo" move, nothing is blocking blockchain games from EGS, though there are the typical hoops to jump through.
The Way Forward
A blockchain based platform, Ultra is in development in an effort to fill the void created by traditional platforms banning blockchain projects. Most interestingly, is the claim that the game licenses and any DLC licenses purchased are blockchain items that could be tradable. The impact on creating an effective secondary market for digital games would be huge, something that previously has not existed in a large way.
Platforms are only as good as their content and userbase though. Both Atari and Ubisoft have partnered with Ultra in some capacity - the former launching a "blockchain enabled console", the VCS while the latter was the first corporate block producer of Ultra. It's unclear what blockchain games will be the flagship titles on the VCS yet, but it is a step in the right direction.
Ubisoft's involvement with blockchain technologies continues to grow with their recent investment into Animoca Brands, one of the largest blockchain gaming companies at the moment. It's doubtful we'll see NFTs in any mainstream Ubisoft AAA games, but between their investment into Animoca, partnering with Ultra, becoming a validator for Tezos, and running their Entrepeneurs Lab, there's definitely a large interest on their part. The UPlay platform for PC games is operated by Ubisoft, effectively giving them a launchpad for any experimental blockchain games - safe from the policies of other platforms.
Thanks for reading, and if you enjoy discussing blockchain gaming, consider joining the Crypto Gaming Guild on Discord.