Steam banned NFT games. Is this going to be a huge problem for the play2earn space? Will it slow the growth of the NFT gaming movement?
Steam is a huge gaming platform that many people use as their main portal for all PC gaming. I know I've got dozens of games in my Steam account that I might want to play at any given time. Yet, I cannot get myself to give a shit about this ban.
Let me explain why I think this Steam ban is not going to be a problem.
The Ban
The new ban on cryptocurrency games was communicated via a subtle addition of one new rule in the terms of service. Rule 13, freshly added, bans "Applications built on blockchain technology that issue or allow exchange of cryptocurrencies or NFTs."
This is no half-assed ban, this is not a grey area that Steam can use to make judgements as they go... it's a full out ban with no exceptions. If your game is built on blockchain, it's fucked.
Honestly I'm not surprised. For people in the play2earn bubble, they might think that NFT gaming is an obvious trend that cannot fail. I am a true believer so I get it. But for people outside of this space, I can completely understand that this whole thing might sound like a scam at first.
You can get cryptocurrency from playing video games now. Gamers are getting rich!
This is the same thing that Bitcoin itself went through. Ten years ago the idea of a decentralized digital currency that would compete with the US Dollar sounded like absurd horseshit. It sounded like a scam to a lot of people. Then many of us started doing research, and the truth of blockchain became real: holy shit, this technology makes sense!
Play2earn, or Game-Fi, or whatever name it gets, is a lot like that. Big institutions are not likely to embrace it at first since it's so easy to criticize or worry about.
play2earn is too strong to be stopped by Steam
Here's the thing: play2earn can't be stopped by Steam.
Play2earn is big enough and so strong of a trend that if Steam refuses to integrate it into their platform, steam will eventually be fucked. This is a case of Steam putting ITSELF at risk, not putting play2earn games at risk.
Will this hurt specific games that were relying on Steam for sales and promotion? Yes, and I'm not happy about it. That blows. Nonetheless, for the long run, Steam can't stop this. In fact, they're offering a competitive advantage to their competitors.
Including Epic.
I would not be surprised if Steam backpedals very soon and decides to allow certain NFT games under specific conditions. In the long run, the only thing this ban does is hurt Steam and ensure that new marketplaces will have more of a chance to gain traction.
What do you think? Is this Steam ban a big deal?