NFT-försäljning har ju varit på tapeten nu de senaste månaderna och även spridit sig till spelindustrin och spel. Överlag ses det på med skepticism, men spelutvecklare som EA, Ubisoft och Team 17 ser potential i blockkedje-teknologin. På STEAM är NFTs dock förbjudna trots att de tillåter annan typ av digital försäljning så som skin till Counter-strike och hattar till Team Fortress 2.
Gabe Newell förklarar varför:
"The things that were being done were super sketchy,"
"And there was some illegal shit that was going on behind the scenes, and you're just like, yeah, this is bad. Blockchains as a technology are a great technology, that the ways in which has been utilised are currently are all pretty sketchy. And you sort of want to stay away from that.”
"We have the same problem when we're accepting cryptocurrencies, 50 percent of the cryptocurrency paid for transactions were fraudulent, right? You look at that and you're like, well, that's bad. And then cryptocurrency volatility meant that people had no idea what price that they were actually paying. Yes, they were anchored to a cryptocurrency, but most people's wages are not in cryptocurrencies.”
"So they're like, how come I just paid $498 US dollars for this product? And if the answer is, you know, that's what happens when you have a highly volatile currency that you're paying for. That's like, today, you paid 99 cents for it tomorrow, you're going to pay $498 for and people that make people super cranky. So it just wasn't a good method. The people who are currently active in that space are not usually good actors."
Så om vi ska tro Newell verkar det inte som om STEAM kommer anamma NFTs inom den närmaste framtiden i alla fall.
