Steam introduces possibility to pay with bitcoin

Valve has added a payment option to Steam: gamers can now also pay with bitcoins. Valve uses payment provider BitPay. Publishers and developers are paid by Valve in regular currency.

BitPay announces the arrival of bitcoin payments on Steam on its blog. The function has already been activated and it is immediately possible to pay with bitcoins. Last week there was already a message that Valve had sent to developers explaining the new payment method.

According to BitPay, Valve added the option to pay with bitcoins because the company was looking for a fast international payment method for emerging markets like India, China and Brazil. In such countries, options such as paying by credit card or via PayPal are not always available.

By running the bitcoin transactions through a payment provider, there is no risk for publishers and developers who sell their games on Steam. They do not have to attach a bitcoin price to their game; it is converted by the payment provider on the basis of the current price in the currency of the country of purchase.