PayPal Coming to Steam?

[CSN NewsBot]

In what can be currently considered a mere rumor, there seems to be some indications that PayPal may be coming to Steam. The payment service has gone long unused by Valve, possibly due to a lack of buyer and seller security, in addition to the system lacking strong age verification means. Fear not, would-be and hopeful electronic buyers, there may still be hope for you yet.



In an interview with Valve's Gabe Newell, a German news site was the first to catch wind of this information. The news was later revealed in a rough English translation on the Steam forums.

While in the US and other parts of the world credit cards are really popular, in some countries credit cards are rarely used by anyone. One and probably the most important example (for Steam) is Germany, where only a few people have a credit card.

Steam currently only supports credit cards, no other payments are accepted. This is a huge drawback for people without a credit card. Nevertheless last month more Steam games were bought in Germany than in the US - according to Gabe Newell.

Certainly, nothing has been confirmed or announced yet about just how concrete the probability of PayPal being used on Steam is. There are still a number of obstacles to overcome before something like this would see the light of day.



Oh, and since I was browsing around the site containing the interview, I figured I'd link to the display booth for Valve from the convention. They do love their crates.

[snkcube]

That's a huge crate.

[Bokuho]

Cool crate.



Balls to the rest though.

[mr spoon]

I've bought games on Steam without a credit card, I used debit instead. So this doesn't help me in that respect.

[ZEROarmy]

Why don't many people have credit cards in Germany?

[Tesko.Pk]

WOOT, though it doesn't matter now that I recently turned 18 and can just go and get a CC... but oh well, pretty cool nonetheless.

[DaRk-AnGeL]

In Germany they deduct the credit amount from your bank directly (If you have money in your account). It operates more like a hybrid debit / credit card in many respects. I think :P



However. Finally some love for us UK people who don't have an amex or visa.

[Zips]

I'm a fan of the debit/credit card hybrid. I have one myself and it's nice to sometimes not spend more than what I have in my account if possible. Great way to avoid getting into debt.

[Syx]

Zips wrote..

I'm a fan of the debit/credit card hybrid. I have one myself and it's nice to sometimes not spend more than what I have in my account if possible. Great way to avoid getting into debt.

That's the point of a credit card.

If you want to build up your credit, don't use it for anything you can't pay for in cash.

[Zips]

Syx wrote..

That's the point of a credit card.

If you want to build up your credit, don't use it for anything you can't pay for in cash.

If I could pay for it in cash right then and there, I'm going to. Hence why I use the "Debit" portion more than anything.

[borsdy]

PayPal on Steam would be fucking excellent.

[Gpig]

I still don't understand why steam doesn't have cards you can buy in stores. Put them with the MMORPG time cards or put them up next to the counter in a display box. Have like $5, $15, and $50 cards. It would make it so people without credit cards could easily get the games they wanted over steam. They could put the logos for Half-Life, CS, DoD, Osfront, Popcap games, and like Darwinia on the display box. I guess if they could do it they would have done it already.

[Mikemike 2.0]

gpig, that would destroy the whole idea of not having to go to a store, otherwise then why not just go out and buy the whole game originally in the store. but yeah they really should have brought paypal over a while ago, and i know paypal is a lot tighter with online security now than it has been in the past year or two-ish. but i still dont see it happening

[Gpig]

Mikemike 2.0 wrote..

gpig, that would destroy the whole idea of not having to go to a store, otherwise then why not just go out and buy the whole game originally in the store. but yeah they really should have brought paypal over a while ago, and i know paypal is a lot tighter with online security now than it has been in the past year or two-ish. but i still dont see it happening

For the same reason that they sell MMORPG cards in stores rather than only having them available via credit cards: so people without credit cards or those too young can go and buy it. This means that for games that are steam exclusive they would be able to reach a much larger audience. I imagine one problem with it is that the stores have to get a profit margin out of selling the cards which, you're right, does partially defeat the purpose of steam having larger profit margins for developers.



If VALVe could just work out an exclusive deal with just one or two widespread chains like best buy or gamespot so that they could do it cheaply then it would work. VALVe could then sell Episode 2 as steam only and make an even nicer profit. Meh, there's obviously problems with the system (such as the retailer profit margin) or else they would have done it by now.

[DevgruSeal H.E]

Some people don't want to download the entire game though..With the CDs, they can download JUST the updates, not the entire game..