Kinda sucks for me, as I’ve almost exclusively used gift cards for the last few years. I get a bonus tax-free credit card by my employer, which I can only use at retail stores. So those were a great way for me to use that card to buy games. It was also a good option for people who wanted to avoid payment providers like Visa/Mastercard etc. Oh well.

  • x00z@lemmy.worldEnglish
    71·
    5 months ago

    I hate this.

    People who are going to get scammed like this will get scammed in much stupider ways too. Not to mention the stores around here have most Steam gift cards right next to the Paysafe cards.

  • Xerxos@lemmy.mlEnglish
    3·
    5 months ago

    On the one hand, I can understand the people who used Steam cards being pissed. On the other hand, I’m impressed with Steam for putting scamming victims over profit.

    Remember: Valve made money from gift cards, whether from scammers or legit users. They chose to give up this money just to avoid supporting the scammers. If everybody did this, scammers would have a much harder time.

    • cardfire@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      5 months ago

      I, too, imagine at least 20% of this is altruism, while realistically I would expect Vance to Valva not lose much of that revenue entirely.~~ ~~

      Of all of the ways to populate a steam wallet legitimately, Valve authorizing and paying for those keys to be printed on paper stock, and then distributed across the globe, and maintaining the support apparatus around that entire supply chain, has to cost more overhead versus someone just using their debit account or digital payment processor on the Steam website.

      Edit : a word

  • chunes@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    5 months ago

    You can’t lock kids away from the internet and then do this. Pick one.

    I remember being able to walk into any store and you’d see a huge wall of gift cards for WoW, PlanetSide, City of Heroes, etc. My childhood would’ve sucked if I hadn’t been able to pay for my MMO subscriptions that way.

  • thingsiplay@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    5 months ago

    This is a huge blow to me. I’m not sure what to do now, because the Steam Gift cards was a major reason to use Steam for me.

  • pulsewidth@lemmy.worldEnglish
    54·
    5 months ago

    They just see gift cards as a small portion of the market and can’t be bothered dealing with their problems anymore. There are other ways they could approach the issue: eg gift cards can only be for buying games, not DLC or in-game credit. Would lower their utility to thieves/scammers enormously - as they attempt to on-sell the cards in grey markets asap, or buying in-game items and immediately trading them (before the scam is reported).

    This response sucks and it feels pretty fucking weak for a company as filthy rich as Steam.

    Credit cards have many of the same problems, but I’m sure they won’t be bailing on them anytime soon (and insisting on linked bank accounts or something).

  • SethranKada@lemmy.caEnglish
    11·
    5 months ago

    Yeah, this is kind of old news though. Steam gift cards, along with razor cards, stopped being sold in stores years ago.

    Now all the scammers have moved on to play store and apple cards, and we’ve had to store them behind the counter because people steal them. Yes, even though they’re worthless until you pay, people still steal it.