Topic: Steam Wallet

[idolminds]

Add money to your Steam account!

So can anyone come up with a reason why they would need this? They don't allow you to transfer funds to others, so thats out. Maybe they are going to offer prepaid cards soon? Right now its kind of useless other than making Steam accounts even more attractive to hijackers.

[MysterD]

Add money to your Steam account!

So can anyone come up with a reason why they would need this? They don't allow you to transfer funds to others, so thats out. Maybe they are going to offer prepaid cards soon? Right now its kind of useless other than making Steam accounts even more attractive to hijackers.

Can you "gift" money into someone else's Steam-wallet?

EDIT:
Oh, I think I answered my own post by quoting you....
If there's no way to "gift" money to others, what's the point?

Why would I just dump any X amount of money into my own Steam-wallet for a future usage? Why not use my credit card when a game I want is on sale and when I actually need to use it?

Why would Steam go for prepaid cards? Isn't a pre-paid card more useful for say MMO's, in which you an often pre-pay for a good span of time on a monthly-fee based game?

[idolminds]

Currently to get someone a gift on Steam you must know their account name, you have to have your own Steam account, you have to know which specific game the other person wants, and you have to use your credit card.

A Steam prepaid card you could simply choose an amount and can pay for it in cash. Send it to them in a Christmas card or whatever. Easy, your grandma could do it.

Physical goods FTW.

[gpw11]

Does steam work with a bank account?   If not, prepaid cards could be the answer.  I imagine itnwouldn't be long before we see Steam cards on sale at Best Buy.

On the supplier side, there's a definite benefit for them. It could possibly reduce credit card transaction fees by lumping small purchases together into a larger one.  Why anyone with a credit card would partake is beyond me though (budgeting?).

[idolminds]

Yeah, some people have mentioned budgeting. Like putting $100 in during the Christmas sale and using that as your spending limit. Otherwise "Oh, this game is only $5. This ones only $10!" and soon enough you've spent $200 on games.

A use, but I imagine Valve has something else in mind for its use.

[MysterD]

Shacknews -> Running the Steam wallet story.
Shacknews' forum members are speculating all kinds of stuff on there, such as...

Lower the number of singular cheap $2.00 or less transactions.
F2P games w/ micro-transactions may get their micro-transactions content sold over Steam.
Some F2P games might even just use Steamworks ONLY straight-up.
Refunds might be given into Steam-wallet (like say how store-credit is done) instead of cash.

Kids can avoid using their parents' credit cards.
Kids who have Steam accounts can buy Steam-wallet pre-paid cards.
Parents can allot an X amount of $ to their kids to spend.

[idolminds]

Steam doesn't give refunds.

[MysterD]

Steam doesn't give refunds.

There is ONE exception...

We can make an exception for pre-ordered games if the request is received prior to the release date.

[Xessive]

There's one feature I wish Steam (and the various other digital distributors) could have: the ability to gift (or even sell) games in the list. I have a couple pof games on there that I will never play again and I'd love to pass them along to my brother or friends. Basically, being able to hand over the license to whoever I choose.

[idolminds]

Yeah, I think that would be a great feature. You might get people grouping together and buying one copy of the game to pass around, but thats easily stopped. Limit license transfers to once every 6 months per copy. I think that would be reasonable. I'd probably end up passing out most everything on my Steam list (especially the multiplayer games that I don't even touch anymore).

Of course any group that would attempt to pass around a single copy like that probably aren't morally opposed to pirating the thing outright so...what are you worried about?

[scottws]

There's one feature I wish Steam (and the various other digital distributors) could have: the ability to gift (or even sell) games in the list. I have a couple pof games on there that I will never play again and I'd love to pass them along to my brother or friends. Basically, being able to hand over the license to whoever I choose.

That would be a nice feature, but it's too noble for Valve (or seemingly anyone else for that matter).

[idolminds]

Especially considering the other thread...you don't own the game so you can't transfer the license. This is what all the game companies have been dreaming of. The first DD service to offer such a thing will have all support pulled by the publishers.

[Xessive]

It seems one of the primary objectives of DD is to eliminate second-hand sales. So much so that even hand-me-downs are deemed unacceptable transactions. It's all just more reason for me to miss the physical media age, even though physical media is limited to tangible reality but digital media can be duplicated indefinitely. It's kinda ironic.

[Pugnate]

STEAM WALLET IS AWESOME!

Credit card use is really expensive from here, especially for US transactions.... so this is much easier for me. I do one transaction of $100 and then that's it.

Plus, I can use my credit card on steam now! In the past we were always running into "your IP address doesn't match your card region" or some crap, but that's been resolved.