Valve has announced that preparations are being made for bitcoin to be accepted as a payment method on its Steam storefront. The system will use an external payment provider, likely the Atlanta-based BitPay Inc., which is considered to be one of the biggest bitcoin payment processors in the world.
The announcement was made via a post to Steam’s private developer forms, which was then shared publicly on Reddit. The text refers to bitcoin as an “increasingly popular online payment method” and notes the company’s perspective that the payment method “makes Steam an even better place to buy or sell games.”
While developers are being made aware of the new options, they won’t have to do anything to help facilitate the process, according to a report from Tech Spot. Any fluctuations of the value of bitcoin compared to the various geographic currencies in use on Steam will be taken into account by the purchase process.
Users will be charged the purchase price of their content according to their region, which is then converted to bitcoin at checkout. The funds are then transferred to the payment provider, who will convert the bitcoin back to local currency using the latest exchange rates and pay that money back to Valve. At no point will Valve receive or hold bitcoin.
Bitcoin was invented back in 2008, and has since been adopted as a payment method by various online services and retailers. Last month, the fact that Microsoft appeared to end its acceptance of bitcoin payments on its online store was seen as a statement on the currency’s popularity — but the company soon made an about-face and confirmed that it would continue to accept bitcoin.
Valve hasn’t put a time frame on when users can expect to see bitcoin payments go live on the Steam storefront, but all signs point toward the change coming sooner rather than later.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.