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Okay so is Steam enough of a money printer for Valve to say "well fuck you guys, we'll make our own credit card with hookers and bingo"? And hold out Half-Life
by egypturnash 1y ago
Okay so is Steam enough of a money printer for Valve to say "well fuck you guys, we'll make our own credit card with hookers and bingo"? And hold out Half-Life 3 (only purchasable with the ValveCard) as a carrot?
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y agoI am genuinely curious who can actually threaten Visa (I do not think it is Valve). Amazon, Walmart, Target and then increasingly unsure.
- rib3ye 1y agoLikely Apple currently has the deepest finance industry roots.
- xyst 1y agoIf you consider the minutiae of percentage apple shaves off transactions with Apple Pay. Sure. But they have partnered with GS and MC. Far from any sort of "finance industry roots". They essentially offer a fancy UI on top of GS products and other traditional banks. Apple Cash -> Green Dot or some other no name bank Apple Card -> Goldman Sachs Apple Pay -> some very small percentage of the bank and network fees charged to merchants
- Razengan 1y agoHonestly, with how prevalent iPhones and Androids are today, specially among newer humans, if Apple and Google made a payment system that just transferred money between iPhone/Android, it could practically replace cash & cards for a lot of people. In some countries the vast majority of payments are done via phone apps for national payment systems already, bypassing Visa/Mastercard etc. entirely. Even kids pay for candy by phone.
- AdieuToLogic 1y ago>> I am genuinely curious who can actually threaten Visa (I do not think it is Valve). > Likely Apple currently has the deepest finance industry roots. Apple used a very large bank headquartered in the US for its credit card processing as of about ten years ago. Given that the cost of change is significant once these processes are put in place, it is likely this remains the case. Note that this is not the same as what Apple Pay supports.
- carlosjobim 1y agoMastercard?
- kabdib 1y agoIBM was not able to. Story from a friend-who-claimed-to-be-there: In days of yore, Visa did processing on IBM iron. The iron in question took a while to boot, and time is very definitely money to Visa and they wanted to speed up reboots (e.g., after a crash). Saving seconds = $$$. Visa to IBM: "Please give us the source code for the <boot path stuff>, it's costing us money." IBM: LOL Visa to some big banks: "Please tell IBM to give us the source code for this, it's costing you money." IBM, a little later: "Here's a tape. Need any help?"
- tkj922 1y agoFactually correct, I in fact even was that tape at the time
- AdieuToLogic 1y ago> I am genuinely curious who can actually threaten Visa (I do not think it is Valve). Visa is a clearing house whose members are banks. Think of it like a payment router between issuers (banks) and processors (banks). Only sponsored organizations can directly use the "Visa rails", where "sponsor" is defined as a bank, a bank subsidiary, or an entity previously sponsored by one of the other two. This is also the case for MasterCard and Discover. "Traditional" American Express is different though. > Amazon, Walmart, Target and then increasingly unsure. Those merchants use banks or one of their subsidiaries for processing credit card transactions. Most large merchants do as well in order to minimize their discount rate as well as other transaction fees. Smaller merchants often use ISO's or VAR's for business specific reason, knowing both ultimately transact with a bank or one of a bank's subsidiaries.
- manwe150 1y agoI thought Venmo was trying the most with their card offers, as well as PayPal, Cash, Google Pay and several others too
- AdieuToLogic 1y ago> I thought Venmo was trying the most with their card offers, as well as PayPal, Cash, Google Pay and several others too I know at least two of the above used to use a specific US bank for the credit card transactions backing their payment services. For others, if service usage requires a verified credit card or debit card backed by a credit card network, they too use a processor owned/operated by a bank, bank subsidiary, or an entity sponsored by same. EDIT: For payment services which do not require a credit card or debit card backed by a credit card network, they almost certainly use the ACH[0] network. This is a more intimate financial relationship and best used with a dedicated bank account not linked to any others, as fund transfers can be bidirectional. 0 - https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/ach-vs-check/ https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/ach-vs-check/
- pests 1y agoCashapp cards for me, for example, are backed by Sutton Bank Ltd out of Chicago.
- loeg 1y agoOnly the USG.
- fendy3002 1y agoThough unpopular, I'd say China is able to
- lmz 1y ago1) They already have that (Unionpay). 2) I don't think they are less prone to censoring things.
- mango7283 1y agohttps://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c056nle2drno https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c056nle2drno China would never! /s
- lmz 1y agoThere's also the gaming time limits[1] and the proposed(?) spending limit[2]. Probably a good thing, if you ask me... [1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58384457 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58384457 [2]: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-issues-draft-rules-online-game-management-2023-12-22/ https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-issues-draft-rules...
- ijk 1y agoOther payment processors, mostly. So other credit card companies (e.g. JCB [1]), government run payment services like Pix in Brazil [2], theoretically crypto, etc. [1] as a random example: https://archive.kyivpost.com/technology/japanese-payment-system-jcb-wants-to-enter-ukraine-challenge-visa-mastercard.html https://archive.kyivpost.com/technology/japanese-payment-sys... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pix_(payment_system) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pix_(payment_system)
- TkTech 1y agoAny coalition of banks can. Replacing Visa is a daunting task, but rolling out PoS support and the technical challenges are peanuts compared to actually getting banks onboard. Visa itself was started by a single bank, and Mastercard was started by a coalition of banks. They can do it again. Interac[1] is Canada's debit system, originally created as a non-profit by our largest banks way back in '84, and these days is supported everywhere. The large banks are already used to bullying their way through political or bureaucratic challenges, and a single Canadian bank typically has trillion(s) in managed assets - they _can_ bully Visa. Zelle[2] (2016) is a limited (etransfer only) clone for the American market, UPI (2016) in India, UnionPay (2002) in China, carte Bleue (1967) in France, etc etc. What's missing is cooperation between national systems like these, as well as lending as they typically only do debit instead of credit. Any cooperation between these systems would likely get spun out as a separate entity, which would eventually just turn into a new Visa or Mastercard - but 3 choices is better than 2. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interac [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zelle [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Payments_Interface
- FireBeyond 1y agoZelle won't become that. Zelle was designed to offload liability onto consumers using the carrot of instant transfers.
- zhivota 1y agoIt will be an ID number based payment service built on top of FedNow. In other countries similar services are used with QR codes to do easy payments.
- nottorp 1y ago> Amazon, Walmart, Target Those are all US companies so subject to the same puritan pressures. Their cards would still be good for buying ultra violent games but not sex games...
- jabroni_salad 1y agoWalmart was very supportive of fedNow for the express purpose of removing MasterCard from cashless purchases. And for a long time the only way to pay by phone was to allow them to debit via ACH. out of all of them they get it the most. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36012866 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36012866 And really, even banking isn't a safe harbor. I am pretty sure they were at the forefront of the rise in neobanks and products like green dot cards.
- petermcneeley 1y agoI mean a bank is literally a money printer.
- elcritch 1y agoOn a serious side note, only certain banks get to print money.
- HPsquared 1y agoThey don't physically print the notes, but they do magically add money to a person's account when they take a loan. That kind of thing is where most "money" (in banks, anyway) comes from. It's just like matter and antimatter being created at the same time, money and anti-money (debt) are created at the same time and when they meet, they cancel each other out. So borrowing literally creates money (and debt), and repaying debts literally deletes money (and debt).
- mulmen 1y agoHow does interest fit in here? Isn’t that what creates money AKA inflation?
- bfg_9k 1y agoWhat the poster you're replying to is talking about is called fractional reserve banking. That's how they "create" money.
- mitthrowaway2 1y agoNo, interest is a typical zero-sum transaction where the borrower spends and the lender earns. The loan itself represents a temporary net increase in the money supply, appearing from nothing and then vanishing when it is paid back.
- HPsquared 1y agoI'm a bit unsure what happens when a borrower defaults on their loan. The money that was borrowed remains out in circulation, but what happens to the debt (anti-money)? Does the bank itself use its own money to pay off the debt (deleting some of their own money), or do they simply delete the debt?
- benoau 1y agoThat's basically what gift cards are isn't it? > Leaked internal slides peg Steam’s net revenue last fiscal year at just under $10 billion https://www.simplymac.com/games/3-5m-per-employee-how-valve-quietly-became-the-most-profitable-gaming-company https://www.simplymac.com/games/3-5m-per-employee-how-valve-...
- xyst 1y agoSteam gift cards are funded by traditional banking products and partnerships. They can’t live without the invisible hand of the banking and credit card industry.
- mulmen 1y agoI like this (ab)use of the invisible hand meme. But in economics the “invisible hand” is more of a benevolent deity than a predictable mechanism. I propose “hidden hand” for what credit (card and rating) companies do.
- 8note 1y agoit really is the same invisible hand. the economics invisible hand is doing whatever the capital owners want the economy to do. weighing influence by capital is what makes visa have that power
- AStonesThrow 1y ago[dead]
- xyst 1y agoNope. Even a company such as valve would be intimidated by the regulation of setting up their own company payment network outside the traditional banking system. Maybe crypto is an option but I haven’t seen use in retail. Only speculation instrument. Apple tried. Failed. Google tried. Failed. Only thing that works is partnering up with existing bank
- ujkhsjkdhf234 1y agoDid Apple try? I don't recall. > Only thing that works is partnering up with existing bank Could Visa just reject payments from this bank and kill your whole thing?
- SJC_Hacker 1y agoI have seen crypto used for payments, particularly if its overseas companies
- soared 1y agoThe problem is if visa/etc say no, valve instantly loses ~70% of their sales. So it’s a bet they won’t win
- itsthecourier 1y agooh yes
- raincole 1y agoPractically impossible. To replace visa/mastercard you need to have thousands of banks support ValveCard across the world. It's hard to imagine how it's going to happen. Players will not switch to another (probably foreign) bank just to buy Half-Life 3. They'll pirate it. By the way, Gabe has a very famous quote: > Piracy is a service problem. He knows it very well that if it's hard for players to buy something they'll just get it free anyway. You can say he's probably the first person in the world who realized this idea profoundly enough to turn it into a business. It's very risky for Steam to make buying games even slightly harder.
- mulmen 1y agoWhy does ValveCard need to work anywhere other than Steam? Privacy.com manages to issue card numbers somehow. How does that work?
- bhaney 1y ago> Privacy.com manages to issue card numbers somehow. How does that work? Through Visa and Mastercard
- IlikeKitties 1y agoBy not working outside the US.
- devmor 1y agoPrivacy.com issues cards from the Visa and Mastercard networks. You can’t run your own card network easily because you would have to convince all of the merchant banks that take card transactions to do business with you. Digital money movement requires an operating agreement between at least two financial entities - but most of the time there’s a lot more. Depending on the type of transaction you may have two or more gateways, facilitators, processors, issuers and underlying banks involved. It’s a very fragmented system that relies on many, many different entities all having agreements and contracts with eachother.
- p_l 1y agoThey work with Visa and MasterCard to issue cards in systems run by both of them.
- devnullbrain 1y agoMy first thought is: obviously not. But if 10 years ago you'd asked me if Valve would be able to turn Linux into a serious gaming platform, I'd have answered the same. All that stemmed from an unlikely but existential fear that Microsoft could lock-down software distribution on Windows. My suspicion is that SteamOS sales and Steam Decks aren't actually profitable, they're just too valuable as a bargaining chip not to invest in. And Valve can invest in them, because they're rich and private. While Valve bigwigs probably aren't losing sleep over the missed revenue from incest games, having the rest of their revenue stream threatened might make them seek another form of insurance.
- airstrike 1y agoI mean, if there's one company that I believe could pull that off is Valve. And maybe Amazon. Maybe the two together. It would be one hell of a JV for both parties.
- Aeolun 1y agoI’m fairly certain they could but it wouldn’t exactly be fun right?