Steam Wallet Beta Now Available

The Steam Wallet, Steamworks’ newest feature, is now available for public testing. With Steam Wallet, you can add value to your Steam account using any of the payment methods supported by Steam. Funds in your Steam Wallet may then be used to buy any item available on the Steam store, or combined with other payment methods to make a purchase.

To check out the beta in Steam client simply click here:
steam://storeurl/steamaccount/addfunds

If you would like to test in your browser, please visit:
http://store.steampowered.com/steamaccount/addfunds/

To help Valve test this new feature, now in beta, click here and follow the instructions available there. Remember, even in beta, purchases are real (no refunds). You should only fund with money you actually plan to use on Steam. And as always, please report any feedback here on the forums.

Here are some of our concerns:

1) Where are the money stored? Is Steam suddenly a bank?

2) What security measures did Valve take to actually prevent hijacking accounts in order to steal money (imagine sending Steam funds to your friends in the future)?

I’m sure you guys will find a lot more concerns although it may lead to good stuff like Steam Cards being distributed very soon just like on iTunes (like cards worth $5, $10, $15 etc.).

Update:

Recent changes to the Steam Subscriber Agreement say that the funds cannot be transferred to a different account (or refunded, for that matter).

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16 responses to “Steam Wallet Beta Now Available”

  1. rottencat Avatar
    rottencat

    Using this wallet system, Valve and publishers can also give money to you. For example rebates (very popular in US). Buy now and get some % of money back later. Also they can start some kind of affiliate program – you make your friend to buy game you earn cash. Or they can give money to contest winners or complimentary dollar for those who wast ceratin amount of money during certain campaign. Possibilities are quite endless. More flexibility.

    But I guess the whole idea is to make children beg their parents to load € xxx to their Steam account as a birthday/christmas gift instead of plush bear or something like that.

  2. Mavi Avatar

    This is bad… just another great reason to hackers to exert efforts to hijack more accounts with money on it..

  3. H4ndy Avatar
    H4ndy

    Advantage is to add money e.g. to your child’s account for their own usage, but I guess any good parents want to know want games their children are playing so this is good and bad at the same time.

  4. ryuga81 Avatar
    ryuga81

    Well, i feel MUCH more secure by entrusting my CC info to only one place (PayPal), rather than having many sites with my own CC info and stuff. That’s the entire point of PayPal.

  5. slay Avatar
    slay

    I guess that they want their own Paypal there :)

    Probably they just want to make buying easier to customers (which means of course more sales). Consolidate everything into one environment without connecting to third party places, like banks, paypals, etc.

    And also this is not any revolutionary thing. There are Bioware points, Microsoft points, Ubisoft points etc, which can be used to purchase games, DLC’s or whatever stuff you want. But they didn’t name them Valve points, they use the same currency as in normal life.

    I personally am neutral about this stuff. I may even start using it, when I get over the laziness of changing the payment method.

  6. John Avatar
    John

    IF you can get a discount when you use a Steam Wallet i will say YES, if not, i will not use it.

  7. Keys4.me Avatar

    AndreiD but surely food, mortgage/rent, living costs should come first. Who wants to add 100 euros only to get to the last 2 days in the month and have no food? Playing games won`t feed your hungar. I`d rather buy games as a treat when I know I have spare cash, than gamble that some expense isn`t going to crop up mid-month because your car breaks down and needs repairing or your roof starts leaking.

    You can just as easily leave 100 euros on your visa/bank etc. If you know you can afford that on games then what does it matter if it sits in your bank or the Steam-Bank?

    This steam bank has to offer an advantage and up until now I can`t see one. I feel my money is safer in my bank than in a non-european company in e-dollars :D

  8. AndreiD Avatar
    AndreiD

    The advantage is that when people like me get their salaries, they can just add, let’s say, 100 euros to their accounts and not care if they have enough money or not on their VISAs at the end of the month or not. If this is going to be done right, it’s going to be quite an ok feature. Also, if you get hacked, than you’re to blame. I’ve been on steam for several years, and although people tried, I did not get my account hijacked, you have to be really stupid in order to let yourself hacked (also, firefox with noscript is good, just as a fyi).
    I don’t think steam will be a bank. I think they just charge your credit card and the funds you will have on your account will just be something like steam credits.

  9. Dragoon Avatar
    Dragoon

    I’m still trying to figure where is the advantage for me as customer to give Valve my money before I buy anything?
    At least the bank gives me interest for storing my money there, what gives me Steam? Not a disabled account at best I hope? :D
    The guys at Valve are really funny. Always good for some humor.

  10. Jibece Avatar
    Jibece

    Well, if I buy 10€, I’ll be able to pay in £/$ without VPN/friends who live in america/other far country?
    Or too good to be true?

  11. Fatdude Avatar
    Fatdude

    Well this is still hackable.Lets say that your account got hacked with $40 in it.Hacker buys a game as a gift.He then sells the game to someone else getting the money to his account and seding the gift.When user takes the control he either will ask steam for a refun which will disable the account of the person recieved the gift or he wont get a refund and hocker got himself $40 or he sent the gift to himself.

    Bad idea imo.

  12. Mailia Avatar
    Mailia

    I too have a hard time finding the point of this. Maybe if I could donate this to an another account, then yes. It would be like giving a gift card. But giving one to yourself? No, thanks.

  13. stranded Avatar

    Now since we know that the money can’t be sent to anyone (Steam friends) or whatever what is the fucking point of this? Who would keep money on some unsecure Steam account?

    And the other thing bugs me too, you can add 5€, 10€, 15€ etc but what if the fucking game costs 11€? Why would I send 15€ there?

  14. Faky Avatar
    Faky

    Huh? And whats the point of this?

    When i see something worth my money i buy it – then and there. I can’t see any good reason (for me) to “pay in advance”. For them its another matter since they get money for nothing plus some interest from it.

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