Valve chief Gabe Newell helped play host to a Reddit AMA - for real this time - and a question came up whether the Steam gaming platform would ever deal in digital tender.
"If there was enough community interest, would Valve accept cryptocurrency such as Dogecoin or Bitcoin on Steam?" pressed a Redditor.
The crypto-uncertainty of "GabeNewellBellevue" was palpable.
"There are two related issues: one is treating a cryptocurrency as another currency type that we support and the broader issue is monetary behaviors of game economies," Gaben wrote. "The first issue is more about cryptocurrencies stabilizing as mediums of account."
Newell knows best
Given the recent instability of Bitcoin exchanges and cryptocurrency's status as an unregulated entity, it's no surprise Newell isn't jumping at the bit to bring digital dollars to Steam.
The company has plenty on its plate already, what with launching SteamOS, Steam Controllers and Steam Machines with a variety of hardware partners.
Newell, who said he didn't intentionally cancel his AMA scheduled for 3/3 three minutes and 30 seconds before it was set to go live (it HAS to mean Half Life 3, people), has been leading a push to put Linux to the living room for some time now.
He noted in the thread that he thinks Linux is "probably" not only the future of gaming, but of the desktop as well.
Unfortunately for Bitcoin evangelists, it doesn't sound like he's convinced cryptocurrency is the future of gaming transactions. Yet.
