Valve reportedly halts Steam payments to developers in Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia

[Lindy Bomber]

https://www.nme.com/news/gaming-news/valve-reportedly-halts-steam-payments-to-developers-in-ukraine-3185466

I understand halting transactions in Belarus, and Russia, but why Ukraine? Are there technical reasons for this? has the banking system been compromised? Valve needs to clarify this.

[Crazy Tiger]

Could indeed be related to sanctions, which would mean it's not something Valve can do anything about.

https://digitnews.in/valve-has-suspended-payments-to-steam-game-developers-from-russia-belarus-and-ukraine/

Representatives of the Ukrainian Steam team posted on Facebook Valve’s “preliminary explanation”:

THE US GOVERNMENT HAS IMPOSED SANCTIONS AND IS BLOCKING A NUMBER OF BANKS THAT WORK WITH THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION OR ARE SOMEHOW CONNECTED WITH IT. “THEREFORE, IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE PAYMENTS TO THESE BANKS AT THE MOMENT.”

[Mad Scientist]

If true, and that's an IF, then likely Ukranian Developers will need to work with Valve to find an alternate way to receive payment(s) to a non-sanctioned (used by the Russian Federation) bank, etc.

As Crazy Tiger noted above.

[Brian9824]

Yeah it sounds like some Ukranian and Russian banks were closely connected and that is making it hard to separate them.

[JVC]

If the Ukrainian branch of a bank is a daughter company of a Russian bank, it makes perfect sense to include it in the sanctions. E.g. Sberbank operated in Ukraine until recently.

[Der Kaiser]

From what i read all payments to Ukraine developers were going through the Russian banking system which of course is no longer a option at the moment.
Same reason PayPal does not work for many things in Ukraine right now.

Its unfortunate but not malice on the part of Valve, they just cant get the money to the devs without going through Russia and thats not possible because of the sanctions at the moment.

[Lindy Bomber]

Originally posted by Genesic GaoGaiGar:

From what i read all payments to Ukraine developers were going through the Russian banking system which of course is no longer a option at the moment.
Same reason PayPal does not work for many things in Ukraine right now.

Its unfortunate but not malice on the part of Valve, they just cant get the money to the devs without going through Russia and thats not possible because of the sanctions at the moment.

That is what I suspected, but Valve could have clarified that better.

[my new friend]

Originally posted by Lindy Bomber:

That is what I suspected, but Valve could have clarified that better.

Valve did clarify that in a ticket written by the developer to support in the Twitter post linked in the article you posted.
https://twitter.com/YellowAfterlife/status/1504621836746829825/photo/1

[happy]

I know multiple Ukranian Software Devs that have their Payment methods trough Russian Providers, the outcome of this is that they are being indirectly sanctioned. Unfortunate, but nothing anyone can do about for now.

[Der Kaiser]

Originally posted by Lindy Bomber:

That is what I suspected, but Valve could have clarified that better.

Honestly, these mail seems to be just standard " we could not pay out your money because of banking issues" templates that get send out automatically when a payment fails.
I dont think they were written with the sanctions in mind.

[crunchyfrog]

Originally posted by Lindy Bomber:

Originally posted by Genesic GaoGaiGar:

From what i read all payments to Ukraine developers were going through the Russian banking system which of course is no longer a option at the moment.
Same reason PayPal does not work for many things in Ukraine right now.

Its unfortunate but not malice on the part of Valve, they just cant get the money to the devs without going through Russia and thats not possible because of the sanctions at the moment.

That is what I suspected, but Valve could have clarified that better.

No need to - the governments have publicised it.

And besides, you wouldn't get such messages from within the system.

[JVC]

It makes perfect sense to stop any kind of transfer that goes through a Russian bank in one way or the other. No reason at all to believe that the Russian bank wouldn't simply steal those funds since they'd go to an enemy country.

[The Asgorian Bugsong]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Could indeed be related to sanctions, which would mean it's not something Valve can do anything about.

https://digitnews.in/valve-has-suspended-payments-to-steam-game-developers-from-russia-belarus-and-ukraine/

Representatives of the Ukrainian Steam team posted on Facebook Valve’s “preliminary explanation”:

THE US GOVERNMENT HAS IMPOSED SANCTIONS AND IS BLOCKING A NUMBER OF BANKS THAT WORK WITH THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION OR ARE SOMEHOW CONNECTED WITH IT. “THEREFORE, IT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE PAYMENTS TO THESE BANKS AT THE MOMENT.”

They probably should have clarified this in the email sent out.

[Judgmental Amaterasu]

Originally posted by The Asgorian Bugsong:

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

Could indeed be related to sanctions, which would mean it's not something Valve can do anything about.

https://digitnews.in/valve-has-suspended-payments-to-steam-game-developers-from-russia-belarus-and-ukraine/

They probably should have clarified this in the email sent out.

Unlike you, those developers know. What isn't necessary isn't clarifying stuff for random joe schmoe #123965 on Reddit whose entire existence relies on finding drama.

[The Asgorian Bugsong]

Originally posted by Big Bridge.mp4:

Originally posted by The Asgorian Bugsong:

They probably should have clarified this in the email sent out.

Unlike you, those developers know. What isn't necessary isn't clarifying stuff for random joe schmoe #123965 on Reddit whose entire existence relies on finding drama.

Im pretty sure they dont, since im already seein devs and peeps on the net getting confused and mad about all this.

[my new friend]

Originally posted by The Asgorian Bugsong:

Im pretty sure they dont, since im already seein devs and peeps on the net getting confused and mad about all this.

They can easily reach out to their Valve rep and ask. Most fail to do even that much.
The email in the Twitter was basically a bulk email sent out to each game developer that had accounts linked to the sanctions.