Pre-Load Cash Into Your Steam Account With The Steam Wallet

Chances are you didn't see the newest feature of Steam, the Steam Wallet, coming, but it's available now if you'd like to use it. The feature, which is in beta, allows you to pre-load cash into your account, much like how you can drop credits into your Xbox Live Marketplace or PSN "wallets." The weird thing about Steam Wallet is that it's pointless. As of now, you can still give Valve exact change for games. There's no need to funnel your funds into it.

But how much money can you drop into your account? According to the Steam Wallet page, you can pre-load $5, $25, $50, or even up to $100 dollars into Steam. The money can then, of course, be used to purchase any game or within a game that supports Steam transactions. 
 

 This is so awesome

SUPAH GANGSTA!!!!!

This could be dangerous for me come holiday sale time.

Maybe this will help Vinny avoid binges.

Actually a pretty clever Idea, especially if they start releasing cards in stores! I would def look into it!

Nice for young people

Dude finally. This has always been my biggest issue with Steam.

Is this one of the surprises? =/

As someone who only recently got access to a credit card this would be great like 2-3 years ago, since you could finally buy all the sweet steam games.

You kids and your steam wallets.

This does sound like it is aimed for the younger audience but it does seem nice when you wanna gift someone something on Steam but you do not know what they want.  Though that heralds back to the use of gift cards and how cheesy and thoughtless they are...

It seems like a pretty good deal for people who are on a budget but do a lot of impulse buying too. You can just put 50$ in your Steam Wallet and say that, that is all you're going to use the next month, or something.

More money for valve, maybe they'll release HL ep 3 now :D.

Ah wonderful, more spacebucks.

This news doesn't affect me at all, but I guess it makes sense. I suspect that seeing a Steam gift card in a store would blow my mind though, so that's something to look forward to down the road. 
 
@bradnicholson: pre-piad. That is all! 

Retail stores carrying Steam cash for gift cards would be nice though for another gift option if they want to get that instead of picking out a game you might or might not have any interest in. A Steam wallet though seems pointless to me as if i want a game on steam i'll just go buy it.

"The catch with Steam Wallet is that it's rather pointless."      
 
I see what you did there.

I guess this could help some retail stores, that could still make some money even though many buy their games on Steam by selling pre-paid Steam cards instead of the games.

Though something similar has been working for a couple of months already, at least here in Sweden, where 7-11 and gas stations have been selling some pre-paid card that isn't Steam exclusive, but was heavily advertised on the Steam store, even giving some special Steam discounts if you use it. I can't remember the name of it right now.

I assume this card isn't only available in Sweden, even though the ads I saw were aimed directly at swedes, namedropping some common swedish store chains and banks and stuff.

...be used to purchase any game or within a game that supports Steam transactions.

I guess it's helpful for people that don't have a credit card.

Well, at least there are no Steam Points.  That'll be next year's "update".

This would have been great if I hadn't finally set up my PayPal account. I guess its a good alternative if I want to buy something quickly and I don't have the patiences to wait a week before the bank transfers my funds into PayPal. But for the most part its primarily aimed for the younger audience, and I have no problems with that. Everyone needs to know the beauty that is Steam.

Probably a good idea from a marketing perspective, but nothing I'd have any use of.

I suppose this is aimed at anyone below 18 because any adult with sense knows PayPal is by far the best method of buying stuff digitally and Steam has supported it for years. 

Good idea ... not interesting for me personally but makes sense for a younger audience.  Not  particularly exciting news but a consistent and smart thing for valve to do.

" I suppose this is aimed at anyone below 18 because any adult with sense knows PayPal is by far the best method of buying stuff digitally and Steam has supported it for years.  "

oh man, being somebody who works in retail this would be great... if they started releasing steam gift cards, then everything I buy on steam will be an extra 10% off with my employee discount! :-)

this is gonna be pretty cool!

Great news, I don't have a credit card and have been missing out on Steam sales. Have my money, Valve

Uhm, paypal ftw? :P

" instead of having to funnel your funds into a virtual wallet and then get stuck with leftover cash." 
 
*cough* Microsoft Points *cough*

"

I guess this could help some retail stores, that could still make some money even though many buy their games on Steam by selling pre-paid Steam cards instead of the games.

Though something similar has been working for a couple of months already, at least here in Sweden, where 7-11 and gas stations have been selling some pre-paid card that isn't Steam exclusive, but was heavily advertised on the Steam store, even giving some special Steam discounts if you use it. I can't remember the name of it right now.

I assume this card isn't only available in Sweden, even though the ads I saw were aimed directly at swedes, namedropping some common swedish store chains and banks and stuff.

"

i like this idea for budgeting. i can drop part of my game budget into Steam and then buy stuff on there when they have deals and that can be my limit. i tend to get carried away when Steam has sales. this will help me personally with that service.

Just give us the damn prepaid cards already!

If steam had prepaid cards i would be all up in that bitch.

" Just give us the damn prepaid cards already! "

And the best reason of all is of course that all that unspent money in Steam's coffers generates a nice amount of interest.

Really? I live in Norway and have never heard of it before.  "

I just looked around a little, it's name is PaySafeCard, and according to the web site at http://www.paysafecard.com/ it should be available in Norway too (I just did a simple search for retailers in Oslo and got 5 results).

From the website:

Get your paysafecard worth $10, $25, $50 or $100 from a local store near you:
paysafecard is available from 280,000 sales outlets worldwide.

When buying a paysafecard you get a 16-digit PIN printout that you can enter at the web shop of your choice. It’s very easy – no personal data or bank account details are required.

This would have been nice a few years ago.

I ended up just using Paypal for my Steam purchasing needs.  Technically I wasn't supposed to since I was under-18 at the time but neither Paypal nor my Bank seemed to notice.  

I could see this being useful though.  For example I could put like $20 into my sister's Steam account and then let her choose what she wants to get whenever she wants, rather than having her pick something out beforehand.  (Not that my sister likes the idea of getting games over  Steam.  Apparently if it doesn't come in a box it's not an acceptable birthday gift.  Oh but gift cards are just fine)

go steam. Not a bad idea I say.

Yay, I can buy games off steam now!

" And the best reason of all is of course that all that unspent money in Steam's coffers generates a nice amount of interest. "

Because I need more incentive to buy stuff from steam right? 

Yeah this is pretty much confirmation for Steam cards.. 
 
And like the article said, parents who don't want kids spending over 20 dollars or something

Prepaid Steam cards make so much sense. Before I had a credit card of my own, I was buying prepaid Visa gift cards to buy stuff on Steam.