Topic: Buying games with Bitcoin - Does Desura have an official standpoint on Bitcoin? (Read 2701 times)

Yes, I'm a fan of and running Desurium.

I've made a group on Desura called "Bitcoin" http://www.desura.com/groups/bitcoin since there was none. Please post your comments.

Some dude contacted me today:

Are you interested in Bitcoin support for Desura?
Reply Delete last message from flosslibreculture around 3hours 35mins ago
I noticed you like Bitcoin to be accepted on Desura so I made a friend request.

He's part of Desurium group, but I'm not sure if he's a developer or just fan.


edit___
tjohej, now I see it was you

Thanks for your input.
Yes they skip paypals fees. On the other hand I can do like you did. I say I answer any questions willingly.

No offense but frankly, I think it's horrible. First because you focus on the things that you care about, rather than the things they would care about. Second, because taking a grab-bag of concepts and saying "hey, Bitcoin includes this!" really does nothing to show what is good about Bitcoin and how the pieces of the technology fit together to enable it. Third, because if you do focus on the technologies you love you may as well show your passion for it, provoking interest, but you didn't - the message is pretty dry.

I don't know how much effect does the initial message have on eventual adoption. I'm not an expert or anything but in addition to the PR page on the Bitcoin wiki, you may want to consider the following pointers I originally wrote here:

1. Don't be a spammer. If it's a shop, only contact them if you've made purchases before. If an organization, show that you are actually involved in and care about their cause.
2. Unless they are very much inclined towards the philosophy of Bitcoin, they won't care how great it is to have an Open Source peer-to-peer deflationary cryptographic currency which is not controlled by any possibly malicious single point of failure and that they will be helping promote a better future. These can be mentioned to provide some perspective of what Bitcoin is, but downplayed. They care about what's in it for them, how it will help them in their own lives. They want to know that Bitcoin will give them extra business/donations they can convert to fiat currency which is of known use to them. That's not them being selfish, just practical. If they later choose to be more involved that's an added bonus.
3. They will want to know that with Bitcoin, people can send money easily and with no/low transaction fees.
4. Shops may be interested to know there are no chargebacks with Bitcoin.
5. Make it personal. Let them know how you personally would love to pay them with bitcoins.
6. They will be concerned about the work required to receive Bitcoin payments. Let them know that it's easy and offer to help (it helps if yourself you know a thing or two about Bitcoin and its related services).
7. Be polite, of course.
8. Don't overdo it. They will be put off by too much enthusiasm.

This is not the optimal way to update this forum thread but here goes:
Somebody has already made that question and the official answer from Desura.com was NO.

http://www.desura.com/groups/desura/forum/thread/bitcoin-support (thread got locked)

They don't support Bitcoin and they don't plan to it looks like. Don't give up hope though. Some individual game developers might be interested and that may be the next step. I've done this myself contacting a dev of an indie game who seemed interested, though don't expect them to know about it. This one asked me "Where do I register to get Bitcoins?", right, see? Decentralisation is a utopia for many people, they simply don't believe it is possible.

I posted a message here: http://www.desura.com/groups/desura/forum/thread/desuracom-official-stance-on-purchases-with-bitcoin
I doubt I posted it in the right section but if you find a better place I can move it there.

There is also a poll attached to it. 1. "Yes I would like Bitcoin as an option" 2. "No I don't" and 3. "I don't care".

Also what do you think of the message? I'm fascinated by the Bitcoin technology so that's why I add words like proof of work, digital signatures(I have to stop myself from writing "Public key cryptography") and the P2P network that shares all the proofs of work called blocks.
Though I suspect these wordings can confuse people, or what do you think?

I didn't know about this! Though now I do. : https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Public_relations

I'm interested to see what you find out, because I've considered using Desura (as a game developer who's interested in Bitcoin).

Hello all. Has anyone ever made contact with the Desura people about their position or if they would like to accept Bitcoin?
Posting this as I find few to no references on bitcointalk about it.

Note: To unite all gaming threads I just link to a general gaming thread https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/buy-video-games-and-gift-cards-with-bitcoin-17038

For the moment I'll post some references on bitcointalk from a user or users who have done some effort or claim to have done some, to contact the Desura company:

• posted April 16, 2011 by speeder https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.87650