Indian Payment Methods No Longer Working on Steam

It was a brilliant day for the gamers of India who wanted to be a part of the Steam community, but thanks to a higher average price of games and thanks to a lack of regional pricing, many couldn’t. However, a regional pricing was soon introduced with prices being inclusive of all taxes. If that was the first move made by Steam to conquer the vast, unexplored Indian market, the second move brought tears of joy to many – when they learnt that their debit and credit cards without the facility of international transactions as well as domestic wallets like PayTM and PayUMoney could be used to buy games on Steam.

However, it would be a big blow to most Indian gamers to know that all forms of Indian payment that has been accepted by Steam so far, including cash on delivery(COD), Netbanking, Local Debit or Credit Cards and Prepaid Wallets are now put on hold, forcing customers to use other forms of payment.

Anyone from India who would try to use the payment methods – Netbanking, Debit Card(Domestic), Credit Card(Domestic), Prepaid Wallet(Domestic) or Cash on Delivery would face an error which asserts the following, “Note: We are temporarily unable to process transactions with this payment method at this time. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

Several Reddit threads had erupted, where people are giving their own version of how the problem developed in the first place. One such thread is : https://www.reddit.com/r/IndianGaming/comments/6r2kqz/steam_domestic_payment_option_not_working/

Redditor Windynik is of the opinion that the delay between the payment and the actual delivery of the game has resulted in Steam temporarily stopping the method of payment via local methods, including the most favored Cash on Delivery.

Steam had partnered with Novaplay for the implementation of domestic payment methods in India. It is likely that some problem has occurred on Novaplay’s end, resulting in the temporary disruption. However, it is likely to be a temporary issue only, which will most probably be fixed in a few days. All anyone can do is wait for it to be fixed.

However, should one have access to credit or debit cards with international transactions enabled, one can still buy games from Steam. The only option for people without access to such a credit or debit card is to buy Steam gift cards from verified distributors, redeem the same on Steam and buy the games they want. There is a riskier way of buying bitcoin and using it to buy games from Steam, but it is a risky method and is not preferred by many Indian gamers who do not have a huge amount of knowledge about bitcoin.