OK, OK, that’s a bit of hyperbole.  I like hyperbole.  Also I stole the post title from threepanelsoul without guilt or shame because I don’t like guilt and don’t know what you meat people mean by “shame”.

Last winter, I played through both Batman: Arkham City and Batman: Arkham Origins, with the second of those leading me to a huge epiphany re: Bat-Gaming.  I put a bunch of hours into it, did a lot more optional stuff than I usually do in open-world games, and really wanted to check out the game’s “Cold, Cold Heart” story DLC… but didn’t want to pay 10 bucks for it, since the game itself only cost 5.

So, I fumed a bit, and I waited for the next Steam sale, and the next, and… well, it just never got any cheaper.  It was very frustrating.

Thankfully, I use a site called IsThereAnyDeal, which does exactly what it says on the tin really.  It watches a ton of different sites and emails me when something on my Steam wishlist goes on special offer.

In this case, it sent me an email saying that Cold, Cold Heart had been marked down to $2.50 on Direct2Drive, one of those digital distribution sites I am embarrassed to admit that I’d kind of forgotten existed.  Back in the days when Steam only posted a single deal a week, I used to occasionally buy games from them, but I hadn’t visited their site in probably five years.  Still, my old account still worked and they promised to sell me a Steam key, and then I got to checkout and there was an option for Apple Pay.

…Apple Pay?  From a website?  Oh, right, there was something about that in the macOS Sierra introduction thing I hadn’t really watched all that closely, I wonder how it works?

It turns out that how it works is you say “I would like to give you money” and your phone lights up asking for your thumbprint, and you put your thumb on the appropriate spot, and there is a happy chime sound and the website records that you have transferred them currency and here is your Steam key.

And I am old enough that this is damned near to being black magic.  Truly this is the magnificent future.