Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by CoolHand on Tuesday April 21 2015, @08:07PM   Printer-friendly
from the gabe-needs-our-cash dept.

A support post on SteamPowered.com shows that Valve are planning to restrict Steam account functionality of anyone who's spent less than $5 directly through Steam:

We've chosen to limit access to these features as a means of protecting our customers from those who abuse Steam for purposes such as spamming and phishing.

Limited users are prevented from accessing several features on Steam, including but not limited to: Sending friend invites; Opening group chat; Voting on Greenlight, Steam Reviews and Workshop items; Participating in the Steam Market; Posting frequently in the Steam Discussions; Gaining Steam Profile Levels (Locked to level 0) and Trading Cards; Submitting content on the Steam Workshop; Posting in an item's Steam Workshop Discussions; Accessing the Steam Web API; Using browser and mobile chat

You will need to spend at least $5.00 USD within the Steam store. Some examples of purchases that grant access to these features are: Adding the equivalent of $5 USD or more to your Steam Wallet; Purchasing game(s) that are equal to $5 USD or more from the Steam store; Adding a Steam Wallet card to your Steam account; Purchasing a Steam gift that is equal to $5 USD or more from the Steam store (Receiving a Steam gift from a friend doesn't count)

Using serial keys to activate retail purchases on Steam will not count towards your account value, neither will activating Steam keys obtained from 3rd party websites (e.g. Humble Bundle) or games gifted to you by other account holders.

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by Marand on Wednesday April 22 2015, @03:53AM

    by Marand (1081) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @03:53AM (#173808) Journal

    Probably because it's not super difficult to get bulk keys cheap (humble bundle) or just steal them (the Sniper Elite 3 debacle, for example).

    Likely, but it's still potentially a problem for legitimate, paying users. I've had a Steam account for years because I bought the Orange Box at retail. Over the years I've acquired other games, but they've all been bought retail (like Deus Ex: Human Revolution), or via Humble Bundles, or given as gifts.

    The only reason I'm not going to have my account abruptly locked by their decision to exclude retail purchases is I paid for the early-access Steam release on Krita to help support* development. It's the only time I've actually given Steam any money directly. If not for that it's likely I'd fire up Steam one day and find it neutered, and I would be pissed. If you're going to allow vendors to sell retail boxes of games that still require Steam despite being non-Steam purchases, then they should count, too.

    That said, the change itself doesn't really bother me, because I understand the desire to curb spam and scam attempts. I've heard it's already a large problem, and growing daily, though my account's apparently not interesting enough to get targeted.

    * Okay, I also wanted to switch from their Krita dev PPA to just updating through Steam, but the promised Linux-Steam release never happened. Caveat emptor. I knew it might happen but still wanted to support them because it's excellent software.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Informative=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Wednesday April 22 2015, @05:16PM

    by darkfeline (1030) on Wednesday April 22 2015, @05:16PM (#174055) Homepage

    I see what you are saying, but is adding $5 to your account (which you can still spend in the future) really asking too much?

    --
    Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
    • (Score: 2) by Marand on Thursday April 23 2015, @12:16AM

      by Marand (1081) on Thursday April 23 2015, @12:16AM (#174170) Journal

      I see what you are saying, but is adding $5 to your account (which you can still spend in the future) really asking too much?

      Of course it's not, but if that's what you got out of my comment, you completely missed my point. By not including retail purchases, there's potential for people that have already exchanged money for goods to abruptly find that they have less than they paid for. Sure, it's easy and inexpensive to reactivate those features, but that won't make a person affected by it feel better. They're going to start out pissed off ("Why the fuck did my account stop working properly?") and then remain so ("What the fuck, I have to give more money to get back what I already had?!"); I mentioned myself because, when I heard the news, I had that exact initial reaction. I'd forgotten about the Krita purchase and fully expected my account to be suddenly limited after using Steam normally for years.

      For people like that, it's akin to going to a restaurant and, mid-meal, being told you have to get up and move to a different seat because it was determined that you weren't spending enough on your meal.

      Or, for a software example: Autodesk's Sketchbook app for tablets. They had a pretty nice tablet app for a while with a flat rate price. You paid, you got all the features. They also had a free version that served as a trial, basically to up-sell you to the paid version. Worked fine for a while, and a bunch of people (myself included) bought the app because it was good.

      Sometime last year, Autodesk spent months hyping up their next major update to the mobile apps and the new features it would have. They'd made updates like that before, improving the paid app, so it just seemed like business as usual.

      Then, a few months ago, they released a major update to the free version that moved it to a micro-transaction model. Use it as before, but pay a buck here and there to unlock extra brushes and other features. "What about the paid version?" people wondered. Nothing, that's what. They deprecated that version, took it off the market, and told its users to transition to the free version and buy the features (again) via micro-transaction, because the paid one is unsupported now. (Not only that, but you have to use their stupid "cloud" account BS, too)

      It's only a few bucks, just like Steam, but the abrupt change coupled with the "so what, just pay a few bucks" reaction seriously pissed off some hardcore fans of the product.

      Which was my point: this has potential to lock out more than just spammers and F2P gamers, and anybody that bought stuff and later finds their account locked down will be outraged. It's only an issue because publishers are selling Steam-tied games in non-Steam channels, but Valve decided that those don't count. Nobody likes paying for something and later having it neutered. Sony's removal of Linux support in the PS3 via firmware update didn't affect many people either, but it sure pissed off the ones it did.

      • (Score: 2) by darkfeline on Thursday April 23 2015, @05:38PM

        by darkfeline (1030) on Thursday April 23 2015, @05:38PM (#174367) Homepage

        The thing is, you aren't paying extra money. You can spend those $5 any time in the future, and unless you carry your Steam account to the grave, you can then sell or hand over that account with the included $5 to someone else even if you never ever spend them. Hell, you can use them to gift a game to your kids or a friend. Hell, in the extreme case, you can buy a steam item or game with those $5 and sell them online.

        Secondly, I have doubts as to the number of people who own Steam accounts with retail purchases and no Steam purchases.

        Thirdly, it wouldn't surprise me if the retail restriction only applies in the future going forward (for reasons other people have pointed out), and not to retail purchases made before the announcement.

        --
        Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!