News Valve limits Steam features to paying customers only

I really don't get it: Do all of you agree that the implementation of this paywall is a great idea with no disadvantages? Like - none at all?

In Germany this change to existing accounts will probably be illegal. This is an unfair change of the terms of service that were agreed upon when the product was purchased.

I really like the Steam service and use it exclusively to buy games but Valve is not the gift to PC gaming people make it out to be. Their refund policy is practically non-existing, customer service ignores geniune issues and now Valve cripples existing legitimate accounts.

This paywall is just like Xbox Live or PSN that all of us PC gamers love to hate.

 

I reckon there's a clause in there stating that the ToS are subject to change at Valve's discretion, fairly standard for most services tbh unless they explicitly state the opposite.

It does seem fairly xbox live-like, although the barrier is much, much lower, nor is it subscription based. But it's not far-fetched that Valve could take that option down the road. After all, the vast majority of us will buy something more than once a year, they could easily implement a yearly check without affecting almost anybody negatively. That's one of the reasons I'm not too fond of this idea. Once people get used to the concept of a pay wall it's fairly easy to tweak that. If the pay wall had existed to begin with I wouldn't care.

I'm not even hung up about the $5, it's an inconsequential amount, even $20 I wouldn't care much about. I'm more annoyed with the principle. It'll only inconvenience me about 15 minutes of my time, but I don't see why that option should have to be taken in the first place.

 

@forum_user - Wow that is a very one sided 'i love steam and everyone else is wrong' point of view. You might not agree with someone else's point of view but you could at least acknowledge that other people of other views and other priorities, regardless of whether you think they are right or not

 

If you took a little time to read rather than jump in, I did say earlier that Maki had a very minor point greatly overshadowed by his bias to attack Valve.

(Added) in fact, if you read his last post today he has rightly calmed himself down and is debating rather than hating. So maybe it helped?

(Added) Regarding me jumping on him, I think it was probably this that triggered me:

Of course Maki is entitled to his opinion, but if a poster injects negative emotional bias then it is fair to expect to get picked up on it. I know I have been on many occassions over the years. Thankfully my ranty post never made it on the 'EA shuts free to play' thread due to me being timed out - I was quite fired up about mega publishers focusing on crAPP games with no soul, emptying purses and wallets for sugar coated gem/diamond/gold purchases. So glad it never surfaced!!

 

Sub-heading the article "No chat for cheapskates" doesn't make it clear at all. Also, the image caption currently states "the removal of chat functionality" when it would be more accurate to say "the restriction of chat functionality". If I'd posted an article on the site I edit with those kind of lines in it, I'd get sacked.

 

They should be forced to let people, unhappy with their decision, be able to move their games, that they've bought and paid for, to another platform/ pure PC install. I don't think i've ever bought a game via steam itself, but i've bought games that required me to use steam, and now they come along and stick me with a bill if i wish to continue to have full use of the services i signed up for when i purchased the games.. That's just not cool, not cool at all.

They should have no problems checking if theres any number of games attached to an account and use that to determine if it's a real or fake account.

But with 100M+ users that is an obscene amount of money to force people to give to the company.
(regardless if it's "only 5$)

 

If I were the boss of Valve I wouldn't allow free accounts at all, they just seem to open the door to the less scrupulous types like hackers and scammers, when something's free people have nothing to lose from breaking the rules.

 

This would have been a decent idea a while back. When Valve first set up steam it was for their games, so people would have bought in without question because why else would you sign up? Much like how you only really sign up to Origin in order to play EA games that aren't available elsewhere. It's not quite a parallel but it's close enough for the point at hand.

It only becomes difficult and annoying when they change things afterwards, that's my beef here at least. They have every right to change things up, but it doesn't stop it being annoying for those who were used to using the system properly but in a different way.

In other but related news, this whole paying for mods debacle has left me feeling somewhat vindicated over my slippery slope stance that I mentioned earlier in this thread.

 

If they've 'bought and paid for' their games on Steam, why would they be worried about moving their games? This doesn't affect them. If they've spent $5 or more in the Steam store they don't have to worry about this at all.

Now on the other hand, if they've never spent a dime with Steam, why would they expect to get all of it's services for free? (And on a more harsh note, why should Valve care what they think, seeing as how they mooch Steam's services?)

I don't see why everyone sees this as a huge cash grab by Valve. I'd bet this only affects a small percentage of users because most people have probably already spent more than $5. And even if you had to go and spend $5 on the latest "COD 32:Revenge of the Console Peasant", how much does Valve even make from that?

 

Please explain what you dont like about Valve allowing some mod makers to charge for their hard work. I really dont see a negative here except that you've taken something that sounds reasonable (to me) and used it for your own negative bias (highlighted earlier in this thread).

Why shouldn't mod makers earn for their hardwork and dedication to entertaining gamers and building communities?

What have I missed?

The way I see this new item of Valve related news is that it will ENCOURAGE people to make more mods, and make them better.

 

"Hey you! You've got 400 games on your account that's been open for ten years but you haven't bought anything through us this year? That's mighty suspect my boy"

...I'm not really seeing the possibility.

As for your earlier idea, the optional filter, it's simply not suitable for its purpose. You'd be expecting the type of user that's prone to falling for scams, to be aware of this filter and to go hunt it down and configure it for themselves.

This change sort of blows because there are many steam users who don't have the same habits as a hardcore game consumer and they're the easiest ones to alienate, but a good portion of them might not even miss the features that are now being held back from them.

 

It seems they have done a U turn on the paying for mods thing.

Valve removes option to sell paid 'Skyrim' mods
http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/27/valve-reverses-skyrim-mod-payments/

 

Aye and a good thing too.

IMO if they want to introduce mod payment, it needs to be in a more subtle way. For instance, rather than having an outright "pay for this feature" approach, how about an easy donate button? Make it so that people can then just click that and donate what they want, then they take their cut as usual from those proceeds. No pay walls, but Valve and the modders still gain cash they otherwise wouldn't have. Of course loads of people won't donate, but if the mod's good some people will. Much like with Twitch, you can watch the streams for free, but people still donate like mad to the streamers, which supplements whatever they're being paid via Twitch normally.

I wouldn't be surprised if they add something like that later on, far fewer negatives from what I can see.