News Valve limits Steam features to paying customers only

This, this right here is bull****.

I can understand why they're doing this thing as a whole. It nets them more cash and presumably helps alleviate the scamming problems by removing some of the methods used. But will it really help?

Lots of the scamming is done via people using stolen credit card info and whatnot, in which case they just buy stuff as normal and boom, all fine and dandy. This problem won't be solved by limiting accounts on a sale basis as it revolves around them buying things in the first place.

The reason I think that planned implementation is crap is it gets in the way for people who don't necessarily buy the games themselves. For instance, my youngest brother can't buy steam games online, he has his own account though (like hell he's sharing mine) and the way he gets games is I purchase them and gift them to him. It's a simple method that resolves uncontrolled spending and also limits what games he can play. Now that's just annoying because technically he hasn't spent a thing on that account. So now I have to go and buy something from his account and then remove all traces of info just so he can use it normally?

I already dislike Valve a lot, this is just adding to the pile. Steam is really beginning to show the negatives associated with being a monopoly. The alternatives just aren't big enough to compete, I'd rather use GoG or even Origin any day, UPlay can eff off though.

 

wow, i haven't baoght a game through steam in almost a year, does this mean that i won't have full accses to my account, looks like i won't be getting gta 5 through steam rather buy the non steam version that you have to use rockstars drm for.

 

Rayson: There's no mention of 'in the last year' on the Steam page, so no idea where you got that idea from.

Maki: You could buy the lowest denomination Steam Wallet card (£5) from a local Game/supermarket/whatever and apply that to his account. that will count as a >$5 spend. Still a pain, but better than adding and removing payment details from the account.

 

Aah that could work, although is that not still counted as a gift? I mean how would their system be able to tell the difference? Surely if that works then not counting gifted items is completely pointless. After all, a gifted item still needs to be purchased in the first place.

 

No, he just can't use the discussions forums and the marketplace and the like, which, if he's to young to buy his own games, isn't a place where he should be anyway, now should he?.

Don't think I've used any of these services...and I've spent my share on steam.

 

$5 is gonna bankrupt everyone. Think I've spent several thousand pound on steam. Limiting the spam to paying customers is not a bad thing and may stop the annoying friend request spam from random people with no games on there account.

 

This is stupid. Instead of giving users the option to restrict it with filters, they decide they know what is best for the user and pick what suits them.

Typical Valve Customer Service, which claimed they would look at improving.

 

Thank you very much. Finally something really useful. Tired of those bots spamming friend invites..

 

This one is the real kicker. If Valve would just want to have a go at spammers they would simply exclude people with no financial activity. As it stands right now there will be users who bought retail keys for Steamworks games such as Skyrim, Civ 5, Dark Souls 2 or even CS:GO for £40 ea who will not be able to use many basic features.

Shady key shops are not even the issue here. I bet most people open their Steam account using normal game keys.

This is about having people buying games through Steam and nowhere else. Forcing them to use the steam shop at least once is a great step toward that goal because next time they want to buy a game they have experience using the service so they might not disregad using the shop right away. Many wil also save their payment info so shopping will be a lot easier next time.

I still find it an unethical business practice.

No, a steam wallet card is like a prepaid card for your mobile phone. On the back of the card there is a number your brother will have to enter to his account. He will then get £5 to spend as he pleases. However this might prove more difficult than you might think: He will have to actually spend those £5 to unlock his account. Most games are £4.99 though, even when on sale. And he cannot spend the remaing pence on the market on some trading card or a smiley since he cannot use the market. Most likely he will have to get a £10 wallet card.

See why this new ruling is ridiculous?

 

Damn right it will! I cannot count how many idiots with free accounts containing free games only, have contacted me over the years to try and obtain Bills hat from TF2. YES it will help.

And that right there is your issue, not what they are trying to do to save me the hassle of having to click block on so many 'friend' requests. You just plain hate Valve.

(added). oops! And also the fact that doing is WILL add a fence to hurdle for scammers - and obviously that is more important than just lil me!

 

Why would they need to improve a thing when they've instead duped almost the entire PC gaming market into thinking they're the second coming? I love how people were reacting on reddit the other day to the news that they would be upholding refund requests for GTAV, people honestly were thinking as if Valve was doing them a personal favour. The reality is that they should offer that for all titles at all times, not just GTAV within a small window, it's sad really.

EDIT:

I wouldn't dislike Valve at all if they didn't consistently give me reasons to. I use steam, I've spent a lot on it, I loved Half Life and the Portal games and I currently play CSGO (albeit terribly). But I just can't pair up the experiences I've had with what other people report back.

I'm just incredibly sceptical whether this will solve things in the long run. I reckon things will just change instead. Why can't we place a filter to prevent unwanted friend requests? There, solved the issue. They chose this issue just to make a quick buck off of it. I wouldn't even have a problem with that, except Valve clearly doesn't need extra funding, they practically are PC gaming. A filter that simply asks whether you allow people with no games, or no rep/level or no prior connection to you (like friend of a friend) etc. so you can set it yourself would be much better and really easy to add.

 

Maki, seriously, sort your head out.

There is a benefit to what Valve are doing.

See it. Understand it. Move on.

(Added) It's only $5 ............... That is nothing these days. And will likely change per territory?

It is only a hurdle like they said.

You GoG worshippers with your blinkers on will grab at any straw.

 

Agreed. I have a secondary account with lots of games I've gifted from my primary account (back before in-home streaming and family sharing). I've never spent a dollar on it, so I'm a bit bummed about the loss of features to my free account.

But . . . I get at least 5 spam friend requests a week on my primary account. It's really stupid and this should stop 90% of that crap immediately.

 

There is a benefit, true. Would this new system be worse if steam gifts or retail games were accounted for?

I can see where Maki role is coming from tbh. Were it not for those steam wallet cards my brother would have lost a few hundred quids as well simply because he has no Paypal account and gifting has been easier than creating one in his case.

Edit: Thinking about it one of my cousins has exactly two games on his Steam account: CS Source and CS:GO, both bought in a local supermarket. It will be fun to see his reaction when this update goes live and he discovers that he cannot use the friends system to full potential anymore.

 

So tell me, which is a better system:

Limit what accounts can access/do unless they spent a nominal sum in a particular part of the service.

Add an optional filter for incoming content like friend requests, chat etc.?

One places power at the hands of Valve and Valve alone (which given they run the service, is already the case), the other provides more flexibility for existing users. I mean it's not going to be more effort to do one or the other as they involve pretty similar stuff tbh. The filter would just add everybody who's part of the groups you've highlighted to your ignore list when they try to contact you.

 

He has a very very minor point that I can see, but his ridiculous hatred of Valve destroys his ranting post for me. I cant take people like that seriously. Like a previous poster, I have spent a small fortune with Valve because they provide me a great service. I'm thankful for anything Valve does to prevent scammers, phishing, and free accounts spamming friend requests to get hold of items worth money to collectors.

$5 is not a lot to unlock the features of Steam - but it certainly would be to someone who intends to open 20 .... 50 ...... 100 new accounts per month?

 

Sorry ... but ... are you one of these scammers, phishers, free account spammers? Your denial of how useful this is beggars belief.

To you and to the other posters points made about genuine people owning genuine accounts and maybe not meeting the proposed conditions - how much does it cost Valve to look in to all the cases of fraud that they have to deal with?

See the benefit. Accept it might twinge a little to spend $5 to unlock the features, be grateful that scammers, phishers and free account scammers are being sorted.

 

Absolutely, I agree with you. Unfortunately I might have spent the better parth of 5000 quid on the service all things considered.The following part however I do not agree with and that is what makes me think that the scammers are more of a pretense for this update:

It's not about the money but how you have to spend it.