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Steam has always been a free platform to use. You never had to buy a game to access your friend's list, try one of the free to play games, or even use an activation code that your grandmother bought you for your birthday. However now you will need to spend at least a few pounds if you want to utilise all of the fancy features the distribution platform has to offer, in an effort to prevent mass account signups by scammers and phishing artists.
“Malicious users often operate in the community on accounts which have not spent any money, reducing the individual risk of performing the actions they do,” said Valve in its explanation of the new restrictions. It went on to point out that accounts designed to spam, scam or phish other users almost always had zero spent on them. By limiting certain features until money is put down, Valve hopes to at least make the cost of being a nuisance user far more costly for those involved.
Until $5/£3.35 is spent on new Steam accounts, users won't be able to access friend invites, group chats, Greenlight voting, Steam reviews or workshop items. Users also won't be able to take part in the Steam Market, post “frequently” in Steam Discussions, submit content to the workshop, or access the Steam web API.
Unlocking these features will only be possible if money is spent within Steam. Retail game codes, receiving gifts or playing demos won't do.
KitGuru Says: This technically means that Steam as we know it, is not a free service any more. What do you guys think of that? Do you think it's worth forcing that cap to prevent misuse?
Thank fuck for this. I get phishing accounts targetting me like twice a week
not like it matters for most of us. most have 10+ games on our account that all cost money, so we all have the minimum spent already 🙂
I’ve never had a problem with phishing accounts, but it’d be nice if they allowed these accounts access to ACCEPT friend requests, so if I have a friend who’s never used Steam before, I could give them a spare game, and we could play that together…
You still get a free service, but not to the previous extent.
And doesn’t that actually make good business? in example, if 1000 people voted for a game to be greenlit, but at the same time only 10 of them ever bought a game on steam, then 990 people don’t really have a valid opinion on games? That is, they didn’t buy games before, so how can we know if they will ever buy any?
Plus it’s cheaper to make people spend 5$ on something, that hire 1000 people to fight the phishers. I would say it’s a smart move.
Only problem I see, is with people that you want to give games to, but they can’t accept your friends invite. Hopefully they will be smart about implementing the new features.
If they only impose this on new accounts and are smart about it in what they restrict then this could be a good change. But i assume that there are people like me who wont buy games through steam as they are often to expensive and i simply don’t have the Internet connection to download them so i buy i stores so i get the physical game. if they have to be forced to buy something on steam to properly use it then it is going to be a shitty change. if they have to implement it then instead of using money then activation codes and such should be a valid unlocker
The CS:GO smurfs should be killed though.
I get atleast 10 friend invites and comments per day. :<
I believe limited accounts can still accept friend requests but not send.
Considering I have probably spent like $5000 on Steam I guess my account is safe.
I hope that in the future does not affect all accounts, my alternate account has games but I buy them from the main account 🙁
not if the smurf account buys the game from the steam store, as buying the game should count, right?
They’ll still exist but I want them to be killed for damaging the community. Getting stuck at the lower ranks was frustrating as hell because some smurf was carrying the enemy team to victory meaning you barely get any ELO because you we’re pitted at a more skilled team that the game thinks is just as likely of winning as you is complete BS.
Recently I had many friend request by new private profiles.
if they are redeemed on your second account, it still counts as money spent
No it doesn’t by what is posted in the article:
“Unlocking these features will only be possible if money is spent within Steam. Retail game codes, receiving gifts or playing demos won’t do.”
< col Hiiiiiii Friends….'my friend's mom makes $88 every hour on the internet . She has been unemployed for eight months but last month her payment was $13904 just working on the internet for a few hours.
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Does anybody know if this counts in say, Dota 2 items?
Well my girlfriend has steam and I only buy her humble bundles or gift her, so seems bad…
Ranks dont matter at all because they dont reprisent your skill, they just show your win/lose ratio. You can be silver or guardian as far as im concerned, this dont mean you are actually on that skill group
Also if you play only with people with the same skill level as you, how do you expect to improve your playing? You are just gonna be stuck forever
DUST2 FTW!!!
Dust 2 is the worst map.
No I’m fairly sure that’s how the game matchmakes you by your rank. You play well you go up ranks you go down for playing bad. You can still rank up from losing a game if the enemy team is considerably higher rank than you. If it was done on Win loss ratio then GE would be nigh on impossible to achieve because you’d have to win every single game against other Global Elite. CS:GO uses the ELO system which predicts the likely hood of your success. If you beat Its prediction then it rewards you and if you do badly against its prediction you get punished. There is a whole Wikipedia page on the system.
Not the worst but certainly not the best. Either Overpass or Mirage is.
Wow, even on articles about scams and phishing…
Well clearly if she only gets Humble Bundles and such, she isn’t using Steam often enough to care. Not to mention that this doesn’t restrict gameplay in any way.
I’ve never received any kind of spam on Steam. Maybe it’s because I’ve no friends.
thnx god.. all though steam accounts that are private with lvl 0 rank and ether Free 2 play or 0 bought games that keep trying to add me will stop…
Pardon me if this sounds stupid, but why do you need an alternate account?
I have my account since 2003 so I couldn’t care less about new users and if they have to pay to use Steam.
My alternate account is for my younger brother who has no way to pay.
These are getting more prevalent . definitely agree with you
If it works brilliant, If it does not then the spammers have found a new way round the Blockage
well, that’s bull… the old rules used to work like that