Whoah, Small Spender! Steam Sets Limits For Users Who Spend Less Than $5

As GameSpot reports, Valve has implemented a policy that reduces the privileges of Steam users unless those users have spent $5 through the service. Along the same lines as suggestions to limit spam by imposing a small fee on emails, the move is intended to reduce resource abuse as a business model. From the article: "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," Valve said. "One of the best pieces of information we can compare between regular users and malicious users are their spending habits as typically the accounts being used have no investment in their longevity. Due to this being a common scenario we have decided to restrict certain community features until an account has met or exceeded $5.00 USD in Steam." Restricted actions include sending invites, opening group chats, and taking part in the Steam marketplace.

Comments

Systemd

[Anonymous Coward]

First for systemd?

Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

I know this sounds off to some people on /. but I get something like 5-10 invites _a day_ from people who are trying to trade scam me. $5 doesn't sound too steep but I'm hoping this cuts it back even to 1 per day or fewer, just so I stop getting annoying notifications.

Re:Thank god

[v1]

It'll sure make a huge cut in the bot accounts that are being used for scamming and spamming. Some of these scammers are probably looking at thousands of accounts used on a given day. Busting their "business model" is the best way to get rid of them.

Re:Thank god

[BarbaraHudson]

Let's hope this spreads to Facebook, Twitter, and other antisocial networks. People would be forced to actually engage with real people in real life for a change.

Of course that won't happen - these companies are selling you, so they will do nothing that will reduce their user base, even if it makes it a higher quality.

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Ironically the only social network that cares about quality over quantity is Google+ and everyone hates them for it. People are fucking stupid.

Re:Thank god

[X0563511]

While I've been fortunate to have never received any of that junk, I do see this as a good move... and $5 is really low. Recall it's not $5 on any purchase, but $5 over the lifetime of your account. That's... well. If that's a problem for you, how exactly do you afford to have whatever it is you're running Steam on? I'll give you the internet - maybe public wifi (or stealing it)... but unless you dug the device out of the trash and are also stealing electricity, I think spending $5 at one time or another isn't much to require.

Re:Thank god

[JMJimmy]

While I've been fortunate to have never received any of that junk, I do see this as a good move... and $5 is really low. Recall it's not $5 on any purchase, but $5 over the lifetime of your account. That's... well. If that's a problem for you, how exactly do you afford to have whatever it is you're running Steam on? I'll give you the internet - maybe public wifi (or stealing it)... but unless you dug the device out of the trash and are also stealing electricity, I think spending $5 at one time or another isn't much to require.

The question really is, does the $5/account cover the costs of policing them if they do pay up.

Re:Thank god

[93 Escort Wagon]

That's silly. People don't hate Google+. They do, however, find it irrelevant - and got really annoyed at Google's repeated attempts to force-feed it to all of their users.

Now that Google has finally (mostly) stopped doing that, everyone's back to simply finding Google+ irrelevant.

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

History shows this will work. Similar problems plagued the postal system until the invention of the postage stamp. From the article...

"The first adhesive postage stamp, commonly referred to as the Penny Black, was issued in the United Kingdom in 1840. The invention of the stamp was part of an attempt to reform and improve the postal system in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which, in the early 19th century, was in disarray and rife with corruption. There are varying accounts of the inventor or inventors of the stamp.

Before the introduction of postage stamps, mail in the UK was paid for by the recipient, a system that was associated with an irresolvable problem: the costs of delivering mail were not recoverable by the postal service when recipients were unable or unwilling to pay for delivered items, and senders had no incentive to restrict the number, size, or weight of items sent, whether or not they would ultimately be paid for. The postage stamp resolved this issue in a simple and elegant manner"

$5 is a small hurdle if you're going to be spending a lot of time on Steam.

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

It will mostly affect children/minors who have no income or no way of purchasing a Steam Card. Many people/children use Steam exclusively for free to play titles. Many of these titles use Steam's matchmaking service which relies on some of the functionality that's been cut (friends list)

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdigg first. Of course that won't happen because you'll never go away.

Re:Thank god

[mhkohne]

Doesn't matter - they have to police scam accounts as it is. The biggest attraction to scammers is a zero-cost place to run scams, because most scams have such a low success rate that if it cost the scammer anything, they wouldn't do it.

If Valve restricts the accounts unless they have SOME money in the game, the scammers can't simply operate at full rate - they'll have to pick and choose the scams and targets more carefully, because there's overhead. That knocks 90% of the bozo population out of the game, and while you'll ALWAYS have scammers, the most annoying ones will go away.

Re:Thank god

[slashmydots]

Why don't they just limit trade requests to like 10 per day and have a 60 minute cooldown on account creations from the same IP address?

Re: Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Boo fucking hoo.

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Excellent, lets keep the whiney little scroats out of games

Re:Thank god

[NetCow]

No idea about trade since I never bother with it, but an account creation cooldown is out of the question: Many ISPs deploy transparent proxies or, worse yet, they NAT tons of their customers through the same public IPv4 address. A cooldown of this type would impact Valve's bottom line *and* piss off customers, so I don't think it can be done.

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

because 10 per day is a stupidly small number for people who spend a lot of time playing games and trading items and a 60 minute cooldown for an IP blocks legitimate users of shared services such as universities campus networks, those who get broadband through CG-NAT and many other scenarios. what they have done is much more effective. it also gets rid of the annoying twats on F2P that constantly fuck up games because they dont have any investment in the game, its no problem for them to just create a new account when banned.

what they are doing is a reasonable solution, what you proposed is reasonably retarded.

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop playing tf2 and the invites will disappear after a month or two.

Re:Thank god

[X0563511]

You can buy wallet cards in various retail outlets with cash.

Re: Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, only you who feel entitled because you spent money think that those who use the system as designed but aren't paying as much (even, or especially if they can't) shoud STFU because you're annoyed.

Fuck off.

Re:Thank god

[darkwing_bmf]

I don't know too many kids setting up new community spaces, at least not the ones spending less than $5.

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Google+'s main problem was that it arrived to the party way too late. Late enough that "but how do I get all my friends to move with me?" and "how do I get all my old pictures and such moved over?" were significant hurdles. Had Google+ come along while Facebook was not yet open to the whole world and had a much smaller userbase then it might have stood a chance.

Re: Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

too bad valve agrees so its you that will fuck off

Re:Thank god

[Yomers]

If Valve restricts the accounts unless they have SOME money in the game, the scammers can't simply operate at full rate - they'll have to pick and choose the scams and targets more carefully, because there's overhead.

Good news everyone - Steam is working on increasing scam quality!

Re:Thank god

[Brulath]

Their other problem is that circles, whilst an interesting idea, require far too much maintenance effort when adding new friends to be worthwhile for the majority of users. The extra step of adding a friend or post to all of the relevant circles upon creation is one that most people probably don't want. The more successful social networks seem to make posting and adding friends trivial with little administrative overhead. I could use Google+ in that way (i.e. one circle), but I'd feel obligated to do it the "correct" way... and that's too much effort for the perceived reward; the frequency with which I want to make a post limited to a particular subset of people on a social network is vanishingly small.

Re:Thank god

[JMJimmy]

True that Valve has to police them anyway, but the more they do it out of scammers pockets and less out of users pockets the better ;)

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

You should work for a right wing spin team.

Re: Thank god

[kurzweilfreak]

only you who feel entitled because you spent money

I'd say that someone who's spent money on a service is justifiably a hell of a lot more entitled than someone who hasn't spent and won't spend any money on said service.

Re:Thank god

[Dahamma]

Of course that won't happen - these companies are selling you, so they will do nothing that will reduce their user base, even if it makes it a higher quality.

Plus, remember, Facebook, Twitter, etc make their livelihood on ads, and one of the metrics they can use to justify ad prices (not to mention silly stock valuations) is "active users". You better believe those millions of auto generated FB accounts spamming every popular page/celebrity/etc posts are "active users" (very active!)

Re: Thank god

[Dahamma]

I'd say that someone who's spent money on a service is justifiably a hell of a lot more entitled

In fact, this new feature (extra privileges for compensation/etc) is one of the primary *definitions* of entitlement...

Re: Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

My ten year old earns $5 in about three days for work. She's bought far more than $5 in games online in her life so far. All earned money from work beyond her chores. She enjoys work for the reward. Let's try not to act like kids can't come up on $5 in their lifetime.

Re:Thank god

[wolrahnaes]

Not true, I haven't played TF2 in months but over the last two weeks or so have received a friend invite from a clearly bogus account about once a day. I suspect that's indicative of a major increase in these things because prior to just recently I hadn't had more than a dozen in the many years I've been on Steam.

Re:Thank god

[Shadyman]

Good to hear I'm not the only one who was getting those spam friend invites. Good riddance.

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a problem if you dont have a credit card and buy retail games... Steam wallet cards arent available worldwide

Re: Thank god

[Type44Q]

That would quickly solve all of the problems caused by money, though, wouldn't it: if people with money to spend would stop feeling entitled to receive anything in return for it... :p

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish the telephone system had something similiar in place. Make it a ten cent tax per call (for the caller), doesn't matter if it's domestic or out the country coming in.

100 calls for $10 won't be a huge burden on a frequent caller or legitimate business (calling customers) but I bet it would shut a ton of telemarketers down - especially those doing the robot calls X times a second, and only putting one of their sales drones on the fastest picker upper. And those fucking political beggars.

Re:Thank god

[Neil Boekend]

Obligatory XKCD

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Same here. I've spent over $20,000 USD on Steam and the VERY FIRST THING in my profile is "DO NOT CONTACT ME ABOUT TRADING. I DO NOT GIVE A SHIT ABOUT TRADING."

I get invites and messages and comments on my profile EVERY FUCKING DAY from countless people asking me to trade.

Re:Thank god

[mattventura]

If I'm not mistaken, it used to be like this years ago, where users without a game in their account would have certain features such as adding friends restricted.

Re:Thank god

[bemymonkey]

That's incorrect. I can no longer sell dropped items on the marketplace and I've spent ~$100 on my account over its lifetime. It's something like spend $x in the last y days... The last thing I bought was CS:GO, so I can no longer use the marketplace (I just sell the stuff that drops in CSGO, I'm up to like $50 in Steam credit and I only played like an hour a week for about a year or so) until I buy a new game via Steam.

I think it's a step in the right direction though... towards the end I was also getting a lot of invites purely for trading's sake and it was starting to piss me off.

Re:Thank god

[AmiMoJo]

Google+ is the only social network I use, because it's the only one that isn't a torrent of effluent. If you start by following a few well known people in your area of interest (mine are electronics and retro computing) you can quickly build up a network of interesting people who only post stuff relevant to you. For the most part G+ doesn't suffer from the Facebook/Twitter style "I just wiped my arse!" "updates". It's where the smart kids hang out.

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

If you start by following a few well known people in your area of interest (mine are electronics and retro computing) you can quickly build up a network of interesting people who only post stuff relevant to you.

I imagine you can do the same on Facebook or Twitter. But due to their popularity there is probably just a lot more garbage available.

Re:Thank god

[Falos]

The number is irrelevant, what matters is getting a payment source (read:credit card) tied to the account.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to pay for a physical itunes gift card using cash.

Re: Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Look who's talking about feeling entitled.

Re:Thank god

[jythie]

Unfortunately Americans are really big on 'unlimited' plans and cutting them out would upset customers, or cause them to switch carriers to one who does still offer such pricing schemes.

Re:Thank god

[jythie]

Good point regarding that demographic. I wonder if Valve could do some fine tuning so that playing those games a certain amount also marks someone as a 'real' account.

Re: Thank god

[jythie]

I think the issue is not entitlement of the paying customer, but the paying customer's ideas about what other people should be getting. It is one thing to want something, it is another to want others to not have it.

Re:Thank god

[master_kaos]

10 cents might be a bit excessive, even if it was just 2 or 3 cents.

Re: Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

Now watch it burn. Fuck steam and its drm riddled malware.

Re: Thank god

[rochrist]

Good. Now you can leave the rest of us to enjoy our games in peace.

Re: Thank god

[rochrist]

It's also one of the primary definitions of 'customer'.

Re: Thank god

[dwye]

Yes, then the people rightly feeling entitled would be the ones with lots of ammunition :-)

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

You are aware that Steam giftcards exist, right? I'm not sure if that proves or disproves whatever point you were trying to make with your first line.

Re: Thank god

[Dahamma]

But how would they buy the ammunition?

Re:Thank god

[Rich0]

10 cents might be a bit excessive, even if it was just 2 or 3 cents.

I suspect telemarketers are already paying something on that order of magnitude already. I doubt anybody gives them "unlimited" phone plans - at least not the $20/month kind. Most of them are probably using VoIP providers. I couldn't tell you how low the rates go in bulk, but most seem to be a few cents per minute for outgoing calls.

Re:Thank god

[nhat11]

Facebook makes you pay a $1 if you want to message someone outside of your contacts and that are not related to you through mutual friends.

Re: Thank god

[dwye]

I assume that some have purchased ammunition, and guns for that matter, before money stops meaning that you are entitled to exchange it for goods or services.

Re:Thank god

[Anonymous Coward]

They stopped? Try to rate an android app.

Re:Thank god

[MBraynard]

A partial fix to this is already part of many phones: call blocking. If a caller is not in your address book, it goes right to voice mail. I also have an app that automatically disconnects calls from unlisted/private numbers or numbers that are part of a community black list that you can add to.

should be higher

[Anonymous Coward]

let's make it $50 or $100. anyone who hasn't spent that much probably won't use the other services regardless.

Re:should be higher

[MacTO]

If you set the threshold that high, new users will probably be turned off by the price of entry. That's particularly true of people who buy indie games or wait for sales, since that $50 can easily buy a couple of dozen games.

Re: should be higher

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us have a ton of games from non steam retail sources. Making it too high cuts out those of us with large legitimate libraries from sources like the Humble Bundle.

Re:should be higher

[TWX]

Yep. I have a whole bunch of things that I can do. Playing video games is only one among them.

Re:should be higher

[Anonymous Coward]

The threshold is not $50.00. It is $5.00.

Re:should be higher

[cptnapalm]

Ack. The post about charging $50 or $100 didn't come up until after I signed in. Naturally, I can't delete the comment I made now.

Re:should be higher

[jarkus4]

You do realize that retail games dont count, right? So all the people with several AAA titles bought in their local store (or just somewhere else on the internet) lose their ability to for example participate in mod discussions (workshop). In some parts of the world steam prices for new games (without big sales) are extremely high compared to those in stores.

Re:should be higher

[Anonymous Coward]

My issue is that they can't request friends or invite to a game anymore. I understand that scammers are a big deal, so I think that the "unverified" users should still be able to request friends, but be under an "unverified" list that would be wiped every 24 hours. Once they're your friend they should be able to invite you to a game.

Re:should be higher

[cfalcon]

I mean, I've definitely spent less than 100. I'm not even sure I've spent 50. I'm certainly no heavy user, but GoD Factory: Wingman isn't anywhere else.

Their goal isn't to shit on light users like me, it's to prevent fucking SPAMMERS. At 5 bucks per account, spamming is nowhere near profitable. At 50 bucks per account, they just shit on casuals.

Re:should be higher

[PopeRatzo]

If you set the threshold that high, new users will probably be turned off by the price of entry.

It doesn't prevent them from playing their games, it just prevents them from hassling other users.

If you want to spend $4.25 on a game on Steam, you can play that game to your heart's content. You just can't start spamming other users.

So no, new users will NOT be probably turned off by the price of entry into the community, even if the threshold is $50. Personally, I think the threshold should be $25 and three months of use.

Re:should be higher

[PopeRatzo]

If you've only spent $4.50 on games, what they hell are you doing trying to get involved in mod discussions. The last thing those discussion forums need is more spammers.

Re:should be higher

[Anonymous Coward]

If you set the threshold that high, new users will probably be turned off by the price of entry. That's particularly true of people who buy indie games or wait for sales, since that $50 can easily buy a couple of dozen games.

Turned off by what, limited forum posting, only receiving friend invites, only receiving invites to group chat? Cry me a river.

Re:should be higher

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep. I have a whole bunch of things that I can do. Playing video games is only one among them.

If you don't plan on spending any money on the service, and not being able to spam the forums or invite to group chats are a no-go for you, then why does anybody involved give a shit?

Re:should be higher

[ToasterMonkey]

Ack. The post about charging $50 or $100 didn't come up until after I signed in. Naturally, I can't delete the comment I made now.

That is why people should quote the parent. It's even a button now. 150% of everything on Slashdot is read out of context, accounting for duplicates.

Re:should be higher

[Kyogreex]

If you don't plan on spending any money on the service

Read up; they're talking about a hypothetical higher limit as someone proposed, which is certainly a bit more than just "any money."

and not being able to spam the forums or invite to group chats are a no-go for you

Now you're just pulling things out of thin air.

Re:should be higher

[Livius]

I agree - I worked at a store and when we started charging $0.05 a bag, the change in behaviour in the customers was dramatic. A token payment achieves the goal but you can't make the argument that it's too expensive.

Re:should be higher

[Anonymous Coward]

So all the people with several AAA titles bought in their local store (or just somewhere else on the internet) lose their ability to for example participate in mod discussions (workshop)

Steam boards are generally not where the real modding discussions take place anyways. Usually that is going on at either the official forums and/or modding sites like nexusmods, or smaller community sites.

Re:should be higher

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder how they account for that $5.00. I'm not really concerned about how the new policy would affect me but I can see that it will affect others.

For example I probably haven't bought a single thing directly through Steam but have 10's of games that I've activated through Steam Keys. Specifically Humble Indie Bundle used to make it really easy to use Perl/wget scripts to automatically download updates for your bundle purchases but it's next to impossible to do that now. (Come on guys, get an API already!) Instead I activated Steam Keys for every HIB game I could and am basically using Steam as an automatic update service. I probably only use Steam's social features (well, the forum anyway) when I have a problem installing or playing a game and am seeking help.

Re:should be higher

[Anonymous Coward]

$5 doesn't buy a Big Mac after tax. And you will shit out the Big Mac in 24 hours or less. Steam will last much longer. Everyone who values their Steam access LESS than yesterday's Big Mac turned Pile pretty much deserves to get off the service.

Re:should be higher

[Altrag]

The threshold doesn't have to be high though -- it only has to be higher than the opportunity cost for spamming. Once you hit that point, going further does little or nothing to help your cause but can negatively impact additional legitimate edge cases.

Re:should be higher

[PopeRatzo]

Yeah, you're right. $5 seems like a good threshold to keep out the spammers.

Re:should be higher

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm the AC parent, just looked into my account store transactions and I've spent a couple dollars shy of $800 in the 10 years I've been on the service. $50 is less than 10% of my total transactions, it seems pretty minuscule. But a post near yours suggested finding the opportunity cost of spamming and charge just over that. I don't know if $5 will get all the spammers or not. Personally, I'd rather get 99.999% of them at a higher $$$ spent vs only preventing say 70 or 80% at $5. Time will tell, I guess.

Re:should be higher

[murphtall]

agreed.

Slashdot is read out of context

Re:should be higher

[Anonymous Coward]

Was it the store's decision or did the government force you to do that?

I'd prefer a bag rebate instead.

Although, a bag fee is better than banning plastic bags, which has utility when it comes to taking them out in the rain. Better than being forced to buy a canvas bag or use a paper bag in said rain.

Re:should be higher

[RavenLrD20k]

Read the parent again. Particularly the part of

You do realize that retail games don't count, right?

Because these people put down on a AAA title in a retail outlet that isn't counted towards the Steam ecosystem, they have lost the ability to take part in the Mod discussion for the game they just put a good chunk of change on. They've also lost the ability to post Mods they've created to the Workshop. Valve just made the declaration: "Oh...you want to use the features of the game you just paid for? You need to pay us at least an additional $5 for that privilege. Sure we'll give you something from our library in exchange, just to give you some numbing lube so you can't exactly feel how hard we're screwing you"

To give an example, I have Skyrim. I paid $60 for it when it came out. I have not paid a dime into Steam's client. I use the workshop heavily to download mods for my game (some would say to make the game useable)...but now I'm locked out of the discussion to ask for a feature or give praise to a modder because I haven't paid the $5 tribute directly to Valve. I'm a paying customer of Bethesda and I just got dicked over on participation in the community because they chose Steam DRM and my purchase means dick-all to Valve. There's only 2 other games I have on my Steam account, and not a single one of them count as a contributed dime to Valve: Batman: Arkham Origins (acquired as a free gift from NewEgg when I bought my nVidia GTX 760) and the Kerbal Space Program Demo (only thing I got from the Steam Store, but it was free, so no dice).

Because of this small...minor..."harmless" move to reduce spammers, they've now guaranteed that they get none of my money, and my diligence in ensuring I do not purchase any future games that incorporate Steam has just ramped up to Sony Boycott levels. They would have done better if they did an either-or type of thing where you can participate if you have legal games in your library OR you've contributed $5 to Steam in some way. $5 is a small amount, I'll admit...but how much are your individual principles worth? How much can you be bribed for? Everyone has their price; but there's something seriously wrong with a person if that price is a net negative (they're paying other people for the opportunity to break their own principles)

Re:should be higher

[lgw]

The 5 cents a bag thing is different, because it's a political statement. I switched stores immediately when that happened, as I find it politically offensive (and when my city passed a law requiring it, I moved to a new state - no joke). And I have/use re-usable bags since they work better, but it's a matter of principle.

Re:should be higher

[lgw]

Wait, people buy games as boxes, in stores? Did you buy the game that way in Ye Olde 20th Century, and haven't bought anything since? Have the Amish started gaming now?

Re:should be higher

[RavenLrD20k]

The ISP with the best service cap has a 400GB/month cap to share between 4 gamers and 5 different devices you insensitive clod! The best way to mitigate the cap and ensure that we still have enough bandwidth to do other needed/desired functions is to buy physical games in boxes.

Re: should be higher

[Anonymous Coward]

Hear hear, great post.

Re:should be higher

[PopeRatzo]

Because these people put down on a AAA title in a retail outlet that isn't counted towards the Steam ecosystem, they have lost the ability to take part in the Mod discussion for the game they just put a good chunk of change on. They've also lost the ability to post Mods they've created to the Workshop. Valve just made the declaration: "Oh...you want to use the features of the game you just paid for? You need to pay us at least an additional $5 for that privilege.

So, you believe Valve should provide those services, the servers, the Mod Workshop to you for free?

Because of this small...minor..."harmless" move to reduce spammers, they've now guaranteed that they get none of my money

Since you already said you expect Steam to give you its service for free, I don't think Valve really cares if they don't get your money.

Re:should be higher

[RavenLrD20k]

So, you believe Valve should provide those services, the servers, the Mod Workshop to you for free?

No, I don't expect them for free. I expect Bethesda to have paid a onetime service fee negotiated for bulk sales for extended use of the Workshop servers. Bethesda then has the ability to take the $60 per copy they made on release day and subsequent months and use accounting to allot so much $$$$ per copy sold to cover the cost of services that THEY PROMISED ON THE BOX as part of the features of the game. In paying good money for the game on release, by extension, I have already paid for the time on the server to use the full features of the Workshop.

I don't expect access to the Workshop or its community for free. I already paid for them and your attempt to redirect this to say that I'm expecting something for nothing when it's actually Valve that is now expecting something more for a service it's already agreed to provide is suspiciously painting you as a Steam Shill account. Next thing you know Valve is going to say that if we don't pay a $5 tax to them we will no longer have access to Workshop Items we already use; when that happens, my Skyrim characters will be permanently retired and I'll have only Oblivion and Morrowind for my Elder Scrolls addiction. I see the writing on the wall; Valve has already got my money for two games via what they consider an indirect route and they no longer honor those purchases. This is no better than Comcast. They want both me and the game company I purchase from to pay for access to the same service. I now say, they can die in a fire along with all the other DRM.

Re:should be higher

[PopeRatzo]

Bethesda then has the ability to take the $60 per copy they made on release day and subsequent months and use accounting to allot so much $$$$ per copy sold to cover the cost of services that THEY PROMISED ON THE BOX as part of the features of the game. In paying good money for the game on release, by extension,

It sounds like your beef is with Bethesda and not Steam.

You know they're two different companies, right?

Do you need to borrow $5 so you can play with Mod Workshop on Steam? If that's the problem, just say so. I'm willing to help.

Re:should be higher

[RavenLrD20k]

No Dumbass. My beef is squarely on Steam and your attempts to deflect are getting you buried deeper and deeper in the shit you wallow in. Bethesda made a contract with Valve for Steam to provide Bethesda's End Users with access to the Steam Workshop for a modding community. This was done as part of the agreement Bethesda made with Valve for Bethesda to use Valve's DRM (Steam) in their game. The agreement was made, and now Valve is reneging on it and demanding that Bethesda's End Users shell out an additional $5 for services that Bethesda already paid Valve for on our behalf.

To put it a bit more simply: The service was working until Valve dicked with it and now it no longer works as advertised. This isn't Bethesda's fault because Bethesda has no direct control over Valve's servers. As you said, they're two different companies. Bethesda made proposed an agreement with Valve, Valve agreed, Bethesda advertised the service Valve provides for them, everything worked...everyone was happy. Now Valve changed their service agreement after the fact, nullifying the agreement, and expects direct payment and you expect me to be pissed with Bethesda over what Valve did? The only thing I have to be pissed with Bethesda about is that Bethesda used Steam in the first place..which I've always been leery of, and now it's come to fruition.

As for your offer... keep it. You obviously need it more than I do. I mean, it took you 3 and a half hours to get that money in the first place where I crap out a Lincoln almost every 5 minutes. How else would you not be able to recognize when you're getting shafted unless you were stuck in a minimum wage job where that's all you ever get?

Re:should be higher

[PopeRatzo]

I mean, it took you 3 and a half hours to get that money in the first place where I crap out a Lincoln almost every 5 minutes.

I don't understand why gamers are considered such a toxic community. Everybody seems so nice!

Re:should be higher

[hercludes]

So no, new users will NOT be probably turned off by the price of entry into the community, even if the threshold is $50. Personally, I think the threshold should be $25 and three months of use.

Actually, I've had multiple times where I wanted to play a game with some friends but couldn't as they were not able to add me as a friend as they had not bought a game. $25 and three months of use just to be able to add my own friends to play some game that would say, be only $5-10 sounds ridiculous.

Does it apply...

[Anonymous Coward]

to those who registered over $100+ value of retail games?

Re:Does it apply...

[del_diablo]

Why would it? L4D was like 20-30€ back in the day.

Can't say as I blame them.

[lister king of smeg]

While it is kinda crappy thing to do I cant say as I blame entirely I mean I get several invites a week from level zero or one community members I have never heard of never played a multiplayer session with never traded with. They all end up being begging bots and scams.

Re:Can't say as I blame them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Punctuation. Learn how to use it.

FUCKING AMERICAN RETARD.

Re:Can't say as I blame them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont get laid much do you, even as a faggot?

Re:Can't say as I blame them.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you're just using the word as a random insult, but here's a news flash for you: It's harder to get laid when you're gay.

Re:Can't say as I blame them.

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you're trolling, but I pity you. Really, I feel sorry for you. How sad is it that your life is so bereft of any positivity that you feel the need to go around and belittle others anonymously on the internet. You have my sympathies. Hopefully you realize how pointless what you're doing is and direct your efforts and doing something worthwhile.

Re:Can't say as I blame them.

[X0563511]

Imaginary lines on the dirt mean nothing to stupid. Stupid is everywhere people are.

Re:Can't say as I blame them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? If two gay guys meet they already have a shared vulnerability as a minority in society where acceptance in America is here or there depending on locale. It's like a boilerplate sharing for a start of the relationship, they're both gay. They both have to deal with people hating that they like to suck cocks and take it up the pooper. In heteroland the guy must prove to the girl he can take on her needs and make it fun meanwhile. Gay dudes are like hey, we suffer together lemme suck your cock. Im hetero but this contradicts my experience with gays and bis i know. Unless im wrong here and you'd care to take the time to elaborate

Re:Can't say as I blame them.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is $5 spend over the entire account. You don't need a Steam account if you're not buying games.

Re:Can't say as I blame them.

[RavenLrD20k]

What if I am buying games that require Steam to run DRM, just not buying those games through Steam? Retail purchases or purchases through venues that are not Steam don't count towards that $5.

Re:Can't say as I blame them.

[tbannist]

You could always splurge and spend $5 to get access to the services you want. There are so very many games on Steam it's hard to believe that you wouldn't be able to find a single thing there that you'd want.

Re:Can't say as I blame them.

[RavenLrD20k]

You could always splurge and spend $5 to get access to the services you already paid for when you bought the game.

FTFY

I have more than enough other games to keep me happy that I find no value in what I see on Steam, thanks. Yes, it's only a matter of $5. Yes it's cheap as I can recoup that in about 5 minutes at a terminal. But what is it really costing? By paying up, I'm telling Valve okay. I'm telling Valve that I'm willing to pay additional money for a service that was supposed to already have been paid for with my purchase of the initial game. I'm telling Valve that there's nothing stopping them from charging $10. I'm telling Valve that they could start requiring a small subscription fee to use their service. $65 a year? That's not bad. $10 a month? That's about what Netflix charges. I'm telling Valve that it's ok for them to invade my privacy, it's ok for them to lock down my games where I can't make hard backup copies of them, it's ok for them to delete games out of my library, it's ok for them to trample - with a smile and a handshake - over whatever promises they've once made with their Users and Developers... and charge the people who are gullible enough to fall for it and spinless enough to not fight against it... a measly $5.

Re:Can't say as I blame them.

[tbannist]

By spending $5 on something, you would be telling Valve that you're a paying customer and not a freeloader who's actively working to destroy their system?

However, with your rant you are telling me that you're a paranoid drama queen.

But I may be biased, because this will cost me nothing because I have already paid more than $5 to buy some cheap games during the summer and winter sales. I would imagine that for the vast majority of Steam's customers it will also cost them nothing because they are actually customers and have spent some money with Steam at some point in the past. You represent a corner case, a rare exception, a freeloader who legitimately (by your claim) uses Steam's services without ever paying Valve anything.

I'm telling Valve that I'm willing to pay additional money for a service that was supposed to already have been paid for with my purchase of the initial game.

I've seen this claim before (probably from you), but I'm don't know what game you bought that you think entitles you to permanent and unlimited access to all the services of Steam in perpetuity.

Re:Can't say as I blame them.

[RyoShin]

I used to just accept any friend request until these bots started showing up. Now if I get a friend request from a Lv0/1 user, and the profile is private (the bots are always private; perhaps they think people are more likely to accept if they aren't able to see the lack of game time?), I Block it.

So

[Greyfox]

Instead of paying nothing they'll just have to buy a cheap game with a stolen credit card? The monthly subscription fee never seemed to be a problem for the gold farmers in WoW or the isk farmers in Eve Online.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

The price of entry is now $5 (or equivalent after currency conversion). This is a price. Previous to this imposition of limits, the cost of setting up hundreds or thousands of bot accounts to spam people with friend invites and phishing links was effectively nil.

For a couple months I was getting two or three steam friends invites a day from what were clearly bots. I for one am glad that these limits have been put in place.

Re:So

[fiore42]

I'm sure some people will do that, and I'm sure Valve thinks so too. But adding a moderate hurdle like that will certainly cut abuse down, and I don't see it as being a real imposition at all on actual users, so I think this is a brilliant idea. /been getting Steam Spam lately.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

If you have access to stolen credit cards why would you be trade scamming for TF2 hats?

Re:So

[X0563511]

Indeed - like email spam, that kind of abuse just doesn't pay if you've got any kind of an overhead associated with volume.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

From a simple economics POV it is just an added cost.

So lets say I can pull in 5k from 1 account. Is buying 5 bucks worth of trading cards or a game that much of a burden? Lets say you do 200 transactions before your account is turned off. That is ~2.5 cents per transaction. If you can get 10 dollars out of someone you are already 5 bucks ahead.

You are competing with the economics of 'i have nothing to lose and can only gain'.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

But maybe an added cost that is too high.

If the average scamvalue per account is only $1, then this $5 hurdle will en this.

Currently with a hurdle of $0 any amount of scamvalue is profit. This incentives the massive making of accounts

So in the end, we will probably see less scam but better quality of scams.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed! Valve can and does ban accounts/reverse transactions/remove games that were bought with fraudulently obtained credit card numbers. Running steam scams with stolen credit card numbers is pretty useless.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true, but it will eliminate more than 70% of the crappy low-tech scammers.
That is more than worth it.

Most people of worth will have spent at least that much on Steam at some point.
Even me and I barely play games. (friends trying to get me to play an MMO pfft)

Re: So

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're _paying_ for stolen CC numbers, then why waste them on making a Steam spammer account? Each transaction is one step closer to the card being burned, and a set of common transactions will burn your whole haul the moment the CC company sees the common ley line. At which point Steam will see the chargeback, and shitcan your account pile, too.

If you're the guy that stole the CCs, you could do much better by selling them like everyone else.

Re: So

[Hognoxious]

I think you should have included "I heard that" , "this TV show I watched said" or "so they say" "somewhere in your post.

Re:So

[gman003]

The point is to make the account cost more than the expected value gained via scamming.

Scams, in general, have a poor success rate. There may be a sucker born every minute, but there's 250 people born a minute. Even if a successful scam nets a large gain, losing $5 on each attempt makes it a losing proposition.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

isk farmers in Eve Online.

The monthly fee that you can effectively pay with in game currency is not a problem for the in game currency farmers in EVE?

Tell me more.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Because laundering TF2 hats is less likely to end up with you in prison?

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

So when the cops catch you, which carries a heavier legal penalty?
1. Credit card fraud. Probably getting "conspiracy to commit" and other stuff tacked on.
2. Scamming people out of virtual hats in some game.

Re:So

[Anonymous Coward]

Gold farmers don't pay for their accounts. It's driven almost entirely by accounts stolen through phishing and keylogging.

Tired of this from valve

[Anonymous Coward]

I will not purchase from Steam anymor at this point. I been trying for awhile. This Steam sorta of minimum restrictions puts all the cards in the hands of Valve. If they miss identify spam behaviour on your part, they can literally "unsell" hundreds of dollars of software in the blink of an eye. Now, of course, they will not refund your purchases, they will gladly keep that. I do not condone the spamming and use of Valve's software for such, but I also am getting really tired about the "terms and conditions" that companies are giving themselves. Software should be treated no differently than any other form of purchase. Companies should not be able to give themselves super-judge powers, that in the blink of an eye can undo all customers which have been done with that company. Kick the junk software out, most certainly. But also kicking out your users. I guess I just dont understand

Re:Tired of this from valve

[cfalcon]

Do you understand that this just blocks accounts from doing certain "spam tasks" until the account has spent FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS? Five is not a lot of dollars. It's not five dollars a week, a month, or a year. It's over the life of the account.

Because Steam accounts can be made in an automated fashion, this will greatly ramp up the effort needed by spammers- they'll have to steal cards or spend money.

This is to shut down spammers. Do you seriously mean to tell me you've been using Steam and have never spent five dollars, ever?

Re:Tired of this from valve

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't kicking out users.. they are kicking out mass botting get it straight.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[Anonymous Coward]

Also to spend money you have to hand over your personal information such as your full home address.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[Anonymous Coward]

bullshit, buy wallet credit from gamestop etc.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[X0563511]

Not even that - they are just limiting what the bots can do.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment makes no sense. Valve restricts only invites and such for users who never bought anything IN THEIR WHOLE LIFE.
It doesn't strip them from anything, but being able to spam other users, even if they bought something and Valve would misidentify their spending. So you are simply DUMB LIKE A BRICK.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[cfalcon]

This is not correct. You can pay cash.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[FlyHelicopters]

Also to spend money you have to hand over your personal information such as your full home address.

Oh, so a private company that has servers and services that you want to access wants your information before giving you access?

Oh the horror!

Re:Tired of this from valve

[PopeRatzo]

Also to spend money you have to hand over your personal information such as your full home address.

Not to Steam, you don't. I buy games on Steam using PayPal.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[Anonymous Coward]

well aren't you special

Re: Tired of this from valve

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly I haven't. I play skyrim which uses steam but I haven't purchased anything from steam. I don't have a reason too.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[Anonymous Coward]

"Not to Steam, you don't. I buy games on Steam using PayPal."

Or not to anyone. I just buy prepaid Steam cards when I see something I want go on sale.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[drinkypoo]

they'll have to steal cards or spend money.

This is not correct. You can pay cash.

Try again.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish the mindless libertarians here would just go away

Re:Tired of this from valve

[Anonymous Coward]

I seriously don't even understand what you are asking here. Or confused about?

Re:Tired of this from valve

[drinkypoo]

I seriously don't even understand what you are asking here. Or confused about?

You are clearly the one who is confused, both previously and now. I am not asking anything. I am calling attention to your failure.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[cfalcon]

> I am calling attention to your failure.

No, you are calling attention to *yours*.

I said:

"Because Steam accounts can be made in an automated fashion, this will greatly ramp up the effort needed by spammers- they'll have to steal cards or spend money."

This is factual. If each account must spend $5, they must either spend their OWN money, or spend someone ELSE's money.

An AC responded with:

"Also to spend money you have to hand over your personal information such as your full home address."

This is NOT CORRECT. Thus, I responded with:

"This is not correct. You can pay cash."

If you purchase a steam card at best buy, gamestop, etc, you can get money to your account without giving them your actual information. You obviously don't want to actually provide false info if it would change your sales tax, but I doubt that's what AC was talking about. There's also some mainly-euro option to pay as well.

To which, YOU replied:

"Try again."

Quoting only my above, correct, statement.

Deciding that you were probably confused, and apparently have a very tiny upload bandwidth, or maybe a keyboard lined with poison daggers, I asked:

"I seriously don't even understand what you are asking here. Or confused about?"

To which you replied, still not answering what the hell you are confused about, with your little gem about "calling attention to my failure".

So, everything I said has been factual and clear. Everything you have said has been terse and confrontational. I think you've typed three sentences, and all have been incorrect.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[drinkypoo]

Wait, you left this anonymous comment? Because that was really fucking douchey. I assumed, since it was an anonymous comment, that comment was a reply from the same person who left this comment.

Now yeah, I did fail to put the comment together correctly — I failed to include the anonymous comment that would have made it make sense — but you failed to log in for just one comment you made in the thread.

So everything you said was factual, but it was not clear, because it wasn't clear that you said all of it.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[RavenLrD20k]

I've never bought anything from Steam since I activated the account in 2011. Not. One. Thing. I have however bought 2 games that used Steam DRM, starting with Skyrim. I used to leave feedback and help requests for Skyrim Mods in the Steam Workshop. I also on occasion put up some of my own Mods. While I can still download mods, I can't leave feedback or submit Mods anymore with this setup, because though I've paid $60 for Skyrim and got Batman:AO as a free gift from Newegg, Valve doesn't recognize those purchases for this purpose. So a major functionality, a functionality that was part of the reason I bought the game in the first place, a functionality that has been a staple of the Elder Scrolls series since at least Morrowind, has just been effectively ripped out of Skyrim by Valve (can't even blame Bethesda for this beyond putting Steam DRM into the game in the first place) for the "helpful" purpose of reducing spammers. If they wanted to reduce spammers they should have made it either or; as in you can use Steam services for games if you EITHER purchased at least $5 worth of items in the Steam store OR have Retail Games in your library.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[Anonymous Coward]

If you haven't spent 5 dollars, you are either a spammer\scammer, a child, or so new I probably don't care what you think. Steam is a game distribution site (they sell games) if you haven't spent 5 bucks, your leaching.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[cfalcon]

Sigh. "Posted from my iPhone!". Yea, sorry about that. This makes sense if you route the comment to a different point based on assumed source.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[Anonymous Coward]

That won't work. There are far too many working key generators available for the spammers to use, and revoking keys later takes far more effort than just making users add $5 to their damn wallet. Think of it like your membership deposit at a credit union. If you want to take full advantage of the services, pay for them.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[mjwx]

Do you understand that this just blocks accounts from doing certain "spam tasks" until the account has spent FIVE FUCKING DOLLARS? Five is not a lot of dollars. It's not five dollars a week, a month, or a year. It's over the life of the account.

Because Steam accounts can be made in an automated fashion, this will greatly ramp up the effort needed by spammers- they'll have to steal cards or spend money.

This is to shut down spammers. Do you seriously mean to tell me you've been using Steam and have never spent five dollars, ever?

I used Steam for 5 years before spending a single dollar on steam.

How, I bought games at a store (be it online or physical).

That being said, I never participated in anything Steam offered and realistically still dont (it's just something that updates itself and every now and then refuses to work until I reboot). Also I completely understand why Valve is doing such a thing.

Re:Tired of this from valve

[RavenLrD20k]

I paid for the services when I plopped $60 on a game that advertised full advantage to Steam Workshop. Also, my credit union doesn't have membership fees/deposits; The only requirement to opening the account is living at an address within a county that they have a branch office in. After that initial opening, you can move to Germany and still have your account with them. Also, I don't care how much more effort it's required to revoke pirate keys, if they want my business in the future they can make that extra effort. I paid for the service already. Give me the choice of paying for it again or walking? I've got good shoes and could use the exercise. Anyone else with a brain on their damn shoulders should do the same, but I forget... we're a nation full of Stockholm Syndrome.

workshop

[jarkus4]

I would say some people may get annoyed due to following limitations:
>Submit content on the Steam Workshop
>Post in an item's Steam Workshop Discussions
Retail games dont give you full account, so if you buy some steam only game with a mod community (eg Civilization 5) you potentially lose quite a bit

Re:workshop

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say some people may get annoyed due to following limitations:
>Submit content on the Steam Workshop
>Post in an item's Steam Workshop Discussions
Retail games dont give you full account, so if you buy some steam only game with a mod community (eg Civilization 5) you potentially lose quite a bit

Too bad for them. They can afford a computer and an internet connection so there is no conceivable reason they can't spend a one time $5 charge to get access to Steam.

Re:workshop

[Fire_Wraith]

While it's certainly possible to use Steam and never, ever spend any money in theory, in practice I don't think the sort of person who buys a retail game that's Steam activated but never buys anything on Steam, ever, is generally going to be the sort of person who finds themselves limited by these restrictions.

What I suspect is much more common is that the retail game introduces them to Steam, and along the way they start purchasing games, probably in the various Steam Sales.

This is all about understanding the profiles of different users, and setting it up so that you don't impact 99.n+% of legitimate users, but significantly impact bots/scams/etc.

Re:workshop

[FlyHelicopters]

I would say some people may get annoyed due to following limitations:
>Submit content on the Steam Workshop
>Post in an item's Steam Workshop Discussions
Retail games dont give you full account, so if you buy some steam only game with a mod community (eg Civilization 5) you potentially lose quite a bit

That is possible, but how many people are actually active in the Steam community who have never spent $5 on Steam?

Is there someone, somewhere in the world that is like that? Probably. Many people? Probably not.

It is what is called an edge case, and a business can't account for all of them. They are trying to get rid of the bot spammers and this is one way to do it.

Re:workshop

[PopeRatzo]

I would say some people may get annoyed due to following limitations:

So wait for a sale, buy a game for $5 that was $49 a year ago, and then you're good to go in Steam Workshop.

And why should Steam give you credit for buying games at Wal-Mart?

Re:workshop

[Dagger2]

There are, however, conceivable reasons why they might not want to (or be able to) give that $5 to Valve.

Re:workshop

[Cederic]

Because the game bought in Wal-Mart includes features such as "Access to community updates" and "play with your friends".

When a game forces you to use Steam if you want to play it, and requires Steam for specific features mentioned on the box, I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to be able to access those features through Steam with no further expenditure.

Re:workshop

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a lot of people, mostly children, that use Steam for Free2Play games. Many of them use Steam's matchmaking service which requires the use of the friends list.

Re: workshop

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they shouldn't be using Steam, you stupid motherfucker.

Re:workshop

[Anonymous Coward]

THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

Re:workshop

[Anonymous Coward]

So the tiny number of people this applies to in the real world can post their mods on CivFanatics, and/or get someone else to post on the Workshop for them.

It's really not a big deal.

Re:workshop

[Anonymous Coward]

"Is there someone, somewhere in the world that is like that? Probably. Many people? Probably not."

Actually it's not as insane as you might think. There's always a bunch of free-to-play games on Steam, along with games that go free temporarily over a weekend/week/etc. Bottom line, you CAN game on Steam without paying a penny. Plus I don't know if this would count towards your $5 requirement or not, but you can be gifted games from friends. That's how I started on Steam myself, when a friend had bought the X series as a bundle for a couple bucks and gifted it to me.

Re:workshop

[Anonymous Coward]

Hopefully they'll do it this way as to many games are now requiring steam in order to install. Got Civ 5 for christmas and wasn't aware of that until I went to install the game - wasn't my purchase but still surprised the hell out of me to say the least.

If they follow the more restrictive route, there are lots of games that wont be happy with them as the distribution channel. Folks that sell a custom CD with the steam installer (no game installer - just the steam installer with a special code for the game) plus the game creators do require a key entry to validate the game - Civ 5 was a good example and for many of us that don't have reliable broadband, it's a concern. I prefer games with off-line/stand-alone play as my internet isn't reliable during the summer, when I have the time to play.

Re:workshop

[Megane]

Or they could, you know, consider an account that has at least one retail code registered to have spent at least $5? I doubt there are many Steam-based games that you can buy at retail for under $5, unless it's some kind of super clearance sale item.

The point is to restrict accounts that have with no purchase activity at all, because apparently it's easy (and free) to create a bunch of them with an automated script. You can't (or shouldn't be able to) generate retail codes with a script, so you can't use a script to create a large number of accounts with registration codes. The important difference is an account created with no effort vs one created with the effort to register games worth at least $5.

Re:workshop

[PopeRatzo]

Because the game bought in Wal-Mart includes features such as "Access to community updates" and "play with your friends".

The Steam version has exactly the same features. And you don't have to support Wal-Mart.

The people who are being shut out of Steam Workshop are not people who are buying games at Wal-Mart, and if you don't want to use Steam, then why would you complain about not being able to access Steam Workshop?

I want to hear from one single person who is being legitimately put out because of this $5 purchase requirement.

Re:workshop

[PopeRatzo]

I prefer games with off-line/stand-alone play as my internet isn't reliable during the summer, when I have the time to play.

You don't need to be online to play games you bought on Steam, unless they are online games, in which case, guess what? you need to be online to play anyway.

Re:workshop

[Altrag]

I'm sure it wouldn't be hard for Steam to add an "or registers a code from a boxed game" alternate qualification if this became a huge problem. Of course that would depend on boxed game codes not being terribly easy to forge, but I'm assuming that's the case anyway for pure business reasons.

Re:workshop

[Anonymous Coward]

There are, however, conceivable reasons why they might not want to (or be able to) give that $5 to Valve.

As I said, too bad for them. That's such a negligible part of the market that nobody in the player base or at Valve will miss them.

Re:workshop

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to be online to ask friends. Or make comment to the workshop. Which means it has to be online.

Also Steam sells Origin games and EA games with their always on line requirement even for single player games. So you DO have to be online to play Steam games.

Re:workshop

[Cederic]

OK. My friend's daughter. She has 3-4 games on her Steam account, one gifted by her father and the others gifted by me.

She's too young for a credit card, but not too young to build things for the Steam workshop, let alone download content from others.

Re:workshop

[PopeRatzo]

OK. My friend's daughter. She has 3-4 games on her Steam account, one gifted by her father and the others gifted by me.

Five dollars. You can deposit five dollars into her Steam wallet right now and let her buy an indie game.

She's too young for a credit card, but not too young to build things for the Steam workshop

No credit card needed.

Re:workshop

[PopeRatzo]

Also Steam sells Origin games and EA games with their always on line requirement

But if there's an online requirement for those games, and you don't have a persistent internet connection you're not going to be buying those games right? Even if you buy them at Wal-Mart, you won't be able to play them.

It's not Steam's fault that EA and Origin have those always online requirements.

Re:workshop

[luther349]

pretty sure if you get a steam key from a retail that would be conserd money spent.

Re:workshop

[Cederic]

Oh, it's trivial to work around - because unlike some Steam users $5 isn't half a day's salary for me. But until/unless someone is generous on her behalf she can not fully enjoy the platform or the games she owns on it.

Which has been the issue under discussion all along.

Re:workshop

[RavenLrD20k]

Except when...You know... I plopped down $60 on a retail game that used Steam for DRM way back in the day with the promise of access to all features of Steam Workshop. Now I have to plop another $5 for some crap I don't even want just to continue with the functionality I had before? Nice to know your soul is good for the price of -$5. Tell me, what can you do for me that I can charge $5 for just so I can allow you to continue to use a service that I used to provide for free?

Re:workshop

[FlyHelicopters]

Actually it's not as insane as you might think. There's always a bunch of free-to-play games on Steam, along with games that go free temporarily over a weekend/week/etc. Bottom line, you CAN game on Steam without paying a penny. Plus I don't know if this would count towards your $5 requirement or not, but you can be gifted games from friends. That's how I started on Steam myself, when a friend had bought the X series as a bundle for a couple bucks and gifted it to me.

Sure, I understand that... but my point is... how many of those F2P players or gifted players are actually using the Steam community features before they buy a single game on Steam?

Re: workshop

[Anonymous Coward]

People like you are entitled little fucking brats. How about this, ignore the spam, you know it's spam.

I guarantee this won't stop spam. You know why? Because now they will go after your logins and hack accounts to do the same shit. So instead of a link from a spammy source, you get a spammy link from your best friends. Good job mate. Fuck off you entitled prick.

Re:workshop

[PopeRatzo]

But until/unless someone is generous on her behalf she can not fully enjoy the platform or the games she owns on it.

You mean to say she could afford the platform and the games, but not a one-time purchase of $5?

Or are you saying that some parent or relative bought her the platform and the games, but refuses to purchase a single $5 game on Steam for her?

Come on. If there is a computer gamer in the world for whom a single $5 purchase is impossible, I want to hear from them, not from someone making up a hypothetical niece who can't afford a $5 game for their watercooled i7-4550 with twin Titans.

And remember, this new threshold doesn't bar this hypothetical niece from playing her games, only from using Steam's Mod Workshop and social media services. Steam will still work just fine for playing her games.

Re:workshop

[Cederic]

Look you ignorant cunt I've already fucking told you how she acquired the games on her account.

You're either being deliberating obtuse or you're so fucking stupid you don't belong on Slashdot. Now fuck off and stop wasting my fucking time.

Fuck me, how do you even get fucking dressed in the morning.

Re:workshop

[PopeRatzo]

Look you ignorant cunt I've already fucking told you how she acquired the games on her account.

Do you need to borrow $5 so you can buy a game on Steam for your "niece"?

Let me know and I'll transfer $5 into your Steam wallet so you (I mean your "niece") can design hats for your (I mean, "her") TF2 character.

Re:workshop

[Anonymous Coward]

Please provide a link to your (non-existant) Steam account.

Why do we spend all day trying to create an edge-case protest against something that stops bots? What the hell?

Re:workshop

[RavenLrD20k]

For an AC on /. ...fuck no I'm not that stupid.

For your second (and third) questions...I'm in a slump at work and bored as hell. This article struck a chord at the wrong time.

Re:workshop

[RyoShin]

In Team Fortress 2, "free users" are limited in trading, crafting, and backpack slots. Anyone who bought the game before it went free-to-play, or that make any purchase in the Mann Co. store (even as little as 99c).

For those that are "free" users and just absolutely have no money, there is one more alternative: Upgrade to Premium Gift can be given to them by another player, and will grant them a premium account. (I can't find the exact price at the moment, but I recall it being inexpensive.) I imagine that if there are enough of these edge cases, Valve will introduce a similar item for Steam in general.

I call BS

[Anonymous Coward]

So instead of actively scanning for malicious users using heuristics that already exist, they're throwing a blanket on all people who spend less than 5$?
Folks using bots that can defeat steams already existing anti-bot measures are likely making money of it in the first place. You don't set up hundreds of accounts and put that kind of thought and resources behind it to not make money. Maybe a couple people will, but that's less by-catch.

Re:I call BS

[maugle]

Your heuristics idea would create too many false positives, where each false positive represents a paying customer who is now pissed at being treated like a bot. It also would likely allow many false negatives, requiring the spammers to merely tweak their system to fool the heuristic, meaning the problem would not be solved either. So now you have paying customers being treated as spambots while still being spammed by actual spambots. That's a bad combination right there.

Meanwhile, placing restrictions on accounts who have never bought even $5 worth of stuff will raise the barrier of entry above what most spammers can afford, and if it inconveniences a few legit people? Well, if they haven't bought anything, they can't really be called paying customers, so they're not the gamers Valve is interested in courting anyway.

possible workaround.

[Deathlizard]

1) greenlight scam game for $5
2) have all bots buy scam game to recoup costs.

They will still lose money, but it will be far less than $5

Re:possible workaround.

[Anonymous Coward]

Greenlight is a long process, even if a shitload of spammers get together and vote a game in the greentlight system, it doesn't automatically release the game, there's still a long process with Steam representatives to make the game available on Steam and etc, so it's not like they can simply do that. However it is very easy to obtain many keys to games to simply activate a Steam account, like humble bundles and such, so I hope it means Steam Wallet money/direct payment on Steam rather than having enough "game value" on account.

Re:possible workaround.

[wbr1]

Even were the spammers able to coordinate and get a game greenlighted (doubtful at best), they would still get kicked out by normal reporting procedures, requiring an endless parade of $5 accounts to keep scamming.

I received three invites this week from scammers. rather than ignore, I accept, wait for the bait then report. Two sent fake steam community links that were typosquatting malware, I did not investigate further as I was not near a test box and did not want a drive by infection. One sent a bit.ly link to a trojan downloader. When I put it in my test system, it promptly installed cryptowall3. Personally I am all for reasonable measures to curtail these douches. $5 seems reasonable to me.

Still is DRM

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't have to make it worse, Valve. We get it: Steam is DRM.

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Restricted actions include sending invites, opening group chats, and taking part in the Steam marketplace.

If you get locked out of the Steam marketplace, how do they expect you to spend your $5? The article only mentions "participate" so I assume that just means sell but the article doesn't specify.

Re: Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Steam market place is steam user to steam user
steam store is where you buy games from steam.

Re:Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Adding $5 to you steam wallet (you know, the thing that you buy stuff on the community marketplace with?) counts as $5 of purchases on steam and will cause any restriction on your account to be lifted. Co-incidentally, $5 is the minimum amount you can add to your steam wallet.
The actual support article (which the article in the summary does not link because Gamespot writers are apparently lazy assholes) says as much explicitly.

Many of them are legit users.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't want a banhammer or some hacker to remove your access to ALL "your" games on Steam, or sell them on when done, you have to use multiple accounts, one for each game.

And given Steam insists they're cheaper than normal retailers.

The result is that Steam wants you to STFU if you bought their stuff on sale.

Missed Headline Opportunity

[SuperKendall]

"Hey Small Spender - Spend, a Little Less Time with Me"

I would have been affected

[AlCapwn]

I used Steam for 5 years or so without buying anything through Steam, I just played a lot of CS:S and TF2 from the Orange Box. This would have really inconvenienced me at the time since I was using a lot of the social features. It was before I had access to Steam funds via Gamestop. It could be a pain in the ass for people with no method of online payment, from foreign countries. It's a good idea but there has to be an alternate process of validating an account, as to not alienate people in odd situations.

They should at least make retail games count, just exclude keys from Humble Bundles. I mean, even if they hunted bargain bins for old keys it would still create a lot of labor per account.

Re:I would have been affected

[SuiteSisterMary]

If you buy a game that requires steam (Orange Box, W40K: DoW, etc) I'd say that qualifies as having spent money on steam.

You know this is a trash headline

[cfalcon]

"Who small spender" implies that Steam is beginning to ramp actions up against players who don't spend money. This is an anti-spam measure, and it's actually pretty sensational to ever phrase it as being about "small spenders".

Hand-me-down laptops from family members

[tepples]

unless you dug the device out of the trash and are also stealing electricity, I think spending $5 at one time or another isn't much to require.

Mostly I'm thinking of a middle school or high school student who received a hand-me-down device for the child's birthday or Christmas. Their parents provide free electricity and often free Internet, restaurants provide free Internet and often free electricity to laptop users, and child labor laws prohibit earning money for anything else.

Re: Hand-me-down laptops from family members

[Anonymous Coward]

We made plenty of money when we were young doing things like mowing grass and shoveling snow. There is no laws against that, and shame on you for not teaching your kids they can do things like that.

Re: Hand-me-down laptops from family members

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you report that income to the IRS and pay your taxes on it? No? There ARE laws against this, and that is only one example. Hiring children to do yard work, in our hyper-regulated, bureaucratic, and litigious economic system, is essentially a black market exchange.

Restricted actions incl taking part in marketplace

[ayesnymous]

"Restricted actions include sending invites, opening group chats, and taking part in the Steam marketplace." So people who want to spend $5 to have no restrictions will find that they are restricted from spending $5?

Rated M

[tepples]

Team Fortress 2, the free-to-play game published by the company that runs Steam, is rated M by the ESRB for "blood and gore" and "intense violence. How does the Steam service comply with the video game industry's self-regulation of sales of M games to minors?

Cap

[tepples]

The Steam version has exactly the same features.

I thought retail games were for people on slow or capped Internet connections, and the update was smaller than the full game. Good luck downloading a 10 GB game over a satellite or cellular Internet connection capped at 10 GB per month.

And you don't have to support Wal-Mart.

You still support Walmart if you buy Steam gift cards at Walmart.

Re:Cap

[inasity_rules]

Yeah, but because of the updates required, you're probably still screwed.

I have a 10Gb cap, and it sucks. Still older games have few updates. Yay for retro gaming!

Could you fucking not?

[rebelwarlock]

I'm getting really sick of headlines trying to be cute.

Offline mode bugs

[tepples]

In the past, Steam was full of defects that caused it to often lose the cached receipts* that allow offline mode to work. The earliest versions (in the Half-Life 2 era) wouldn't even try to download these receipts for offline use unless the user chose "Go Offline" while online. Even the current version still has bugs that appear to require the purchase of a UPS according to Valve's page about offline mode:

Stored information that is required for offline mode to function may be lost when forcing Steam to close instead of exiting Steam correctly. Always manually close Steam before shutting your computer down or running out of battery life if you wish to use offline mode for an extended period of time.

If the required offline mode data is lost, there is no way to start Steam without an internet connection.

* "Receipts" are what the OUYA IAP system calls the associations between an item that can be purchased and a user account. Google Play Licensing calls it a cached licensing status. The terminology might differ for Steam.

Labor market doesn't accommodate all kids

[tepples]

We made plenty of money when we were young doing things like mowing grass and shoveling snow.

The demand for such services is limited. What steps should a child take to ensure that all the lawns on his block aren't already being mowed either by a resident or by another child on the block? And in winter, how should a child cope with the neighbor who runs a gasoline-powered snow thrower up and down the whole block for free out of 1. altruism and 2. wanting to walk to the bus stop without having to dodge cars in the street? (I am said neighbor.)

Re:Labor market doesn't accommodate all kids

[bemymonkey]

"And in winter, how should a child cope with the neighbor who runs a gasoline-powered snow thrower up and down the whole block for free out of 1. altruism and 2. wanting to walk to the bus stop without having to dodge cars in the street? (I am said neighbor.)"

Just pawn that off on a kid and get the neighbors to chip in a little pocket money for him/her. Unless you truly enjoy running up and down the street with that snowblower.

Let the user set a higher value

[Anonymous Coward]

I'ld set it a lot higher than $5.

Re:Restricted actions incl taking part in marketpl

[Scorch_Mechanic]

The actual support article explicitly says that adding $5 to your steam wallet (which is the only way to buy stuff on the steam community marketplace) will count as $5 of purchases.
Co-incidentally, $5 is the minimum amount you can add to your steam wallet.

I don't do Steam, so I can't fuck off from Steam

[Anonymous Coward]

And the reason why is because despite the fanbois fellating Gabe at every opportunity and shitting on anyone who DARES not accept Steam as UTTER BRILLIANCE, I don't like, want or agree to their terms and conditions. Partly because they don't have to have a shred of right to do so and partly because they can at a whim decide, extrajudicially, to change the terms and conditions and do so RETROACTIVELY. Just like they do here.

Yet you shitheads love the taste of Steamcum so much you LOATHE anyone who dares not love it.

Fuck right off you ignorant and arrogant twat. Because I was telling the other shithead that he should fuck off with his arrogant bullshit. The fuckwit and you would be seriously pissed off if your government acted a tenth as dictatorial as Steam.

Yet you still defend to other people's death Valve's right to be a dictator and shut down speech.

Fuck off.

So what are the scams on Steam?

[DrXym]

I've never had an invite from a scammer, and don't trade anything with some random person. So what are the scams that these free accounts are working on?

Re:So what are the scams on Steam?

[turp182]

I was wondering about this also. I think the people targeted participate in the social features of Steam. I have 300 or so games (Corporate Lifestyle Simulator is my current burn time game) and have used Steam for many years. I have two "friends" on Steam.

Not one piece of spam or scammer contact, ever.

There are obviously sublevels of interaction I was not aware of. Until now.

Slightly interesting actually.

Re:So what are the scams on Steam?

[DrXym]

I read that some scams involve linking to a url which exploits bugs in Steam to install a trojan (e.g. a malformed png). Otherwise I don't see what the scam is.

Telemarketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Phone lines cost to rent, each month. Phone call plans cost, each month. Telemarketers are getting worse. I don't think reality supports your claims.

All this means is that you now have to pay for "free speech".

Re:Telemarketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Phone lines

VOIP.

It won't be any problem to Steam/Valve.

[Anonymous Coward]

Since they got paid or don't get paid (except by the reseller) even if a large number of customers have a huge problem. So tell me why Valve would do this? They COULD. They could also have done this on the offset. They didn't the latter, so why the former?

Particularly since you can still play games

[Sycraft-fu]

None of the restrictions are on buying or playing games. So even if you've never spent money (I'm not clear that retail doesn't count but let's say it doesn't) you can still play all the games you've got, and buy more games to play (at which point your account becomes unlocked). So you can do with it the main purpose: Play games, including free to play ones. It isn't like they are demanding money to unlock an account.

Also in the event this really was an issue for someone, they could just buy something cheap. I mean if you've dropped $50+ on a retail game it is not that big a deal to spend another $5 if it comes to that.

I don't think it is crappy

[Sycraft-fu]

I mean it is a really, really minimal legit player base it could possibly effect. You would have to be someone who plays only F2P games, and has made so few in-game purchases that you haven't even spent $5. There are just extremely few people who are like that. Further, even people like that can still play, they just can't participate in some of the other Steam features. The games are still available to them.

new rules

[Tom]

New at Steam: We replace people who don't give a fuck with people who really don't give a fuck.

No, don't get me wrong, it's a step in the right direction. But the step itself begs questions. In general, the great firewall is the first cent - people who spend nothing at all and people who spend something, no matter how much. If you don't believe me, try charging 10 cents or something ridiculously small for any free web service you offer, and you'll find your user numbers drop through the floor.

I don't think there's a measurable difference between $5 and $4 or $3 -- the number is entirely arbitrary. A psychological barrier would be $10 (the two digits, the reason almost nothing in any shop in the world costs $10, it will always be $9.99 or $9.95).

Humble Bundle

[IllogicalStudent]

I own a LOT of Steam games through key redemptions from Humble Bundle and the like. I've never, however, purchased from Valve. I feel this move unfairly targets those like me.

Re:Humble Bundle

[Anonymous Coward]

If hang out in a coffeeshop everyday and never purchase anything, they will eventually ask you to leave.

Poor baby, how unfair life is!

Re:Humble Bundle

[IllogicalStudent]

Flawed analogy. In the coffee shop example, I could take my textbooks / tablet elsewhere to study or stare at the Reddit button (I'm assuming that's what you're up to, sitting in a coffee shop for hours without buying anything -- as an aside to the button, stay in the shade). If Steam kicks me out, I lose access to the games that I DID PURCHASE, just not through Valve. Granted, they're NOT kicking me out, per se, they're disabling certain community features. However, I use said features, and paid for said features, again, just not to them (which was NOT part of the deal when I purchased the software). I can see them disabling things if you're running all freemium stuff in your account, but if the title's been bought, at all, whether via Steam itself or a third party (including B&M Retail), you should have full access to everything. That is what Valve promised the publisher/developer as the end-user experience. Why should I as the end-user be punished by choosing to purchase the game without using Valve as a middle-man?

Blocking ragers/trolls

[phorm]

I wonder if this might apply to ragers/trolls as well? On games that are free (DOTA2) etc, there is a system for reporting, but at the moment it just seems to temporarily put you in the "slow queue".
I'm actually had some people say "go ahead, report me, I'll be back" (generally these are not even necessarily trolls, but people who spend the whole game screaming on the mic and spewing vile profanity at team members). If you could have a steam-account perma-banned, that would be nice, but obviously the bigger a-holes/trolls are just going to go from account bob1222 to making account bob1223. A $5 block to prevent them from certain in-game activities might be nice too.

There's been a lot of discussion about the sexist/misogynist/racist trolls online. My personal take is that - in the gaming community - it's not really a particular problem with any of those mentioned categories, but rather a problem with trolls/assholes in general. If we can reduce that issue it'll probably make life nicer for everyone.

Re:Blocking ragers/trolls

[darkwing_bmf]

$5 Slashdot registrations?

Re:Blocking ragers/trolls

[phorm]

Doesn't make as much sense on Slashdot. Steam is a service that offers a catalogue of games, including some free ones.
Slashdot basically offers one product that's free/ad-supported, and the ability to post is directly tied to that service (not necessarily so the ability to chat/voice-chat in the games).

However, I could see somebody coming who offers a third-party service web-presence validation service. $5 for a validated account, which then could be used to login to others such as Slashdot etc via OpenID or something similar. I would actually be willing to pay for that if it could get past the initial growth hurdles.

Great

[Anonymous Coward]

for all the people forced to "buy" free games via steam, because there is no normal download. And then the chat does not work without buying something ...

Kids playing free to play

[rsilvergun]

it massively inconveniences them. Yeah, a lot of them are douche nozzles, but a lot aren't. A lot of them work hard to be good members of the community. They've got the time (and their parent's PC) to do it, just not the money.

Re:Kids playing free to play

[PopeRatzo]

They've got the time (and their parent's PC) to do it, just not the money.

Here's how it's done:

"Mom, Dad, I've developed a serious interest in creating resources for games. It will increase my artistic skill and understanding of how games are built and developed. Plus it's great fun, and it allows me to be a valued member of a community of other creative types. Of course, I'll always finish my homework and chores first, but do you think you could spend the price of a Grande Mochachino at the next Steam sale so I can reach the threshold which allows me to participate in this wholesome, educational and character-building activity? It's a one-time cost for a lifetime of fun and educational activity."

Now, if it's not worth the effort and social engineering required to pull this off, then your hypothetical child of the parents with the means to buy a computer capable of running games and yet is too poor to spend $5 on a game probably lacks the will to actually be a good member of the community.

Right this minute, you can go get Don't Starve, plus the Reign of Giants DLC for $6.45. This is a great game for the Mod Workshop and has an active and engaged community. And that one-time expense opens up the entire Steam universe of F2P games.