Time to pay a 1 time fee $5 to use Steam's Community feature

Link

So it's just to weed out spam bots, or to fund for Half-Life 3? So much for the false prophet "Gaben-San"

According to Valve, limited user accounts will be unable to access the following features (via Steam support):

• Sending friend invites
• Opening group chat
• Voting on Greenlight, Steam Reviews and Workshop items
• Participating in the Steam Market
• Posting frequently in the Steam Discussions
• Gaining Steam Profile Levels (Locked to level 0) and Trading Cards
• Submitting content on the Steam Workshop
• Posting in an item’s Steam Workshop Discussions
• Accessing the Steam Web API
• Using browser and mobile chat

In order to remove the limitations, users are required to spend the equivalent of $5 either by adding funds to their Steam Wallet, registering a Steam Wallet gift card, making a purchase on the Steam store, or buying a Steam gift. The gateway value is based on USD regardless of the user’s local currency, so the amount required may be higher or lower depending on conversion rates.

lol bit of a misleading title?

This is a bloody great idea IMO.

Misleading title is misleading.

Agreed, hell I would have wished they made the minimum limit $50.

Misleading? How would you word it?

Pretty sure most people won't have a problem with this

Just get about 3 DOA costumes. Money well spent.

Really smart move. Not a big deal at all either. What gamer hasn't bought something off Steam?

isn't this old? I remember when I joined Steam a few months ago I couldn't do anything unless I spent $5 on something.

IMO 5USD way too low. Probably 20USD.

BTW, you can still play F2P games like DotA and TF2 without a single cent spent.

The title makes it seem like you're paying $5 for those features alone but you're actually buying games and/or DLC for you. Whoever uses Steam has probably spent way more than that

I've only spent $4,386 on Steam, can I use the community features?

Huh, my post was eaten up.

All I really said was that I don't know if you'd want folks who hadn't purchased a measly 5 bucks worth of games from Steam bothering you anyhoo.

You can. You only need to spend $5. It's in the topic title and OP.

This, deters people from making throwaway accounts and acting like asshats without consequence.

Well, this month I've been getting so many friend requests every damn day. 99% of them are called "[unassigned]", have their profile private or don't even have a profile page set up in the first place.

The price should be increased from $5 to $30.

How was my insane sarcasm over your head lol?

same here..got 3 random friend requests this month

How was mine?

Buying a game to unlock said services isn't a "fee"........ a fee implies you get nothing else but the services.

still not sure but I think that's how they hack your account. They first need to be in your friend-list for some reason.

I don't know how you can even nit pick this.

Is there any Steam user that hasn't spent at least 5 dollars? Even if you only play DOTA, you've probably at least gotten 2 or 3 skins already...

Friday, April 17, 2015

ahshahjdjqadf:

"Hey bro I want to trade with you, but I can't talk right now so please follow this link to check out my inventory: https://www.definitelynotavirus.com"

"Hey bro I want to trade with you, but I can't talk right now so please follow this link to check out my inventory: https://www.definitelynotavirus.com"

"Hey bro I want to trade with you, but I can't talk right now so please follow this link to check out my inventory: https://www.definitelynotavirus.com"

"Hey bro I want to trade with you, but I can't talk right now so please follow this link to check out my inventory: https://www.definitelynotavirus.com"

"Hey bro I want to trade with you, but I can't talk right now so please follow this link to check out my inventory: https://www.definitelynotavirus.com"

"Hey bro I want to trade with you, but I can't talk right now so please follow this link to check out my inventory: https://www.definitelynotavirus.com"

@Gue1: Friend requests is one of them, posting links in your profile is another.

I used to have around 60 level 0 with private profile friend requests per week before the changes. Now it's less than 10.

Am I the only person who has NEVER had spam or fake friend requests on Steam?

Thank god. Praise GabeN

Hey how ya doin, wanna trade, see mee offer lul xyjdsjdsjdspics.ru

Hye dude man, you want trade dragonklaw hook? sdee teh link: http://www.dahfsadhf

Sounds like a far better deal than paying for xbox live and PSN.

Claiming sarcasm after the fact? 0/10

lol for real

Same here, never had any spam bots or anything

Good I guess, had it with private profiles adding me when I clearly say no random invites (including friend invites).

I've just been blocking and reporting (something I never do, but I've had enough of them now) each of them.

I wouldn't ever want to lose my Steam account :(

@FireEmblem_Man: @pelvist: Are your profiles both private? Has none to few friends? Few Games? Or at least had a private inventory?

My little brother's account had me and my older brother as his friends and had few games. Had no friend spam compared to me and my older brother.

I make plenty of Steam purchases to cover this...not a problem.

Believe me, I have a lot of Steam games in my library and have plenty of friends that are genuine as majority of them are from GS and Endlessbacklog. I rarely play Online Multiplayer games.

@anthonyautumns: Iv never changed any privacy settings, in fact the only options i have ever changed are my download region, opted into dev branch one time and turned start-up ads off. Iv had my account since Steam was green.

One thing I never do though is link my Steam account to third party websites. EDIT: Actually I remember just one time i did that with Humble Store.

Told ya Steam was the Work of Satan.

what if i buy a game less then 5 bucks and its the only game i want? I think maybe valve might make a pay wall to play online someday down the road.

It makes sense. $5 is plent reasonable if it's your sole account.

I just made a topic about this...I didn't realize there was a thread already.

My thought is that the required amount should have been more than $5. A couple of scenarios were crossed by me: $5 isn't much to spend on a phishing account even after you make 10 different ones.

Same goes for an account that wants to write 10 or so good reviews for his/her green light game.

I wish the amount was like $10 or so.

I guess it sort of sucks for people who only use Steam for F2P games or something. I just can't imagine anyone not ever purchasing a game off of steam and still wanting to use the service, though.

"Valve/Steam to require $5 purchase for features in attempt to stop phishing and such things"

I think that's a great idea. In fact 5$ is too low.

This.

So many fucking hackers and shit.

And besides, spending 5 dollar on Steam is nothing.

Ditto.

How dare they, they want you to buy a game from a game store to make sure your not a bot!