Steam Updated to limit access to accounts that have spent less than $5 -- So all those [unassigned] users aren't people?

[ThatSpookyGuy59]

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=3330-IAGK-7663

 

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1031137

 

So Valve made certain content unavailable to some users. Specifically, those who have spent less than $5 in the Steam store, possibly as a means to curb scambots and phishers.

 

 

 

What features are unavailable to me?

Limited users are prevented from accessing several features on Steam, including but not limited to:

• 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

[Autosaver]

I own a $150 virtual knife for Counter Strike.

 

The amount of scams people try to get access to my account is unbelievable. Valve should've done this a long time ago.

[MegasonicZX]

Semi worried about this because i've only bought about like 3 things on sale and I think in total I've only spent under 5 but the only reason I haven't bought much else is because I can't really play on computer often.

[Lisbon]

I'm glad they did it, honestly. The measures aren't too extreme, like the whole Ruble fiasco they pulled a while back, but they are set in place and will cut down on those bot requests that plague the site.

 

Dunno why they didn't do this earlier.

[JezMM]

Good, those bots were driving me nuts too.  The question is whether the scamming techniques are actually successful enough for those who create them to spend $5 but hopefully not.

[Lisbon]

Semi worried about this because i've only bought about like 3 things on sale and I think in total I've only spent under 5 but the only reason I haven't bought much else is because I can't really play on computer often.

[Tani Coyote]

If you're never buying anything, you're not really useful as a customer. I see no problem with eliminating the small subset of the population who just get everything for free, honestly. This also curbs scammers, so win-win.

$5 isn't that much anyway. If you can't muster up the money to spend that, you probably shouldn't be gaming, nor is Steam probably of any value to you.

[Kaze no Klonoa]

I just wanna say

 

 

HOLY CRAP THANK YOU

 

Now the insane amount of bot invites I get daily will finally go away. Thank you Valve, Thank you. I'm glad to see they are taking more measures and rules in order to prevent bot scamming and etc.

[Wittymations]

I don't do much with Steam, I bought a few games, Bioshock 1, 2, Unlimited and its DLCs, Game Dev Tycoon, a few Sonic titles when they were on sale, a bunch of Hitman games but I mostly use it for SFM.

 

I can easily imagine someone making content to upload to the Workshop and never once have bought anything on Steam (SFM is free) and wanting to upload their work for fellow SFM users.

 

So that part I'm pretty iffy on, 5 bucks isn't a big deal, but they'd actually want to buy something with it.

[Blacklightning]

 

What will not grant me access to the above features?

The below actions will not remove limited user restrictions:

• Activating a retail game on Steam

[Willsy]

The only one that I don't agree with is activating a retail game. What a load of class A bullshit, that doesn't curb scambots at all.

Otherwise these are fair measures.

[kimplix]

I feel happy and yet, worried at the same time. Like Autosaver said, Valve should of done this years ago when the amount of scam bots were among the scenes of Steam which having this feature out of all the others is fantastic. But, the downside is that new members who want to use codes from their Retail copies that Steam allows are going to be a real hassle if they don't want to use their parents credit/debit card or that Steam Wallet codes aren't available in their region or local stores so forth.

 

Valve might have a long way to go to stop scam bots if they're to rise again.

[Diz]

I am happy that something is being done. There is little more annoying than to block someone, and then have unread notifications, an in order to not run the risc of having unread mail from genuine contacts, I have to unblock two or three blocked bots and then block them again almost every day. I hope that new users are capable of being added and initiated a chat with, since I find the Steam Community chat engine a fine tool for whenever I am gaming if I am to talk to someone who does actually uses Steam for free merely for chatting purposes, but even if not, if it is what it takes to block away these bots then I am content with the new limit.

 

However, to my understanding, many of these bots come in the form of viruses through websites which infect player accounts already bypassing the limits, right? So we do not know how much this is actually going to limit for the time being, but once again, I am happy that at least something is being done, because at the current state of the matter, this is ridiculous.