Steam functionality such as sending friend invites, voting in Greenlight, gaining new Steam Profile levels and submitting content to Steam Workshop are now locked behind a $5 spend wall in an effort to combat spamming and phishing, Valve has announced.
“We’ve chosen to limit access to these features as a means of protecting our customers from those who abuse Steam for purposes such as spamming and phishing,” the company explained.
“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. 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.”
To open access to all Steam features you’ll need to spend at least $5 within the Steam Store, such as:
- Adding the equivalent of $5 USD or more to your Steam Wallet
- Purchasing game(s) that are equal to $5 USD or more from the Steam store
- Adding a Steam Wallet card to your Steam account
- Purchasing a Steam gift that is equal to $5 USD or more from the Steam store (Receiving a Steam gift from a friend doesn’t count)
CD keys, retail purchases and gifts don’t count towards your $5 spend.
Here’s a list of the major features you’ll now need to ‘pay’ for.
- 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
Source: Steam
