The Steam forums

alakazam · May 26, 2017 at 8:56 AM

Do you agree with Valve's decision to limit the posting ability for the members of the Steam forums unless they have spent at least $5 on the Steam website? Personally, I think it is not a good decision because a person who is new to Steam might just want to ask the game developers on the Steam forums a question before buying their games. Why should we be forced to spend $5 before being able to post a message on the forums?

**Kaynil** · May 29, 2017 at 2:22 PM Official Post

Steam already limits you a lot of what you can do until you add at least 5 bucks to your wallet to spend them in a game. I guess the limitations are in order to prevent bot accounts, dupe accounts, foul play in general, but I find it dumb to limit the community as that is basically a support point where new members can ask and learn the ropes. I think that closing this door is going to make many of those newcomers too frustrated to continue. Although to be fair I am just going by my own impression, I haven't really informed myself of this decision and the impact it has had so far.

Shannon · July 17, 2018 at 8:32 AM

You know, after a year I see the benefits of this. Now that more time has passed, there's certainly less trolling. Still a lot of trolling happening here and there, but... less of it. People use dummy accounts to act like a butt because they don't want to tarnish the reputation of their real account, or get it suspended.

**Kaynil** · July 17, 2018 at 8:40 PM Official Post

I guess that makes sense. I haven't been much on the steam community like to understand how bad it gets.

I still think if they only limited you to certain zones unless you added the five bucks would be better than just an overall ban unless you got 5 bucks. Though, if it works it might be best not to tweak it now that people got used to it, and I guess 5 bucks are not that big of a deal if you actually intend to use the platform to buy games.

kingcool52 · April 27, 2019 at 6:05 AM

I can see why they did it and whilst there are some drawbacks, I think it's a good move and it will definitely stop spam/trolls (well some of them anyway) from going on the Steam Forums. Plus, $5 on the Steam site doesn't seem to be bad to have access to the whole forum

**Kyde** · April 27, 2019 at 10:10 PM Official Post

When I joined the Credit Union as my form of bank. I am required to maintain atleast 5 dollars in my bank account to be a member.

Maybe steam wants and investment to maintain "membership" or gain membership in the first place....

**Kaynil** · April 28, 2019 at 6:53 AM Official Post

Quote from Link

Maybe steam wants and investment to maintain "membership" or gain membership in the first place....

Yeah, I think they are trying t make sure their users all have given something even if it is 5 bucks in credits.
Shannon got a good point on the people making duplicate accounts just for petty trolling. I guess new trolls needs to be more committed to still pay that in alt accounts just for the LULZ.
I still think it is a bit hard on newcomers that are wanting to use the forum for support.

**Kyde** · April 28, 2019 at 9:23 AM Official Post

I do not have a PC good enough to play the steam game I bought.... so I do not care about steam at this moment.

**Kaynil** · April 30, 2019 at 2:26 AM Official Post

Quote from Link

I do not have a PC good enough to play the steam game I bought.... so I do not care about steam at this moment.

Ugh, that sucks. Don't they have a refund policy if you contact them quick enough? I am not sure but I have the impression they do. Unless you rather keep the game in your library for later on when you can afford to upgrade your computer.

JoyFreak · May 6, 2019 at 12:28 PM

Quote from alakazam

Do you agree with Valve's decision to limit the posting ability for the members of the Steam forums unless they have spent at least $5 on the Steam website? Personally, I think it is not a good decision because a person who is new to Steam might just want to ask the game developers on the Steam forums a question before buying their games. Why should we be forced to spend $5 before being able to post a message on the forums?

I think it's more of a precaution as there a lot of spammers who just registered, spam and leave. I don't think the $5 is much as also you get to keep it in your wallet, so if you are really going to spend money on a Steam game (which is very possible since most games are on there) you will already have $5 you can put toward that game.