That's about the OPskins API key, which is another thing.
Still I wouldn't give my Steam API key to some stranger who offers me money... I don't know what you can do with someone's Steam API key but if it's worth 25 USD to him then I don't think it's "research".
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Ah, sorry! That's my mistake then. Thought they were just discussing a regular Steam API key in that subreddit.
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wow.. the thread is very revealing. Thx, I think that's enough to clear my doubts.
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The Steam API isn't the real topic in xMisiu's thread, that one is about https://opskins.com/kb/api-v2. It even tells that nobody should share their keys.
For Steam's API I'm not aware of any such risks. Still doesn't mean that you should sell it.
And actually you aren't allowed to give it away by Steam's terms.
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You aren't allowed to have 150 bots in the first place lol
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Is there anywhere in the ToS that forbids having multiple accounts?
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I think it's quite obvious you're not supposed to have 150 accounts
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I agree in principle. You shouldn't have it. But if they haven't forbidden it then it's allowed.
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He can have the bots he want, the problem is that he can only have one steam account on steamgifts.
Since he said he had 150 bots some one have checked is profile and noticed that he had more tham one acount on steamgifts.
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There is no such thing as "quite obvious". If it indeed is quite obvious, then it should be included in the terms of service.
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From the terms of service:
You are entitled to use the Content and Services for your own personal use, but you are not entitled to:... (iii) exploit the Content and Services or any of its parts for any commercial purpose, except as expressly permitted elsewhere in this Agreement (including any Subscription Terms or Rules of Use).
I would say they could quite easily make the case that such large scale bot farming has a commercial purpose. But hey if you want to risk your steam account over a few cents from trading cards, I won't stand in your way.
If you had 150 accounts, but weren't farming cards and selling them, then yes I'm sure they'll ignore you, as you're not profiting from that.
Also this section is nice and vague, and I sure wouldn't like to prove what they're referring to only applies to online games:
You may not use Cheats, automation software (bots), mods, hacks, or any other unauthorized third-party software, to modify or automate any Subscription Marketplace process.
The language only refers to 'subscription marketplace process', not games only. I'm pretty sure the wording is general enough that they could use it to ban you if they felt your command of a few hundred bot accounts was negatively affecting the experience for other users. Does that mean you will definitely be banned? No. But it does mean you can't cry about it if it does happen.
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Gaining profit from the Marketplace should not be considered a commercial purpose (and AFAIK, it's not) whether it's done with 1 or thousands of accounts. That's the whole point of the Marketplace. After all, the Terms clearly state that it's forbidden to exploit. As long as having multiple accounts and listing the items you get for those is no forbidden, there is no exploitation going on.
I really don't understand your logic. Why farming cards on 1 account is okay, yet on multiple ones not? As long as it's allowed to have multiple accounts, why is it a problem? You believe that there is an issue and should be tackled, then push Valve to forbid ownership of multiple accounts or the idling software involved in the farming process.
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Because on one account it's for personal use. You can buy and sell for games you own and play and it's part of the social experience of Steam. You gain money and you spend it on more games. Farming cards on thousands of accounts with the only purpose of profiting can very easily been interpreted as being for commercial gain. I don't see why that is confusing? It's the same reason valve has stopped gift storage, because people were abusing the system to make money.
And valve do see trading cards as having a commercial value because they already banned developers who were abusing trading cards and steam keys. Basically they would give away tens of thousands of keys for free and profit from the trading card fees.
And no I won't push valve to change, because frankly I don't care what you do, but I'm just saying that valve might well care and those with hundreds of bot accounts may well find themselves banned one day. It's no problem to me either way if people do that, I'm just stating why valve might see it as a problem and ban accounts out of the blue one day, as they have done in the past. So really it's a pointless argument. If you're right and valve don't have a problem, then it doesn't affect how I use steam at all. But if I'm right, there may come a day when a lot of users like OP find themselves with a community ban.
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There is no commercial gain through Steam itself as a user (unless you advertise through it). You gain Steam Wallet which is a fictional currency which doesn't translate to a fiat currency. You can obviously "withdraw" it with the help of 3rd party websites but that has nothing to do with Steam itself. The reason they essentially stopped the reselling of games was because it was hurting their sales and because mainly Publishers pushed for it, as they take the biggest hit.
I'll stand my ground here and say that they do not have problem with people "abusing" the Trading cards, simply 'cause they make money out of it, it costs them close to nothing and it has no impact on the experience of the rest of the users. They should either change their ToS and state clearly what's allowed and what not, which would lead to bans of any future offenders, or they should leave them as they are and do nothing about it. There is no in-between. You can't leave your Rules to be misinterpreted, yet punish people based on them. However, I find it simply illogical to allow users to have multiple accounts yet deprive them of using features of those said accounts. It just makes no sense.
I won't go down the road and talk about the Developers/Publishers because that shifts the discussion towards a completely different entity that was indeed abusing the ecosystem provided by Valve for a monetary gain nonetheless. They are a business with which Valve decides to do business while we are customers. We shouldn't mix those two things up and apply the same criteria to both of them.
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Steam can and do ban botfarmers.
Steam sees it as a monetary transaction, even if it's only within their platform.
IF Steam gets wind of you, they will likely ban you.
If you get banned, it's your own fault, and your opinion about whether it is or isn't in violation of Steams rules will have very little meaning to Steam.
It's Steams past actions and policies that you're trying to argue with, not us.
If you want to prove that you are correct, contact Steam and tell them about your 150 botfarm, and get documentation from them.
Good luck with that, they'd probably ban you over that for being an audacious little $@#%
As a pointless sidenote, I didn't even know about people doing this kind of stuff until I saw an article about Steam trying to crack down on it. I guess they have a hard time identifying some of them, especially if they're relatively small.
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Learn to debate rather than trying to insult. I can play the calling names game myself and ohh dear I'm really good at it. So next time you want to indeed discuss a matter, phrase it properly and don't jump into conclusions that do not derive from people's comments.
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Steam can and do ban botfarmers.
No.
There was one guy that got banned after missusing ASF and starting what easily can be considered a DOS attack.
And thats the only case that have been brought to attention so far.
There are farmers with over 5k accounts even posting openly in steam discussions about it, that do not get banned.
So your statements are plain false.
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Steam can and do ban botfarmers.
Correct, but this statement is as true as "Steam can and do ban its own users", Nothing more, nothing less.
You do not get banned for using a program like ASF just like that. You also don't get banned by using this program on more account than 1. If you think otherwise you can as well report 3/4 of my ASF group, which would be about 300k of users. People that got banned were using farmed cards for potential monetary gain, very likely selling them through third-parties or otherwise doing commercial purpose. This is a gray zone, and if you're doing it on massive scale then yes, I'm pretty sure that you can get banned, and will eventually, at some point, if you raise attention to yourself. However, if you were using the same amount of accounts for just generating cards for yourself to craft badges, then I very much doubt that you'd get banned, since I'm doing that since ever and Valve perfectly acknowledges that, as I'm in direct contact with a few of their employees.
The scale, which is defined as number of accounts does not matter for banning purpose. What you're doing with the cards matters. And if you openly claim that you're selling all farmed Steam goods from your own personal account for money then I'm pretty sure that you can expect a ban as well. On the other hand, if you're selling them for Steam wallet money and spending it elsewhere, such as me, I doubt you'll run into problems ever, regardless how many actual accounts are taking part in the process.
Still, those are unofficial words based on nothing more but my own personal opinion on this topic, including practical knowledge about Steam internals. Do not take it as a suggestion, because as I state on ASF wiki, I'm not offering any legal advices.
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This is a gray zone
Gray only in the sense that Valve doesn't police it (the selling and the commercial purposes) as actively as they could.
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In general yes, but I see it as gray zone in the same way as you selling stuff on ebay or lending your friend some money until next week. In theory you should pay tax from all of that, in practice you do not. Unless you start doing it on massive scale, nobody will really bother with it.
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I've actually made several Steam Support tickets back in the day (~2012) for very-obvious bot accounts, about my Store transaction being declined (as they limit number of accounts a specific credit card can be used on).
Their reply has always just been the copypasted "Our system is not set up to support this activity". Even once I a personally-written message of "You are attempting to purchase only in-game items on several numbered accounts. We will not be able to assist you further."
It was obvious to them what I was doing, but never have they threatened any punishment, nor given any (intentional) punishment.
However, several people have indeed gotten banned recently... but like every one of them has been people who've done something else that violates the Steam ToS; usually buying accounts from people.
If you create the account yourself, fund it yourself, don't chargeback, and don't cause any trouble, Valve really doesn't care. You give them money, they make money on your transactions, your money is "stuck" on Steam, and your accounts just cost them a few KB in their database.
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People do sell steam items off site as well you know. A few years ago people were money laundering through the site even. The way it works is, I farm a whole lot of cards and get steam money, I then take that money and buy an expensive CS:GO knife, which I then sell to you for paypal money or bitcoin and then give it to you in a trade. That is absolutely commercial gain for me through abusing the Steam network. And if you are making money from the system then you absolutely shift from consumer to seller, why else would valve make you sign the tax form when you sell over a certain amount.
If you are so confident about valve's position on the use of bot accounts, just ask them. You ask valve this question, worded exactly like this:
"Hi valve, Am I allowed to have 150 or more accounts for the sole purpose of farming trading cards and selling them via a bot network?"
If they response along the lines of "Sure thing, you are allowed to have as many fake accounts as you want", then not only will you have the satisfaction of being completely right, but I will also add you to my whitelist and give away some games you don't have.
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I know perfectly well how people transfer their Steam money, be it through 3rd party websites or through traders. However, that has nothing to do with Valve itself as I've already mentioned before.
The form signed is only for US citizens in case you didn't already know and I'll assume that it only happens due to Valve being based in USA.
There is no such thing as a fake account. It is a fully functional account which Valve in the first place allows us to create. What we do with it ,as long as it's within their rules, is none of their business. And selling cards on the Marketplace be it from 1 or from multiple thousands accounts is within the rules. What we do with the Steam Wallet we earn from those cards, is again none of their business. If someone found a way to "withdraw" those Steam Funds, then seek for a way to stop that and not the selling part all along.
And the last thing, if it indeed was not allowed you would see multiple cases of people having their accounts banned. Yet, the only case you can come with is the one which had nothing to do with the farming/selling of cards but rather the multiple requests that user made to the Steam servers. Archi already addressed that after he came in contact with the user/users, which made him edit the way the program works.
Here you can see them address the Steam Idlers, on a topic that admittedly has nothing to do with ours. However, you can see them listing these programs as potential reasons for VAC Errors, which makes me believe that they are not forbidden as long as they do not run simultaneously with a VAC protected game. And even if you run them at the same time as a VAC protected game, all you can is an error to which error their themselves provide the possible solutions.
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The topic of steam idlers is hardly addressed in that thread talking about reasons for a VAC error. They simple acknowledge that people use them, no where there does it say that they are allowed to be used to control hundreds of accounts at once. No one is saying using an idling program is going to get you banned, but the fact that they allow people to use card idlers doesn't automatically mean they allow people to have a botnet of hundreds of accounts. How does your logic work? "In my country it is legal to buy marijuana for personal use, so I'm going to become a major drug dealer and use this as my defence when they come to arrest me". The two things are not even necessarily related. You can have a botnet without using a card idler and you can use a card idler without having a bot net.
The steam wallet is very much their business, as it's an invention of their own that carries monetary value.
And yes there hasn't been masses of bans yet, because it's not affecting the service as a whole yet. But if every legitimate user had 100 accounts you can bet they will do something about it.
What we do with it ,as long as it's within their rules, is none of their business.
But as I've already said there's a few points to the terms of service and in the FAQs that would suggest it's not within their rules, but you are not listening to the official word, choosing to base your truth on hearsay and rumours. Show me somewhere where an employee of Valve says in no uncertain terms that having a botnet of over a hundred user accounts for the sole purpose of farming trading cards is allowed and then I will humbly apologise for doubting you.
And did you pose that question to steam support? Because if so it's the wrong question. The question is not 'can I have a few alt accounts to farm cards'. It's 'can I have over a hundred accounts to farm cards', but lets see what they say regardless.
Anyway this argument is a bit like one of those pointless debates about whether or not there's an afterlife. Those who believe in it won't be adversely affected if they are wrong, but for those who don't believe it's very important that they are right, because being wrong might have some rather undesired outcomes. If you want to run a bot net go for it, but don't expect people to tickle your ears and tell you that valve allows it, without some credible proof to back them up.
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What is your perception a "botnet"? So if those hundreds of accounts were handled manually (trades, sells etc) it would make a difference compared to when using a program to automate these processes?
From Steam Subscriber Agreement
You may use Steam Wallet funds to purchase Subscriptions, including by making in-game purchases where Steam Wallet transactions are enabled, and Hardware. Funds added to the Steam Wallet are non-refundable and non-transferable. Steam Wallet funds do not constitute a personal property right, have no value outside Steam and can only be used to purchase Subscriptions and related content via Steam (including but not limited to games and other applications offered through the Steam Store, or in a Steam Subscription Marketplace) and Hardware.
Are you for real? Multiple means more than one. As long as more than one is allowed with no limitation, why would a hundred accounts be the problem. That's the whole point, there is no limitation. And as I already said, it doesn't matter what I do with those accounts. If I feel like adding games of which I'll idle the cards to sell, then it's perfectly fine 'cause I'm allowed to do so. It doesn't matter if I do that on one account or on multiple ones. The rules are written for one account and apply to all of them, be it 1,2 or a couple hundreds.
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Yes it would make absolutely make a difference. If you could prove you were manually logging into each account one at a time I don't think valve would do anything to you, as yes strictly speaking you'd be within the rules. (and it's not a botnet anymore is it? It's just you, with a lot of free time). The issue is with running hundreds of fake users at once as if everyone does that it will affect the overall quality of the service. It makes no business sense for valve to allow one person with a fixed amount of available money to create network of bots connected to their service for the express purpose of farming cards and selling them. If everyone did that, their server costs would skyrocket and they wouldn't be making any more money out of it. So yes of course they would take action against such users, even as they already have.
Steam wallet has no value outside of steam, no argument there, but it's used to buy things which can be sold for real money, and that absolutely changes the game. I don't know what's confusing about that? Even though the agreement expressly forbids the commercial use of their services without their permission, people do still try and make real money out of it in various ways, and those ways are all shut down eventually. If you are only ever using your botnet to make steam wallet money to buy more games, they probably aren't going mind as much. If however, as some people are, you use that money to buy something that you sell for real money and trade for free you are essentially removing money from their system for your own profit, and legally they have to do something about that, due to financial laws, especially if it's on a large scale.
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They make their money back from the sales of the cards people farm. "If everyone did that", you do realize that we are among the most hardcore Steam users right? A huge majority of the Steam users doesn't even know there are Steam trading cards, let alone being able to setup a network of bots.
Yes they can be sold for money yet that happens outside of Steam. Steam simply provide the trading function. You either shut that down, or you take the hit and roll with it. We are not arguing if selling your virtual items for money is allowed or not, which is obviously not. You cannot divide the use of bots by what people do with the acquired Steam funds. The rules either apply to all or to no one. It's not removing money from their System, but rather people don't add as much money as they may have were there no 3rd party websites. I'm no lawyer, but as long as the selling part takes place outside of Steam (which does), then the websites are the ones who need to justify earnings.
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They make their money back from the sales of the cards people farm
Any actual evidence for that statement? And yes of course everyone isn't going to do that, but they've already demonstrated quite clearly their willingness to ban users who are adversely affecting the system, why would you think they won't do it again?
Anyway my post below summarises my main points to the argument, so I won't repeat myself again. But I do see the sale of goods for actual profit and the farming of cards for personal use as two different things.
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No evidence, just pure assumption which takes into account the volume of sales compared to what may the cost be for a couple of thousands extra accounts.
And I completely agree with that. Yet you can't draw the line between these two in a way that it can be defined by a Rule, simply because they both use the same processes. The profit comes through a completely different entity on which Valve has no say.
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Any actual evidence for that statement?
Valve takes cut from every market transaction. Assuming that Steam cards are sold on Steam market, this directly benefits Valve because somebody is paying the tax, from Steam wallet funds that eventually on the bare bottom were generated out of real money of some user.
Assuming they're not, they also do not lose anything, since those cards do not have value outside of Steam. Yes, you can sell them for money, but that's still a trade done between 2 users under unofficial, potentially-illegal conditions that Steam as a service has no say in. You can as well agree that you'll change your nickname for 7 days, for a few dollars of charge and it's the same thing. Both actions are illegal, but they're illegal in exactly the same way, and according to usage of OPSkins and other similar websites, you can safely say that Valve is not taking any action against that. Yes, they lose a cut that could potentially be created from Steam market transaction, but they can't do shit about it, same like your government can't enforce tax on you for selling your pack of cigarettes to your friend. Only once you do it on massive scale, open actual shop and offer actual goods, then you're in potential tax trouble and you'd need to create a legal company for that. Likewise here.
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but they can't do shit about it, same like your government can't enforce tax on you for selling your pack of cigarettes to your friend.
Analogy doesn't work. Surely it's legal to do that in Poland if your friend isn't legally forbidden cigarettes for age reasons?
Maybe reselling prescription meds is a better example? I think that's generally outlawed in all countries, yet somewhat impossible to regulate.
Cig-selling only is a commercial act if you buy them for price A in order to charge your friend/victim a higher price B. If your friend asks you to bring him some too because you're at the shop already, or you decide to stop smoking and sell your friend your remaining stash at cost -- neither of those should be commercial / taxable / illegal.
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Of course I meant higher price than the base one, since otherwise it wouldn't make any sense to sell in the first place (assuming you still need them that is).
But you can as well take another example. Let's say you got some promotional stuff for free, for example you're recognized youtuber and Nvidia sent you a new GPU. Should you pay tax from selling it on ebay as you don't need it? If your answer is yes, then it confirms my point, if your answer is no, then I can order 100 raspberry pis from china as a "gift" and act like my chinese friend sent them to me as a christmas present.
Of course it comes down to proving that you're doing commercial activity, but it's not hard when you're doing it on massive scale. Making money by reselling is plain easy, you could also think of BTC buy low sell high on the market and so on.
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assuming you still need them that is
I don't need the cigarettes I have. Want any?
Should you pay tax from selling it on ebay as you don't need it? If your answer is yes, then it confirms my point, if your answer is no, then I can order 100 raspberry pis from china as a "gift" and act like my chinese friend sent them to me as a christmas present.
Probably works like this:
If you immediately sell it, you had no intention to do anything else with it. It's commercial. If you asked them to send you a GPU, but your only intention is to sell it, it's also in the deception / social engineering corner.
If you get it as a gift and not for a specific purpose, and after 9 months you decide you're not gonna put it into any PC, then it's probably™ not commercial taxable activity.
Problems with the above scenario: Nowadays, they want hardware back, from what I know. It's not really finders keepers but rather you apply to them to get hardware for a specific project / article. So if you sell their property, that's a different legal ballpark.
Bonus: If you as a YouTuber are a business, and you "move" the GPU into your private property to sell it, that's probably the point where you have to pay VAT for it based on its current value at that time even if you got it free.
Bonus 2: For the Raspberry Pi, you first have import VAT because it's from China (which you can recoup if you're engaging in commercial activity) and then if you feel you're engaging in commercial activity, you charge your customers VAT too. Because a hypothetical person capable of importing 100 raspberry pi without this becoming commercial activity still has to pay import VAT on them, they don't actually get more money from the sales. They would just keep more by not also having to pay taxes on the m4d profitZ they make.
(You still have to pay VAT-like % for the high-value Christmas gift from China)
The grey area where I have no idea is that I once imported 5-10 Leap Motion hands-free input devices, to split the cost with acquaintances. I bought them in order to sell them on to these people, but I also bought them with those people in order to split the costs. Ignoring that it was a one-off action, I don't know as what that qualified.
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Yes I know valve makes money from market transactions. I'm asking for evidence to show that the amount of cents they would make for every user controlling another 100+ users would be enough to cover the cost of having all those users connected to steam, and whether it's worth it for them to upgrade systems to cater for these users who are not actually spending real money, or to just ban them if the problem escalates too much.
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I'm asking for evidence to show that the amount of cents they would make for every user controlling another 100+ users would be enough to cover the cost of having all those users connected to steam
Do you know how much resources your account is using just once for initial logging in to Steam network? Every time you launch Steam, during initial 10 seconds after logging in?
Enough for ASF idling 4 of my accounts for straight 17 hours without a single break
I did math, since I'm the one responsible for ASF to be as optimized as possible. Do you want to add cost of just 1 user downloading 1 game and idling it? Because that'd multiple this amount by at least 10.
Once again, maintenance cost is negligible when using ASF for idling. If it was not, Valve would tell me that right away instead of telling me unofficially that they actually prefer this to manual idling. One user idling manually is cost of more or less 1700 accounts idling in ASF, but that can go much much higher if your game has more than assumed 100 MB.
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If everyone did that, their server costs would skyrocket and they wouldn't be making any more money out of it.
That's just plain bullshit. ASF as an example of idling program uses far less resources, both your own, as well as Steam's as a service when idling cards. Steam actually benefits from people using ASF as a program, because they don't need to waste bandwidth or CPU power for sending you game files to run in the first place (which is FAR more expensive, even for just 100 MB games. There is not even a place for discussion here, anybody with bare IT networking knowledge can compare 0.1 KB ASF packets to 100 MB of data that needs to be processed and sent).
And this can actually unofficially be backed up by me, according to my talk with one of the Valve employees. You won't get anything better than that, since nobody from Valve makes any official legal statements to cover their own asses in case you'd decide to file a lawsuit because of that. This is as close to official statement as you can get, although resources argument is just one of at least a dozen more which are also taken into cards farming process, so this argument alone doesn't mean anything, but just covers your potential situaton that would not happen.
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Right... so you're saying Valve has expressly said they'd be happy for every user to have 100 or more bot account connected to their system via ASF? Because that's really the crux of the matter. I've said multiple times that there's no problem with ASF and that's not going to get you banned. but if every user took the route of OP and had a few hundred accounts, are you saying you have an unofficial/official word that nothing will happen?
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You twisted my reply in entirely wrong way, so let's correct it:
so you're saying Valve has expressly said they'd be happier for every user to have 100 or more bot account connected to their system via ASF instead of downloading games and idling them manually?
Yes. From resources perspective, entirely.
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Right. But for someone to own and manipulate 100 accounts at once without a program like ASF, they'd need 100 computers correct? So the simple fact is that your software allows anyone to run as many accounts as they want. And why stop at 100?
Resource usage aside, is this something valve have stated they don't have an issue with? If not, and you agree that running 100+ accounts does carry a risk, then we're done here.
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they'd need 100 computers correct?
Wrong, one-process limitation can be easily solved. If not on software level, then on virtualization level where you just set up Linux virtual machine with like 256 MB of RAM and idle everything anyway. People were doing that long time before first version of ASF was even released.
Resource usage aside, is this something valve have stated they don't have an issue with?
They don't, because Steam network has internal rate-limiter of active connections done from a single IP, and they took that limitation into account when designing their Steam network. Actual limit is around more or less 80-150 established connections, so we can assume that up to 100 accounts can be considered safe from a single person, anything higher becomes a risk, and people that got banned operated number closer to 1000 than 100. You're free to argue whether you consider this argument good enough or not, but I'm not forced to defend myself nor my program, so we could as well ask where Valve stated that they're not fine with it? And let's for a second ignore my unofficial discussion with Valve that didn't have to take place, or I could be lying about it.
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Right, and setting up an array of virtual linux machines is something any one could do? No? Don't deny that your program makes it a hundred times easier. And again, the fact people were doing that before doesn't magically mean valve was ever accepting of that.
"Resource usage aside", he then proceeds to discuss resource usage without giving actual document-able proof that Valve don't have an issue with this. But at least you've given an actual number here. So from what you're saying, 200 bot accounts is a risk then? If you'd prefer I use that number, then so be it. Either way you seem to agree, there is a point where the scale of bot farming is going to drive you into risky territory. And it seems all your discussions with valve have been about the card farming abilities of ASF, not the bot-farm potential it offers. Again, not your fault if people start a farm of 1000 users and get banned, but at no point have you offered an actual discussion you've had with a valve employee about large numbers of 'bot accounts' tied to a single user and if they don't have a problem with that. And until you do, we'll just keep going around for days.
And valve do have a few places where it suggests they may not be happy with it. FAQs that state you may have multiple accounts, but only one connected at a time. A subscriber agreement that uses the word 'bots' and prohibits their use in market related actions. Is card farming a direct market action? Maybe not, but the end result of trading or selling the card will be a market action... so whatever. All we have is the official Valve word, and your word, which as you point out could be made up.
I think it's straight up reckless to tell people that having a hundred or more accounts is fine without legitimate proof to back it up, asides from the numbers you've run and the off-record conversations you've had with a valve employee which seems to only be about the idling facilities ASF offers.
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Either way you seem to agree, there is a point where the scale of bot farming is going to drive you into risky territory
150, like I pointed out in some other response.
I think it's straight up reckless to tell people that having a hundred or more accounts is fine without legitimate proof to back it up
Correct, which is why I don't state in any place of ASF wiki that there is 0% chance of getting banned for using it and 100% safety. At the same time I don't agree with you that using 100+ accounts is some major precondition to getting Steam ban, because that's not true either. Whether you use 1, 10, 20 or 100 accounts, it doesn't matter, because you can get banned for idling just a single account alone. And whether using more accounts increases actual chance of getting banned - not true either, at least according to my knowledge, it increases the chance of getting spotted, that's right, but it's your activity that is evaluated afterwards, not how many account were being used in it. Like I said, I have around 5 accounts, all active at the same time. Valve evaluated my activity at least dozen of times by now as a main ASF developer, and they had no problem with it. Whether that argument is good enough for you, I don't know, and I don't need to know either, it's good enough for me, and that's what matters.
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Ok, so they cleared you for 5 accounts. Care to test your theory now with 100 accounts and see what they say? Put your money where your mouth is before advising others it's ok?
And yes I agree, the idling is probably not the problem, it's probably more the unusual trade activity or simultaneous requests to the servers, but it's just untrue to say that running 1 account is the same risk as running 100, because even by your own words, at the very least it raises your profile, and should they ever decide to cut down on fake accounts, the first to fall will be those with the most.
Anyway, at least you agree on a number then, so that's something. Ladies and Gentlemen, Archi advises that all bot farmers keep their farms to under 150 in order to stay safe. He is confident that any number under this will not increase your risk of a ban. End of discussion.
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150 is judged by rate-limiting so something Valve intentionally set in order to prevent Steam network resources depletion. So yes, according to the best of my knowledge I strongly believe that if given user will not circumvent this limitation by farming on multiple servers (and multiple IP adresses), then he's not in any bigger risk than user idling just 1 account. At the same time this is still only my own calculation that is only partially supported by unofficial info, which means that there is no guarantee for any number of accounts, as well as for using ASF in the first place - if GabeN suddenly tomorrow decides that he's no longer fine with ASF and all ASF users should get banned, then I won't have any say in this.
So if you want to operate on facts, then fact is that me idling 5 accounts at the same time for my own personal not-for-profit usage is completely fine.
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Ok 5 is a much lower number than 150 isn't it? We were never really discussing people with 5 or even 10 bot accounts. We were talking about the kind of large scale farm that OP talked about.
And yes, that is exactly the risk involved in using an idling program, although I think it's unlikely to happen. Using 150 accounts at once though? Hmmmm... I'm not going to be shocked when that ban hammer falls one day.
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fake accounts
Jesus, where is that always comming from.
A bot/secondary account is not fake unless you try to make it look like a primary account of another person.
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And here's another one tripping up on terminology but missing the main point. When I say 'fake account' I mean simply that it's an account that is not being used to play games. Of course a real person is behind it, there always has to be. You may call it something else, 'bot', 'secondary', 'alt', that's not the point of this conversation. If the intention of this insert word here account is not to play or buy games then it's not a real account one way or another. The same way my wife set up a bunch of fake facebook users to send her free stuff when she was addicted to farmville back in the day. They weren't representative of her as an individual at all, any more than the 129th bot account of a card farmer represents them as a gamer.
And if there are a lot of accounts that are not there to buy games it makes bad business sense for Valve to support them, especially if it became widespread, so don't be surprised if there's a ban in the future of those who do have hundreds of these accounts. If your 'alt' accounts are buying games and playing them and you're happy for them to represent you as an individual, and if you only have a couple of them, then they aren't a part of this topic at all, carry on as you are. I'm talking specifically about cases where one person has hundreds of accounts connected to steam, not actually spending real money but affecting the quality of service for the other users.
Anyway I've said all I have to say on the topic, please read my other posts if you want to know what I think and if you want to start it up again, go ask valve for their direct input on the question, as they are the ones who would or wouldn't take action in the first place.
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And here's another one tripping up on terminology but missing the main point.
Ok... I didn't miss anything. I just made a comment to one part of yours because I hate WRONG termonolgy
When I say 'fake account' I mean simply that it's an account that is not being used to play games.
And thats wrong. Noone refers to card-trade bots or other stuff as "fake accounts". Fake accounts are usually accounts that are well.... FAKE. Like a second account where I activate games and boost playtime to make it look legit and then have a second account here on steamgifts or try to scam people.
Of course a real person is behind it, there always has to be. You may call it something else, 'bot', 'secondary', 'alt', that's not the point of this conversation. If the intention of this insert word here account is not to play or buy games then it's not a real account one way or another.
No. That may be your opionion, but these terms clearly differ. If you have a toy car and try to sell it as a real car, thats FAKE. If you have a CAR and just do not use it to drive, then thats not fake. It's just a normal car used in a different way.
The same way my wife set up a bunch of fake facebook users to send her free stuff when she was addicted to farmville back in the day.
Jeha, that are fakeaccount and thats against the TOS. Unless she used her real name for all of them.
They weren't representative of her as an individual at all, any more than the 129th bot account of a card farmer represents them as a gamer.
And? Why should a bot account represent me as a gamer? Why should that make it a fake account?
And if there are a lot of accounts that are not there to buy games it makes bad business sense for Valve to support them
Why? Or rather, ho are they supporting these accounts? You are aware hom much traffic a bot uses to farm cards vs. downloading one game. The money valve makes on the cards makes up for all the costs.
There is no support, no nothing.
especially if it became widespread, so don't be surprised if there's a ban in the future of those who do have hundreds of these accounts.
Yes probably, probably not. But as mentioned elsewhere AT THE MOMENT it is not forbidden.
If your 'alt' accounts are buying games and playing them and you're happy for them to represent you as an individual, and if you only have a couple of them, then they aren't a part of this topic at all, carry on as you are.
I indeed only have a few, all clearly marked as bots, so anyne calling them fake accounts is clearly in the wrong.
And well... the days of mass key GAs are over for a while, how else do you get games, other than buying it?
I'm talking specifically about cases where one person has hundreds of accounts connected to steam, not actually spending real money but affecting the quality of service for the other users.
I never refered to any of your statement, just to the term fake accounts, but. The problem you are refering to is not related to farmers, but to developers giving these people their games to farm 100k copies. And that IS a problem, which valve has taken measures against in the past few month.
Anyway I've said all I have to say on the topic, please read my other posts if you want to know what I think and if you want to start it up again, go ask valve for their direct input on the question, as they are the ones who would or wouldn't take action in the first place.
See here: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/oLuSJ/steam-api-key-very-important-discussion#X4Y8293
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Ok... cool story bro. Read everything else I posted, see I already answered all the points you raised, and then let me know if you have anything actually new to discuss, other than your rather ironic exception to the word 'fake account' as opposed to 'bot', being as the word 'bot' is the exact wording used in the TOS. It really was not my intention to reexplain my position to every new person with an apparent axe to grind that pops into this thread. Never mind the fact that you didn't even read the post you replied to here, where I clearly said I wasn't talking about your case with your 'few bots'. You want to test the Steam TOS with a hundred bots, go for it. Don't cry if you get banned though, because there's more than enough rope in those TOS for them to hang you with.
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Well.... I replied to ONE aspect of you comment because everything else had been discussed already. YOU put up a wall of text...
, other than your rather ironic exception to the word 'fake account' as opposed to 'bot', being as the word 'bot' is the exact wording used in the TOS
There is nothing ironic about it... Calling a clearly labled bot a fakeaccount is just wrong.
And which TOS? SG or steam? steam never mentiones card farmers whatsoever.
Never mind the fact that you didn't even read the post you replied to here, where I clearly said I wasn't talking about your case with your 'few bots'.
I did. I am not defending big bot farms, I am defending the clear meaning of fake account which has a negative aspect. Bots do not. A bot can be good, it can be bad, it CAN even be made into a fake account, but every bot is one.
You want to test the Steam TOS with a hundred bots, go for it. Don't cry if you get banned though, because there's more than enough rope in those TOS for them to hang you with.
You tell me, I do not read stuff? I answered that already.
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Klapp is actually right, and car example is the best one I've heard so far. If you have a car that you decided to use as a table, is it a fake car? You do not define a car fake only because you're not using it to drive. Same here, you do not define Steam account fake only because you do not use it to play games, assuming Steam account is used to play games in the first place, because it's NOT its only, or even main purpose. Main purpose would be to acquire game licenses, and actually, as funny as it can sound, cards farming fits into that usage perfectly.
"alt account" is much better, since it defines account created by you that you do not use as your main account, where main account is the one you actually use most of the time. Bot account precises an account that is not being used by human under normal conditions. Alt account doesn't have to be bot account, and bot account doesn't have to be alt account. 3 totally different definitions.
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"alt account" is much better
In the social circles of the people who actually play the scary big popular games on Steam, alt account tends to mean my low-ranked or newbie-looking Dota / PUBG / CSGO / whateverthefuck Steam acc I log on to play games with my n00b fr3ndz or try the newest wallhack. If that audience was more English-speaking and less Chinese, they'd form the vast, vast majority of the domain for which these terms are relevant. (I can't vouch that having a low-ranked secondary account is as popular among Chinese gamers as it is among Western ones)
P.S.: I'd interpret "fake account" as "not the real, main account of a living human". Yay definitions.
Next episode, we discuss whether fake news are still news.
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Ok I've said this elsewhere but I'll say it again, because I love repeating myself. I'm not talking about 'alt accounts'. I'm talking about account number 129 of a user who's made them only to farm cards. That's a 'bot account', or as I would call it, a fake account. But again don't get hung up on the word to the detriment of the actual discussion which is about users with hundreds of these accounts and whether or not they are going to get their asses banned one day.
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Yeah they were, it was a few years ago and it was the reason Steam introduced the change to how the marketplace worked. Back then you could choose whose item you wanted to buy, so you would have people using stolen credit cards to launder money through Steam. They would list something stupid on steam for a crazy price, then use a stolen credit card to buy that item from themselves using multiple accounts. The credit card holder would usually realise and reverse the charges but by that point the con artists had already taken the money out, and the reverse charge would have to be paid for by Valve.
After Valve realised, they changed the marketplace to what it is now, where you don't ever choose who you want to buy an item from, you just enter an amount you want to pay and it will buy any item that is below that amount, starting with the cheapest always. So you can never pay more than the current cheapest market price of an item.
There were a few articles written about it, just google it. Some of them were taken from the angle of "lol, how stupid, someone just paid $2000 for this trading card", but that was the work of money launderers.
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Eh, you can select cosometic game items directly though.
I.e. some 0.03$ CSGO skin for 1000$.
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Yeah you're right, maybe they have different systems in place for those? Those items have to be bought or farmed in game, so it's not as easy as trading cards. It might flag it automatically, or put the purchase on hold if a new account buys an item that is way overpriced?
Anyway, I know they introduced the change on the trading card side of things after there were articles in the press about some of the 'crazy' prices being paid for some random trading cards and it eventually linked back to some credit card fraud stuff, which cost Valve in charge backs. Once those articles had been published the change came soon after that. I think it was during the one summer or winter sale? After reading those, I always understood that this was the reason for the change and that there was definitely some shady stuff happening on the Steam marketplace at one point.
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Coincidence.
I believe the change was made due one simple fact: there's no difference between card x1 and x2.
Same goes for i.e. CSGO cases, Gems, whatever. There is no point in listing them separately.
You can still buy / sell crap items for insane amounts, and it still happens regularly.
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Maybe, but google "steam money laundering" anyway, plenty of things come up. Including the one group of Russian traders who were buying Team Fortress keys with stolen credit cards.
And I think you've hit the nail on the head as to why CS-Go items can still be bought separately, because they are unique. Whereas for items that are identical it made no sense, and that was certainly the official reason given. But don't you agree the one very possible reason people might want to buy an item that is identical to all the others from someone specific at an over-inflated price could well be a money laundering scheme? Anyway this wasn't really what the discussion was about and once again I find myself arguing about something completely off topic. This was only brought up as a passing reference to other times Valve has done things to curb 'bad behaviour' on their systems, with the suggestion that it's not beyond the realms of possibility that something will be done in the future for those with hundreds of bot accounts.
Maybe you're right and the changes were incidental at a time when there were some questions raised about transactions taking place on the marketplace, but for me the dots did connect (as they did for others) and I don't know that Valve would ever publicly acknowledge the real reasons for changes they make. Like when they said they were changing how gifting worked to make it more 'convenient and better for everyone', but we all knew it was because they didn't like people buying up games and storing them in their inventory to sell later.
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Well, TF2, Dota, CSGO, PUBG, whatever items. As long as they got something unique, you can buy them separately.
Keys are basically tradeable Steam money, so it doesn't really surprise me.
As someone who used to do trading in CSGO: nope. People, myself included, do overpay by quite a lot for that one special item. Be it a very good float (condition), certain phase (different coloring), or some rare stickers on it - that can easily make the difference between 200$ or 1000$+. Of course if someone pays 1000$ for the mentioned 0.03$ skin, yeah, just no.
The problem here are not bots, or additional accounts, but those who abuse the system this excessively, and often enough in some illegal / TOS breaking matter.
Gifting i absolutely agree. Heck, i bought a gift here and there myself, just so i could maybe play it later, or trade it away if i don't. Of course then there's people who buy them in the dozens. To be fair, i think Valve primarily changed this behavior not because of the few people hording gifts, but more due the fact that chargeback scams were and are so common.
Steam keys can still be easily obtained for way cheaper, but it's not Valves problem anymore.
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Yeah I agree that people do pay crazy prices for things, I'm not saying those who do are money laundering, but simply that there have been cases of people doing money laundering in this way. I'm pretty sure some of the measures that they seem to have introduced for the sole purpose of annoying us are for this reason. Like how a lot of features are now limited until the account has spent $5. Yes it's to reduce scams primarily, but these accounts are also prevented from participating in the steam market at all, and I can't think of a reason a new account shouldn't be allowed to buy things on the market, unless it was because of money laundering scams. Anyway, not related to the topic though.
I think the reasons for the gifting changes were many, including those who were profiting from sales as well as cross-region trading, and the scams you mention. I only mentioned this because it's an example of how Valve never tells us the full story.
Back to the topic and yes I very much doubt the additional accounts are a problem in themselves, it's always going to be the abuse of them, to the tune of hundreds or even thousands. But people seem very quick to assume that because it's allowed on a small scale it's automatically applied to as many as you can dream of, when the TOS are such that they have the power to act on people who do this kind of abuse if they decide one day that you are acting to the detriment of their system. All I've tried to do is state why I think it's unwise to host a bot farm, even if it's just for trading cards. Maybe nothing will happen, maybe one day Valve will decide you're a drag on their system and shut you down.
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Of course there have been cases, but they are completely neglectable.
The limited accounts were neither meant for that, but plainly to limit spam accounts. This has literally been only introduced because of the insane spam back then.
If i wanted to launder money through Steam, i could easily do it, now even easier than ever, thanks to all those 3rd party sites for cashing out as well. The 5$ won't matter (can just buy 2 keys from that), the slight delay won't matter (i can create accounts in advance), none of this hinders anyone to launder money.
BUT why would anyone? You lost at least a quarter of the money, in modern times of crypto currencies... there's better ways.
The sale profiting was also rather minor, majority of grey market sales (by a HUGE margin) are still plain and simple keys. Valve just wanted to get rid of "their" problem.
That is indeed a problem. A lot of people went overkill with it, and actually now make a living by doing so. I doubt anything will happen directly though, considering Valve tends to limit card drops more and more.
The worse part is actually that these accounts often end up being sold as "legit cheat" accounts, or for scamming newbies. Nothing Valve can do about the latter though.
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Why would anyone? Well if you're using a stolen credit card you convert the stolen money into money that can't be taken back. Pretty strong motive to me even if other avenues are more efficient. But fair enough, you do agree at least that the actions were taken by Valve to curb a problem, maybe it wasn't money laundering? The point was just to highlight times that valve has brought changes to correct a problem they found had arisen, and if the bot farming situation became too big a problem, they may well act again, so to say this unorthodox use of a Steam account is risk free is just wrong information really.
But thanks anyway for the explanation.
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Well, because there's "better" ways, that convert more money into something untraceable and unrefundable.
It depends. I don't think bot farming is a problem, but it may become one in the future. Considering there's nowadays thousands of bots owned by single users, this might be seen as rather abusive sooner or later. One reason why they also restricted card drops on games, considering the whole "farm game" situation went nuts.
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Yeah that's exactly my point. At the moment it hasn't reached the levels of being a real problem. But if every user decided to own 100 accounts, it will increasingly become something Valve needs to act on. Which is why the argument of saying that Valve is ok with it because nothing happens is a dangerous one.
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Stolen credit cards is different. Also you were talking about now. Selling an item through Paypal and then trading the person the item isn't money laundering. It's against Steam TOS but it isn't illegal.
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I didn't say it was, where did I say that? I just said they had a problem with shady marketplace transactions in the past and took action. I then also said that making money by selling items for paypal is against their TOS. I did not say in any way that selling items for paypal is money laundering.
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That's entirely different thing that is not connected with money laundering process at all. You jump onto false assumptions and come into entirely false conclusions that have nothing to do with each other. Correlation doesn't equal to dependency.
But RandomKitteh already explained it above so I don't need to. Fact is, if you wanted to do money laundering today using your own described method, it's still possible and easier than ever. The actual reason for the change was plain simple - it does not matter which user is selling an item if every copy of this item is exactly the same. This applies to keys, gems, trading cards and such. It doesn't apply to CS:GO skins that can potentially have different float value or "wear", as well as similar items.
And acquiring 0.03$ skin for steam wallet money transferring is not even difficult.
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Ok so you are saying none of the changes they made to how accounts and the marketplace were made because people were money laundering through the market? Do you have evidence for that? Because that was my point, Valve has taken action before against things they deem harmful to their environment, and it opens up the possibility they will do it again. Wrongly assuming that because for now valve isn't doing anything against people who have hundreds of 'bot' accounts, that they will never, is a dangerous attitude to have, which was why I brought up the examples.
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This is not assuming anything. Quite the opposite - one of Valve employees is in constant contact with me, looking over ASF code almost every day, suggesting me improvements and critical things to fix. It was that guy who saved us from ASF apocalypse during previous summer sale when I added auto-voting code and made a fatal mistake of code voting always on first position. If that update went live, it'd heavily rig the votes, potentially angering gaben and actually declaring war against idlers. But because good guy John told me in time about this fatal mistake (before that version even went live(!)), I could correct it and nobody could run into problems because of my fuckup, or rather oversight, as I simply did not realize the outcome at that time.
So yes, Valve actually do care, but unofficially in a way that doesn't result in any legal obligation. Officially in case I lose my mind and implement botnet in ASF with sole purpose of DDoSing steam, they said nothing like that was officially permitted to be used in the first place, so they're free to ban all ASF users at anytime in case gaben has enough. Unofficially though, it's in our both interests to make ASF as compatible and "unofficially safe" as possible, so I can be sure people are not getting banned left and right for using it (including me), and they can be sure that ASF is doing its thing in the best possible acceptable way that satisfies program's usage, without disrupting the service.
Do you have evidence for that?
I'd give you more details about that but that part is under NDA. All I can say is that money laundering had nothing to do with that market change.
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Alright. So NONE of the changes ever have been made to target money laundering? That was the question I asked.
And again, this is not a discussion about ASF, which I've said multiple times should not be a problem for valve. The question has always been, does Valve support the use of hundreds of bot accounts for the sole purpose of farming cards and will the use of that carry a risk of getting banned? Pose that question to your 'special friend' and see what they say. "What are the risks and potential actions Valve may take against people with hundreds or thousands of bot accounts?" Because there are people in this discussion who seem quite adamant and confident that this won't ever get them banned.
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does Valve support the use of hundreds of bot accounts for the sole purpose of farming cards and will the use of that carry a risk of getting banned?
You're using wrong wording once again. Support? Definitely no, they don't support any of such usage. Accept? Respect? Ignore? Those would be appropriate words, maybe "they see no problem in" would also be correct. Officially, like I told you above, nobody will give you any official statement about multi-accounting. The only official statement is that you are permitted to own multiple Steam account, and that is also linked on ASF wiki in case you'd like official source on that. Law works in entirely opposite way - if something is not forbidden, then it's allowed. Facts are that owning multiple accounts is explicitly allowed, so no discussion here, and fact is also that owning more accounts that 100 is not explicitly forbidden either.
So once again, the question is not how many accounts you have, but what you're doing with them. And like I said a while ago, I'm almost sure that if you used your 100+ accounts for cards farming only and then those cards for badge crafting only for your own personal use then nobody would have anything against that.
Or maybe in even other words, show me one case of user that got banned for idling cards from multiple accounts and not running massive illegal money laundering service that collected those cards only for profit by selling for real money on 3rd-party unauthorized websites.
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Alright then, I hope for your sake your confidence is not misplaced, because I know a lot of people might want your head on a pike if one day valve clamps down on this kind of thing.
And being as we already have a couple of cases of users who got banned whilst using your program, I don't think I need any more examples do I? Regardless of the reason, regardless of their stupidity. It happened. And it can happen again.
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There are also people that got banned for redeeming cd-keys, and I linked you at least one very-detailed case of that. Does it mean you should now stop accepting all gifts, especially cd-keys on SteamGifts because, as you noted yourself:
Regardless of the reason, regardless of their stupidity. It happened. And it can happen again.
It can happen to you too. And it's actually much easier to get a ban this way than by using ASF.
If not, then why do you assume that using ASF is any more dangerous than accepting cd-keys?
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And again, normal use of ASF is not the discussion here, it's the bot farms people use ASF to control.
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No problem.
If not, then why do you assume that using 100 accounts for idling is any more dangerous than accepting cd-keys?
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No you can have multiple accounts but if you are using them to farm, buy and sell trading cards on a mass scale then you will be community banned on steam. Happened a while ago to someone who was using Archi's steam farm with a few hundred bot accounts. Valve takes the view that you are manipulating the marketplace and suspends the accounts.
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The 2 people who got banned For a Largescale bot farm, were banned because they sent a command to loot all bots at the same time, which steam considers a DDOS due to it being all from the same IP. Largescale card farming is allowed, many many people do it without reprecussions.
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Do you know all steam users personally? How do you know it only happened to two people?
Manipulating the steam market is against the TOS even if some rules are unwritten. By your way of thinking you must consider pyramid schemes as legal
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I know it was 2 people because there was 2 confirmed cases, they were both confirmed by Archi and the people who got banned. There could be more, but I said 2 because I know for sure, 2 People got banned for doing exactly what I stated. Card farming on Massive
amounts of accounts is well known by Valve. Valve has Emailed Archi about his program specifically and said they were fine with doing what was stated.
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pls don't say it's allowed. valve doesn't take actions because card farming with programs it's better for them in server load. don't try to justify it "legal" because many people are doing it. it's cheating.a client cheating.
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Yes no doubts that what Archi's program does is allowed and so it should be. No questions here. The question is whether or not valve specifically said to Archi that they were happy for his program to simultaneously control bot nets of a few hundred users all at once? And I very much doubt that was the case. Because the fact that at least 2 people got banned whilst using the program suggests that there are actions that the program allows which valve doesn't like and which may be bannable. Not the fault of the program or the creator at all of course, but still it points to the truth that there are some things you can do with a bot net which will get you banned, no two ways about it. If you think it's only because they tried to do too much at once, then that's fine. Either way I would never try that myself, because there's simply no guarantee that you won't be banned at some point.
Everyone saying it's allowed hasn't provided any official word or emails from valve to say otherwise, just hearsay or theories, and the TOS, which is the only official word from valve, is vague enough that they could easily suspend you, so why risk it?
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The question is whether or not valve specifically said to Archi that they were happy for his program to simultaneously control bot nets of a few hundred users all at once?
No, and Steam employee will never claim such thing to me, as he could be legally bound to it under US laws. This is also why you won't get any official statement from Valve, ever, apart from those written by lawyers in actual terms and other EULAs. Every Steam employee is taught to always use non-precise terms that can be used on as-needed basis. They're covering their own asses this way, and the only information I get, even if directly from them, is always marked by me as unofficial, because I also don't want to drive my users into false safety where unofficial statement is taken as a rule - legally, such thing never happened and if anything out of it happens, you can't use this argument whatsoever.
Either way I would never try that myself, because there's simply no guarantee that you won't be banned at some point.
That's true, and I also repeat it very often. Still, you can use a lot of arguments to convince yourself logically what has actual probability of happening, because according to official statements, you just using your own Steam account in "normal" way also doesn't guarantee that you won't get banned. You can, and actually under hundreds of ways that are far more likely to happen than Valve starting idlers war and hunting down ASF users. The only guarantee to not get banned on Steam is not having a Steam account.
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Right. So let's get down to brass tacks then. Are you as the creator of ASF stating that people will never get banned for having hundred+ 'bot' accounts? Because that is all this discussion is about essentially. One side declaring it's well within their rights and nothing will happen, the other side saying there's enough in the vaguely worded TOS that on a whim Valve could take exception to your bot farm and ban all of them, and there'd be very little you could do.
And using a steam account in a 'normal' way has at least the legal backing where you could sue them, by proving you didn't breach their TOS. Whereas it might be a hard sell convincing a court that you weren't abusing the subscriber agreement if you had a bot farm. All they'd have to do is point to the end of section 4 and then sit back while your lawyer spends weeks trying to argue the definition of each word.
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Right. So let's get down to brass tacks then. Are you as the creator of ASF stating that people will never get banned for having hundred+ 'bot' accounts?
No, as stated on ASF wiki that everybody should read before even considering using ASF:
TL;DR - You're using this software at your own risk. It's very unlikely that you can get banned for that, but if you do, you can blame only yourself.
One side declaring it's well within their rights and nothing will happen, the other side saying there's enough in the vaguely worded TOS that on a whim Valve could take exception to your bot farm and ban all of them, and there'd be very little you could do.
You can check link above for my opinion on this topic. Personally I'm in the camp that says ASF activity is legal, but the very same ToS also says that you can get banned for using ASF regardless, so there is no any sort of guarantee. At the same time like I already said previously, there is also no guarantee that you won't get banned just for using Steam. We already had a case of one of our Touhou Giveaways group member that got his account permanently locked due to accepting Steam wallet key that got charged-back. He couldn't even know that the key was obtained through illegal activity, yet Valve didn't give a damn about user's innocence and banned him anyway. After long period of fighting and personal e-mail to gaben we managed to solve this, but it only proves that you can't just assume that using ASF would suddenly increase your chance of getting suspended - the actual chance is negligible, we had 3 confirmed cases across 3 years, some very unlikely connected with ASF at all, but I assume that they are just to be safe, and all of those were result of using tool in entirely wrong way by intentionally causing heavy overhead and traffic, very likely also connected with illegal activity such as selling cards for money.
In case you want to read more about our battle, Ignatius described his case on SG as well. You can pretty much guess whether I had some "magic input" on that or not, and what would happen if it was you instead.
And using a steam account in a 'normal' way has at least the legal backing where you could sue them, by proving you didn't breach their TOS.
Valve may cancel your Account or any particular Subscription(s) at any time(...)Sue them. And be sure to "prove" that they didn't have a reason. But before that, read their TOS carefully.
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Oh for goodness sake, this is not explicitly about ASF. It's about the hundreds of bot accounts some users have. I have said multiple times, I doubt ASF is an issue for valve. The proliferation of people with hundreds of bot accounts is. And you can dance around the issue with unrelated cases studies all you want, but the fact is it's an action valve may take exception to. A lot more so than a user who has one account.
Yes ASF facilitates that, of course that doesn't mean it's your fault if someone is an idiot. The actual question for the millionth time is... Are you confident that valve is happy enough with users who have 100 or more accounts, that you don't think they are increasing their chances for a ban?
If you say yes, than I will smile and nod and still not start a bot farm thanks. If you say no, then there really is nothing else to discuss, you can point to other random case studies of people who got banned for random reasons,( even though every time valve has had a reason they can point to for the ban), the simple fact is that running a bot farm of so many users is exposing yourself to greater risk of being banned, and therefore is not the smartest thing you can do.
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Are you confident that valve is happy enough with users who have 100 or more accounts, that you don't think they are increasing their chances for a ban?
Yes, in the exact words you used - I'm perfectly confident that just owning 100 or more accounts will not result in any ban by definition. This assumption does not take into account actual usage of those accounts (as in, anything but just logging in on them). Moreover, even ToS guarantees you that, my opinion is not even needed here.
the simple fact is that running a bot farm of so many users is exposing yourself to greater risk of being banned, and therefore is not the smartest thing you can do.
Correct, just like going outside increases chance of getting a car accident.
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Ok where in the TOS does it say that exactly? Or Guarantee it as you put. Please link to the actual section. And remember we're not talking about merely owning 100 accounts. We're talking owning 100 accounts and simultaneously farming on them at the same time.
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https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8625-WRAH-9030#share
Yes. You may use the same phone number on multiple accounts.
If multiple accounts would be illegal, then there would be no such possibility, as Steam authenticator is personal, and you can't share Steam accounts.
We're talking owning 100 accounts and simultaneously farming on them at the same time.
This is what I'm doing, but with 5 instead of 100. Does it change anything? Because if not, then here is your answer. And if yes, then define number of bots that are "safe", because to me safe is anything between 1 and 80.
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OK that doesn't answer the question does it? I asked for an official link that said farming on that many accounts at once was allowed. And stop giving me anecdotal evidence as proof, it's largely irrelevant without an official word. We already know valve is not shutting down everyone with a few farming accounts, that was never the question.
Besides, there are many other reasons why you might have multiple accounts. I have one that I used a few years ago to dump my spare keys on. But I also use it sometimes for co-op with my wife or kids. I don't run them simultaneously on the same computer, so I'm not worried about it, and I know it's for this kind of reason valve allows it. If I owned 100 accounts that i logged into one at a time, I wouldn't be worried either.
You say safe is 80, but that's really just a number you've come up with, without official input from valve. Give me that and I'll concede.
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You say safe is 80, but that's really just a number you've come up with, without official input from valve.
The only official info from valve you'll get is ToS, as I told you before. And according to the same official source that you love, you've publicly admitted to breaking the rule about sharing your personal second account with other people, so you're in far more danger than people claiming to have 100+ accounts here :3.
And with this, I consider the topic exhausted, so I'll head to bed, as the discussion is not going anywhere since a few replies already. I hope that I've at least partially answered your potential questions.
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I didn't share the account at all, only the games. I let them play on a second computer I myself own, after I'd logged into it with a password they don't know, the same way lots of people might share a game if they have a buddy over playing a split screen co-op game. Are they considered 'sharing' the account then? :-)
But hey, by that same breath literally everyone who uses your program has broken this rule. As they've logged into their accounts with a program that is not officially steam sanctioned, 'sharing' their details. Heck even though I know you're not doing it, there's nothing to say one day you don't put something into ASF that simultaneously captures everyones accounts and items, Steam would just point to that TOS and shrug their shoulders. So that's a fun thought? (I'm being funny here, don't feel you need to give me reasons why that won't happen). Besides the reason for the clauses about not sharing account details is more so you can never sue them if your account gets stolen, more than something they'll ban you for, but hey, still not the smartest move I agree. "So your account got stolen and everything was cleaned out... well we're banning you buddy". Haven't heard of that happening yet, unlike multiple account users who have definitely been banned, but please continue to assign imaginary risk numbers to things?
And trust me, this topic was exhausted long before you waded in.
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I didn't share the account at all, only the games. I let them play on a second computer I myself own, after I'd logged into it with a password they don't know, the same way lots of people might share a game if they have a buddy over playing a split screen co-op game. Are they considered 'sharing' the account then? :-)
Yes, you're supposed to enable access to your library through library sharing feature for their own personal accounts. Haven't you read Steam ToS? :3
But hey, by that same breath literally everyone who uses your program has broken this rule. As they've logged into their accounts with a program that is not officially steam sanctioned, 'sharing' their details.
Nope :3.
ASF as a program meets all rules mentioned above, as you're not sharing your account details with anyone, and you're using the program for your own personal use.
This is actually the point I discussed with Valve initially. It's not any different than having SteamDB addon in your chrome browser using your Steam session for fetching data.
there's nothing to say one day you don't put something into ASF that simultaneously captures everyones accounts and items, Steam would just point to that TOS and shrug their shoulders. So that's a fun thought?
Yep, and want to know what's even more funny? That if I did that, you couldn't even sue me, according to ASF license:
8. Limitation of Liability. In no event and under no legal theory,
whether in tort (including negligence), contract, or otherwise,
unless required by applicable law (such as deliberate and grossly
negligent acts) or agreed to in writing, shall any Contributor be
liable to You for damages, including any direct, indirect, special,
incidental, or consequential damages of any character arising as a
result of this License or out of the use or inability to use the
Work (including but not limited to damages for loss of goodwill,
work stoppage, computer failure or malfunction, or any and all
other commercial damages or losses), even if such Contributor
has been advised of the possibility of such damages.So nobody from us, neither me nor Valve takes responsibility for ASF. Isn't that great? It's only you, the user, in all the potential mess :3.
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OK but
You may not reveal, share or otherwise allow others to use your password or Account except as otherwise specifically authorized by Valve
Is ASF specifically authorised by valve? No? Then the risk of a ban is equal to letting someone else play your games on a computer you own logged into an account only you know the password for. That's my point.
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You do not understand this point. Key word - others.
Do you reveal, share or otherwise allow me to use your password or account? No, you're using your own personal tool for that. Your login credentials do not leave your PC, neither authorize anybody but you to use your account. If ASF was hosted on my server, then that'd be another case.
That's it, now I'm really out of it, good night :3.
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No I think you don't understand. How have I allowed others to use my account in a way that's not sanctioned by Valve? That whole clause is worded to protect them from liability in the event you claim someone else used your account and did X, Y, Z. So if I did turn around then and say, "Oh no my kid stole my account", they could just point there and tell me to get lost. The way you are wording your response you're suggesting this is a bannable offence. But in this case, they don't know my password, and if letting them play a game on my account is not allowed then why does Valve allow co-op games. So imagine I'm playing with my friends in couch co-op. I might need to leave to go to the toilet or I fell asleep, but "OH NO! Other people are using my games and I'm not there, my account will be banned". Please! Give me one case of this happening and I'll believe it.
And I may not authorise you to use my details, but I have entered them into something that is not valve sanctioned which would trip the same TOS point you reference, regardless of what your program actually does with them. In short I would have zero defence if you did take over my account and couldn't demand the return, as all valve would do is ask, "Did you enter your username, password and steam guard code into something that valve didn't make? Oh you did? Well dumbass, nothing we're going to do about it"
Once again you're making up some kind of imaginary risk scale on actions, without backing it up with anything concrete. But look at the numbers. There's not a single case of someone who let their friend or family play on their computer who got banned out of the blue. If there was, can you imagine the outcry? And I'm not talking about every VAC banned person ever who let their 'friend' play when their back was turned and suddenly they installed an aimbot and got them banned. :-) Whereas in the case of ASF there are at least 3 people who did get banned. Yes the reason is not the fact they were just using ASF, I'm not arguing that. But you cannot emphatically state that someone else playing your games on your computer has more risk than using your program, because that's just something you've pulled out of nowhere really. That whole clause in the agreement is worded to limit their liability in the event someone gets your details and steals your account, no mention of the actual act of sharing being a breach, simply that they won't be liable for what happens if you do. Your reading of this situation really puts doubts on the veracity of your other claims, especially when in another breath you talk about the dangers of the API key that your program uses, or the fact that you could change the code one day and steal everything and hide behind your TOS? But somehow it's less risky than my kid playing putt-putt on my account? Sure.
Anyway this has gone way off topic once again, but you wanted to argue TOS on a little point that we know valve would never act on, and I'm just showing how the same point applies to your program. I get that you're defending your program but that's a pretty stupid hill to try and make a stand on, trying to say letting your own family play on an account on a computer you own carries more risk than actually entering your user name and password into something valve themselves didn't make. Scraping the barrel a bit there son. But again, please provide some examples of this happening, and I'll be more inclined to believe you, especially as the onus would then be on valve to prove you weren't the one playing, whereas it would be a lot easier for them to prove you were using a third party software.
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Manipulating the steam market is against the TOS
And how is farming doing that?
ASF does not interfere with the market whatsoever.
Thats like telling someone making a boat driving license, that he has to slow down around schools.
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Simply by being the owner/developer of the game. Or working with the developer to achieve the same results. Receiving money for trading cards that you farm and sell at specific price, so others can't profit and you get extra profit from it, is market manipulating.
In Finland you don't need boat driving license, you just need brains, and if you drive too fast near other's anchored boats and they lose/break something, you will have to pay for it, if caught. 😛
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Receiving money for trading cards that you farm and sell at specific price, so others can't profit and you get extra profit from it, is market manipulating.
Holy shit, absolutly not. Market manipulation is having a bot scraping pages instantly buying low prices, selling at the lowest, etc. That's whats messing stuff up.
Simply by being the owner/developer of the game. Or working with the developer to achieve the same results.
Thats not manipulating the market (since you only flood it with something, thats not there without you). Thats playing the system. And steam is implementing countermeasures against that.
The main root of the problem is simple:
A game should never cost less, than it's cards are worth. BÄM All problems solved.
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You can tell that to all those developers who got recently their games banned for doing such tradings. ^_^
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Thats playing the system. And steam is implementing countermeasures against that.
Please read before replying.
They got their games banned for bringing stupid shit games on steam just to make money with tradingcards. They did not got their games banned, because people were idling the cards... (or like everyone that idled those games).
So steams problem is clearly with shitty games dirstributed cheaply, not with the idling itself.
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And again wrong bro. Steam can not legally ban any game without any good reason such as market manipulation for self-intended profit. If they banned those developers just for the crappy games they made, Valve would have to pay millions for the developers after court. You should work for Trump.
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And again wrong bro
I am not your bro. Thanks.
Steam can not legally ban any game without any good reason
Yes? I gave a reason above, which is literally the same reason you bring into the argument. Happy you agree with me.
They got their games banned for bringing stupid shit games on steam just to make money with tradingcards.
Oh, and PS: Valve can cease buisness relations with anyone at any time. As can every other company.
Only if they promised stuff in contracts (which they do not), they have to cover damage from broken contracts.
You should read a steam developer contract and then come back.
Probably you're working for Hillary and she deleted the contract already.
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Thats like telling someone making a boat driving license, that he has to slow down around schools.
But you absolutely should slow down your boat near schools.
http://www.schulschiff.at/
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ASF does not interfere with the market whatsoever.
Farming on 100 accounts does.
(Edit: political debate on the internet, really useful. Not.)
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No, it does not.
Selling these cards does.
ASF itself does NOT interfere with the market in any way.
You can drop cards without being able to use the market.
Farming cards is NO market interaction.
Edit: I know what you want to say, but that doesn't change the fact that it does not violate the respective part of the TOS.
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Do you know anyone that uses ASF and not some market?
Though I see your point, let's not pretend that card farming doesn't have an effect on the market.
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Effect, yes, but not direct. You can't really blame access to the internet for people making drugs in home, can you? I know some people do, but I call them appropriate words.
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Jeha but we are talking about TOS.
It is illegal to murder someone, but it is legal to sell cars and it is legal to sell alcohol, two of the things that kill many people.
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I bet next you say if you use other than Steam market for trading, it's completely legit?
By selling cards and items on third party websites, you make Steam and the developers lose money and profit yourself, thus market manipulation because you avoid taxes. And before you say that direct trading with people is meant for that, it is not, it's meant to offer free stuff and trade item for item, read ToS.
I bet the 10000 trading cards I recently sold on Steam that got me 500EUR on my Steam wallet would've got me even more euros on Paypal instead if sold on third party website.
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By selling cards and items on third party websites, you make Steam and the developers lose money and profit yourself, thus market manipulation because you avoid taxes
And how exactly is farming cards automatically selling them?
You are completly missing the point.
It DOES NOT MATTER what you do with your cards. FARMING them is not a market manipulation. Only what you do afterwards.
Like buying a car is a different thing than driving a car. They are often related, but (at least in my country) you can buy one withot a licence, but not drive them. Because that are DIFFERENT things. As is farming and Selling/trading.
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Your example is out of this world mate. Here's better one just for you:
Making a program to drive 150 cars and buying those cars for others to use looks damn suspicious in my eyes than if you would be driving it yourself, if you're not going to profit from it anyhow.
Here's a sitation straight from Wikipedia:
Market manipulation is a deliberate attempt to interfere with the free and fair operation of the market and create artificial, false or misleading appearances with respect to the price of, or market for, a product, security, commodity or currency.
Edit: Btw, you just played yourself:
It DOES NOT MATTER what you do with your cards.
and then...
...Only what you do afterwards.
That's like saying "I own a car, that I don't own."
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looks damn suspicious
It's not abot how it looks. It's about clear formulation of words.
Here's a sitation straight from Wikipedia:
An where does creating something fit in there. That quote is just not relevant in any way.
Edit: Btw, you just played yourself:
No, I didn't you are just not capabal of understanding what I am trying to explain you. But again, slower:
- (automated) market manipulation is bad.
- (automated) farming of cards is not bad.
Farming cards on 18million accounts -> Just fine (if you refer to market manipulation).
crafting sets from these cards -> still fine
selling those cards automatically on steam -> FORBIDDEN
selling those cards otherwise for commercial purposes -> FORBIDDEN
That's like saying "I own a car, that I don't own."
No, thats like "I am drunk but I own a car, thats fine. If I drive it now, it isn't."
I am sorry if that is to complex for you but I tried to explain it very easily now.
My point is all about that FARMING never triggers anything about market manipulation. Only (some) of the possibilities you can do with the cards IN YOUR INVENTORY may fall under this rule but actually it doesn't, which you show with the quote from wikipedia. But that is a different story, which is not related to the main point.
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Since you're one of those kids who never give up I'm done with ya. Au revoir.
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Ok....
If you say so, mister "bringing my political few in every discussion and not understanding simple logic".
I believe that everyone can understand simple arguments, if they want that is. You obviously do not want, so bye, have a nice day.
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I bet the 10000 trading cards I recently sold on Steam that got me 500EUR on my Steam wallet would've got me even more euros on Paypal instead if sold on third party website.
No, fewer euros, because Steam Wallet is worth less than fiat money. And seriously who would want 10000 unsorted trading cards at a high price? For dirt cheap I'll of course take them.
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There's no logic in that, if you buy trading cards from market place, you pay 5 - 7 cents on average. If you buy them from third-party seller it's 2 - 4 cents each. Cheaper for the bulk buyers and it's all regulated by trading bots who sort the cards into full badges -> market manipulation. Now if you are aiming for level 1000, would you rather spend 14000 euros or 8000 euros?
And that money can then be taken straight to Paypal (minus the fee of course, but still), when in Steam you pay minimum tax of 0,01 to developer and 0,01 to Steam plus you can only use wallet money on games on Steam.
So yes, I would have made more by selling them elsewhere.
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Farming alone does not, user possibly putting those cards on the market does, but that's out of the scope of the program. A guy running a weapon shop is not responsible for a serial killer using bought gun to murder somebody. Unless he sold that guy illegally, but that's entirely different case.
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First of all, do you feel attacked here? That's not the idea. <3.
The invention of the minigun is at least indirectly involved in the increase of murdering capacity it brings (ASF), versus the submachine guns that existed before (IdleMaster), versus the bolt action rifles of old times (farming nonautomatedly), versus sumo wrestling (actually playing games).
The weapon shop is GitHub.
Gun control doesn't always make for the best analogies though.
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Nah I'm not, my responses just feel this way since I have to correct bullshit spread by others most of the time :3. If I add bunch of emotes and nice words then people won't understand how wrong spreading bullshit actually is.
Yes, we can entirely agree that farming cards indirectly does affect Steam market, but it doesn't have a premise of doing so per-se, just like selling guns doesn't have a premise of increasing number of murders done per month. It can, but it doesn't have to.
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It makes flooding the market much easier, but that still requires SIH/SEE to list the cards, and most importantly $0.05 or less games to actually have something to farm on all those 300k accounts.
So of course ASF is ultimately nothing more than the intermediary between forbidden key sales and forbidden automated market listing. Are you happier with that one? :P
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How do you know it only happened to two people?
Because there are 2 (now 3) confirmed cases of people getting banned that were using my program, but without any clear indicator that the program was the main cause. If people were being banned on massive scale due to my program usage, then you wouldn't hear about 3 cases across more than 3 years when the program is used by approx 360k of users (Steam accounts), and those are only those that enabled statistics for me. There isn't even confirmation that ASF was at fault here, but I play it safe and always assume it is.
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Was that the official reason given? Because they do take a dim view of trade manipulation, going so far as to suspend business with developers who were profiting from trading cards. Unless it specifically says in the TOS "you are allowed to have 100 plus accounts for the purposes of making money from cheap trading cards", I would say there's always going to be an inherent risk that the actions of people with large bot farms are going to catch the attention of valve. Unless you have something official that says otherwise? Ignoring it for now and explicitly allowing it are two different things.
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There was no official reason by valve given, just the ban occured quite close to doing those actions specifially. The people who were profiting from trading cards were generating near Millions of keys to give away for free to profit off of the trading card sales. They used Review Manipulation to get their game onto steam stores, which is why Valve took action against them. On the TOS remark, Valve specifically stated you are allowed to have as many accounts as you want. Only thing you aren't allowed to do with the accounts is share them with other people and use them to Automate market transactions. Valve allows Card farming even in large scale. As long as it doesn't Put a massive strain on their servers, as the people who got banned were doing, then you won't get banned for it.
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"Can I use multiple Steam accounts on one computer?
Yes, you can access different Steam accounts from one computer. However, you may only access one account at a time. "
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And therein lies the problem. Those with large numbers of fake accounts are logged into all of them at once.
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For me card farming with program isn't allowed even for 1 account. it's against their tos anyway. multiple accounts bot farming in my eyes deserve ban for life/ip/hardware/mobile number/everything but steam doesn't really loose any money from this, the opposite propably.
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Yeah they only seem to take action when it reaches the point of affecting the store as a whole. So until the number of people with bot networks starts getting too high, they probably won't do anything about it.
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For me card farming with program isn't allowed even for 1 account. it's against their tos anyway.
No it's not. Please refreain from uninformed false statements.
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It is. Chapter 4:
You may not use Cheats, automation software (bots), mods, hacks, or any other unauthorized third-party software, to modify or automate any Subscription Marketplace process.
Just because they do not usually care about farmbots like ASF, it is actually against their terms of service.
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Even if people seem to think that means whole Steam, it's still just the Community Market where tons of people have got banned for using multiple accounts to manipulate the prices, using single accounts with bots that buy/sell items instantly and who knows what else.
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"Any process." It is exactly the kind of vague phrasing you can put any market-related activity in. And cards are marketable items, therefore it is easy to state that dropping cards is also a marketplace process.
Or, simply: contact Steam support and tell them you use a bot to farm cards. Ask them what they think about it. I am eager to learn about their reaction.
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therefore it is easy to state that dropping cards is also a marketplace process.
No. You can drop cards, without being elegibale for the market. Therfore it is not related to the market at all.
So playing csgo or dota is now a markettransaction? Thats bullshit argumentation.
Or, simply: contact Steam support and tell them you use a bot to farm cards. Ask them what they think about it. I am eager to learn about their reaction.
You know why it is neither allowed nor fobidden in the TOS? Because they do not want to forbid it, but they don't want to allow it in general.
Thats like asking Rockstar if you can use their games for scientific purposes. If you ask them they always say NO, if you do it they do not come after you.
Stating it's forbidden in the TOS is plain false. Stating that steam happily allows botfarms of like 1000+ bots or even 100+ bots is bullshit as well.
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Discussion about that point is plain stupid when you have another point that tells you that you can get your account terminated for any reason and at any time.
Personally, like stated on ASF wiki, I don't consider cards being farmed as marketplace process, because they're not generating profit per-se. Just how me making ASF as a project doesn't mean that tax police is after me, even though I could sell it for quite a lot of money right away. Yes, they can be sold, but they're not sold by definition. You can't talk about marketplace process if there is no market involved in your process, and card farming process does not involve any market in it.
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it's a true statement.
Many people use vpn to activate games. because no one was banned in the past it doesn't mean anything. They can and they should.Their tos is pretty clear on many illegal activities. Read it before accuse people on forums about uniformed false statements.
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It is not.
The TOS define two sets of lists. One list with "things that are allowed" and one list with "things that are forbidden".
Farming cards is mentioned in neither of those lists.
Many people use vpn to activate games.
Thats in their TOS
Their tos is pretty clear on many illegal activities.
Yes but not on automated card farming. Or I'm sure you can quote me the related paragraph.
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it's a client cheat/exploit. you send to valve false data. How is that legal? believe whatever you think anyway, It doesn't really affect negative the valve that's why nobody is getting banned. All people who are using it are safe(for now at leat) but it doesn't make it "legal".
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it's a client cheat/exploit.
How's that?
you send to valve false data.
I send the same data as when I download and play the game. I could literally achieve the same thing with downloading the game and starting it. But with way LESS costs for valve.
You have clearly no idea how any software works (which is not a bad thing), but it makes you basing your statement on wrong assumptions.
Idle software is neither a cheat nor is it exploiting anything. And it is still not covered in the TOS.
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I understand how the software works but i don't understand your logic. yes you are sending to valve the same data like you are playing the game but you are NOT playing it. i said myself that it costs less for valve that's why no one is getting punished for now. But idle software is sending false data to valve and it's exploiting the client and the market. The only reason that cards cost so less these days are because of idle software.
I never used idle software and i have like 7-8k cards more to drop.i find it very insulting to tell me that people who use the software are not have advantage and it's not affecting the marketplace.
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The only reason that cards cost so less these days are because of idle software.
No. The only reason cards costs so less are crappy/cheap games.
Of couse idlesoftware makes it easier to utilize these game-shaped objects. But thats like arguing "Drunk divers only cause deaths, because people sold them gas."
Do you really think if the cheapest a game goes is 1$ (including bundles, mass dicount, developer keys and everything) the cards would drop to 0,03$? Never.
Of couse even without these game-shaped objects, idlesoftware would influence the prices. But it would be no more, than a few percent.
You are trying to tell me, that without idle software people do not farm...
I dropped over 1k cards before IM or ASF, I ran multiple games concurrently to farm my second account and so on.
And that was just to get a little money back for leftovers to buy new bundles.
If there were no cheap games -> idlesoftware would just help legit players to get a fe cents back without playing each game right away.
If there were no idle software -> people would still farm crap, it's just a bit more complicated.
There are people out there that admit to have 5k bots and to admit they wrote a script to farm the summer cards by using the discovery queue... You think they wouldn't be able to drop cards without idle software... Think again.
The thing is, if you buy good/expesive games and play them, idlesoftware does not hurt you in any way. Only if you have piling up crappy games, people with software have the advantage.
Edit: Oh and for your cheat/exploit stuff... No, you do not know how the software works. There are functions that steam protects "like adding wallet" and function steam does not protect because these are open points.
I tell the steam server I play now a game from my library. If I do it by starting the steamclient or by starting ASF does not matter.
You can even replace the .exe in a games folder and then the client thinks you play a different game.
That is data YOU send to steam ALWAYS. You are free to pick how you send it.
Edit2: An exploit would be, if ASF makes you drop always foil cards, or something. You are not exploiting something, if you use it a intended.
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If I do it by starting the steamclient
Or by telling other software to tell the Steam client that you are now playing a game. It's not that different from a game telling Steam that it's running now.
You can even replace the .exe in a games folder and then the client thinks you play a different game.
You mean the steam_appid.txt?
An exploit would be, if ASF makes you drop always foil cards, or something.
Activating the same key on multiple accounts was a pretty good (race condition) exploit.
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You mean the steam_appid.txt?
Thats possible, but I meant you can replace the game.exe with like firefox.exe and then you can start firefox via steam and steam thinks you play a game while you browse.
Does not work for all games and haven't done that in a while, but worked.
Activating the same key on multiple accounts was a pretty good (race condition) exploit.
Yes thats, why such stuff gets fixed.
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That's just the problem with valve, they don't give reasons. And if they were treating like a DDOS account, did those who were banned get their accounts reactivated again once the 'misunderstanding' was cleared up? "Oh sorry, we thought it was a DDOS attack, but you're just running a bot net of 1000 fake users? Our APOLOGIES, that's tots allowed fam, we'll unban you right away"
Hmm yeah I'll wait until the TOS specifically says specifically "You are allowed to have hundreds of accounts for the express purpose of personal gain through the farming of trading cards", before I fully believe you thanks. Because I very much doubt steam would be happy if a few million people all had bot farms of a few hundred putting strain on their servers to the detriment of legitimate clients.
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putting strain on their servers to the detriment of legitimate clients.
Nit: oversimplification
People would be happier to use competing products without the giant ecosystem around Steam that is --to a large degree-- based on automated third party services. Buying Steam levels or gambling on colourful CSGO skins has very little friction.
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Yeah true, I honestly don't use those services myself so their removal wouldn't affect me.
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Valve allows Card farming even in large scale.
Valve already do not 'allow' the sale for keys for farming, namely keys sold vastly below Steam's own prices.
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Well I assume nobody is here to disagree with me saying that devs doing massive free keys giveaways of their own games, only to let people farm cards and get a cut out of the cards being sold on the market is as pure definition of exploiting the system as you can think of.
But that's not necessarily the reason why they're changing the dev conditions. Keep in mind first thing was making it illegal to offer keys for voting in greenlight, and that was alone the exploit definition - this time exploiting Steam greenlight. I don't have unofficial data about this, but personally I believe the problem is ghost players generating fake statistics - one of the reasons why cards are now granted once game's userbase reaches given point.
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ghost players generating fake statistics
You mean like card farming affects Steam's global achievement stats? Or some other form of ghost players?
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using them to farm, buy and sell trading cards
tos disallows buy and sell through "automate any Subscription Marketplace process", farming is allowed.
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Ok but what does a bot net do if not "automate any subscription marketplace process"? That wording is vague enough that I'm pretty sure if they felt you were adversely affecting the experience of other users they would use it to shut you down. Yes they are probably not going to shut you down if you are running a trading bot or two. But as stated above, at least 2 people have been banned for running a bit network of bots and 'trading' with them all at once.
The thumb-sucked reason is because it was a 'ddos' attack, but if Valve was ever generous enough to give reasons from the TOS, it would probably be because they were 'automating a marketplace process', and legally they'd be allowed to do that, because it is against the TOS.
Anyway, nobody here speaks for Valve, so it's a pointless argument, I've just given reasons as to why people running networks of bots might find themselves with a ban. I'm not going to complain about that, but when they get community banned they can also not complain, because there's sufficient wording there to cover Valve.
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Focus is on marketplace, that's here:
http://steamcommunity.com/market/
And that's it. It is very specific actually.
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No read the TOS, it refers to the whole steam store as the 'Steam Marketplace', meaning the whole service valve provides, not just the community marketplace where cards and skins are sold. And trading is a part of the community marketplace anyway, so if you are running a network of bots that can trade automatically, they may well decide one day that you fall under that, even if you're only 'trading' with yourself.
Anyway, if you want to risk it, then it's really your choice, I think I've provided enough evidence from Valve's own mouth that it may end up in a suspension of service. So do what you want, but don't say you didn't know one day if you find yourself banned.
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Trading has nothing to do with the Marketplace as you can have an account that cannot access the Marketplace yet you can trade on it.
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Did you read the TOS? It refers to steam itself as the 'subscription marketplace', that is what they are talking about. And with that they are meaning the entire suite of functions associated with Steam. Including the buying and selling of games, the community marketplace and other functionality. In those TOS it says very clearly you are not allowed to use bots to automate any part of the subscriber marketplace. There is no clause to allow certain things. And again whilst you certainly won't be banned for running one or two accounts, scale it up to a few hundred and you can bet your ass this is the clause they will use to ban you.
Do us all a favour and actually read http://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/
Press control and F and search for 'marketplace' and see what it is they are talking about, then come back and tell me why I'm wrong.
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Under Contracting Party
For any interaction with Steam your contractual relationship is with Valve. Except as otherwise indicated at the time of the transaction (such as in the case of purchases from another Subscriber in a Subscription Marketplace), any transactions for Subscriptions (as defined below) you make on Steam are being made from Valve.
Under Steam Wallet
You may use Steam Wallet funds to purchase Subscriptions, including by making in-game purchases where Steam Wallet transactions are enabled, and Hardware. Funds added to the Steam Wallet are non-refundable and non-transferable. Steam Wallet funds do not constitute a personal property right, have no value outside Steam and can only be used to purchase Subscriptions and related content via Steam (including but not limited to games and other applications offered through the Steam Store, or in a Steam Subscription Marketplace) and Hardware.
You can clearly see them divide Steam Subscription Marketplace from the Steam Store.
Under Trading and Sales of Subscriptions Between Subscribers
Steam may include one or more features or sites that allow Subscribers to trade, sell or purchase certain types of Subscriptions (for example, license rights to virtual items) with, to or from other Subscribers (“Subscription Marketplaces”). An example of a Subscription Marketplace is the Steam Community Market. By using or participating in Subscription Marketplaces, you authorize Valve, on its own behalf or as an agent or licensee of any third-party creator or publisher of the applicable Subscriptions in your Account, to transfer those Subscriptions from your Account in order to give effect to any trade or sale you make.
Considering that this is the Steam Subscriber Agreement, by Subscriber meaning us the users, it's perfectly clear that the Subscription Marketplace takes place between the Subscribers. Yes, they do refer to the vast majority of the functions of Steam as Subscriptions, 'cause that's what they are, but that doesn't make the Subscription Marketplace the whole Steam client and it's functions. So no, even after reading the Agreement (which I admittedly have never done before), I don't see a single phrase in which they refer to all of Steam's functions as Subscription Marketplace.
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Ok so then, how do you work your way around this line ?
You may not use Cheats, automation software (bots), mods, hacks, or any other unauthorized third-party software, to modify or automate any Subscription Marketplace process.
ANY process, not just buying and selling.
And no it's not 'perfectly clear' that it's between users only, right near the top
You become a subscriber of Steam ("Subscriber") by completing the registration of a Steam user account.
Everyone on steam is a subscriber, so references to subscribers are just clients of the steam store basically. They changed the wording a few years ago to reflect that you are only ever owning a subscription to the games you have, which means they can revoke your access without being sued. A subscription marketplace doesn't mean it's just between subscribers, it means a marketplace where you buy subscriptions.
The section you quoted is referring to the community marketplace yes, but even there they say the community marketplace is 'an example' of one such marketplace, not the only one. But honestly that's besides the point, and I don't know why we're being bogged down by these semantics. (I do know why, classic tactic for someone who doesn't have something solid to offer to counter the main point). What I'm not seeing is a place where it says you are allowed to exploit multiple accounts to farm cards and profit from them, only wording that suggest the opposite. Show me something like that instead of arguing the meaning of words. Leave that kind of arguing to the lawyers when you sue valve for blocking access to your subscription for having too many bot accounts.
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We are not talking about buying or selling, but farming the cards. I don't know about you, but I certainly did 'cause that was the whole point. Using multiple accounts to farm.
On this one you are right.
There doesn't need to be a section which allows you to do something. As long as it's not forbidden and it doesn't brake any other rule then it's automatically allowed. Having multiple accounts is allowed, farming cards on each of these accounts is also allowed. Why would having multiple accounts to farm cards not be allowed? I really don't understand your logic. What's a Bot account for you and how do you define that? 'Cause I sure as hell never seen Valve use that term. We were not arguing whether software is allowed but whether farming on multiple accounts is.
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Alright I'll try and put this simply one last time. If the question is if it's allowed to use multiple accounts to farm cards. Then the answer is yes, you can. According to the FAQ quoted elsewhere you are allowed to have multiple accounts, but they limit the sign ins to one per computer. So if you login to your alt accounts and farm cards one at a time, you will never have a problem and would be within the rights given by Valve.
Where the issue becomes sticky is where you have a few hundred accounts controlled automatically by a single user and computer. This is a bot network. There is very clear wording in the subscriber agreement that disallow using bots for any subscriber actions. The reason why they don't want people to run networks of bot accounts connected to their servers all at once is probably less to do with the few cent profits they'll make from trading cards, and more to do with the negative impact it will have on their servers. As those people who have been banned already found out, Valve will ban you for triggering what appears to them to be a denial of service attack. If they were ok with these users having all those accounts, they would have then unbanned them once the situation was explained. If every user did this it would hugely impact the service valve offers. It would be like when a steam sale starts all the time, unless they upgraded their infrastructure, which wouldn't be a good investment if the number of actual money spending users hasn't increased. Their easier option is to ban those who are doing this.
So that's the first risk. At any time valve may decide you are negatively impacting their servers and ban your account. This is not unprecedented. If all you are doing is farming cards and getting Steam wallet money for yourself, that's probably where the issue ends.
The next issue comes in when you are farming the cards, making steam wallet money and then converting it to real money through the sale of skins or other digital content. This then triggers various other clauses they have, and if it's large scale enough might even get the attention of financial services in your country. If you're not getting real money out of it, then this issue won't apply to you.
Anyway I think I've repeated myself and explained the situation enough times now, if my point isn't made by now it never will be. Yes, it's unlikely you'll get banned for having a few hundred accounts, especially if you're only farming trading cards for yourself. However if valve did ban you, they would be well within their rights, thanks to the wording of the agreement.
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Finally you phrased a complete thought to which I mostly agree. Have a nice day and thank you for the discussion.
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And thank you. I think the art of debate is mostly lost on the internet, it usually devolves into insults and hyperbole. It's good to sometimes have a decent back and forth discussion where you disagree but can still respect the other person by the end.
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Being anonymous and having no consequences for your sayings helps that. I don't expect it ever being changed.
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but they limit the sign ins to one per computer.
Yes, that is indeed a point, but may refer to Using one account per steam client as well. Like in "You can not be logged into two accounts playing, using our client.
What if different sessions for different users run on one PC (switch user) on linux the account should stay online for every person. Thats against TOS as well?
There is very clear wording in the subscriber agreement that disallow using bots for any subscriber actions.
It is still not. Even following your own definition ("A subscription marketplace doesn't mean it's just between subscribers, it means a marketplace where you buy subscriptions.") the process of idling cards is completly seperated from all of that.
If you use IM thats 100% clear.
Using ASF one could argue, that redeeming keys is related to such a marketplace, but the farming itself is still not related.
Steam itself is NOT a marketplace. Only the community market and the store are (and ingame purchases).
The reason why they don't want people to run networks of bot accounts connected to their servers all at once is probably less to do with the few cent profits they'll make from trading cards, and more to do with the negative impact it will have on their servers.
Neglegiable unless you really use a lot of bots AND are stupid. There are nearly 18.5 million users at a time for steam. Additionally, the simple "play game X" request is lightweight, compared to stuff real people do. Playing a game of Dota puts more stress on the steam server than idling for a week.
As those people who have been banned already found out, Valve will ban you for triggering what appears to them to be a denial of service attack. If they were ok with these users having all those accounts, they would have then unbanned them once the situation was explained.
"Those two people"? Yes vale first banned them for being stupid. Then they kept them banned because they were stupid and they don't want that to happen again. Additionally, unbanning means officially allowing it, which is vastly different from not forbidding it as I explained before.
If every user did this it would hugely impact the service valve offers.
If every user starts playing Dota right now the server crash as well... But yes, if the problem gets to big they might forbid it, which is, why they do not allow it in the first place.
This then triggers various other clauses they have, and if it's large scale enough might even get the attention of financial services in your country. If you're not getting real money out of it, then this issue won't apply to you.
That depends on your country. And what does this trigger in steam TOS? Commercial? Not everything involving FIAT money is commercial.
Anyway I think I've repeated myself and explained the situation enough times now, if my point isn't made by now it never will be.
I fully understand your reasoning and I do get your point. Yet I disagree especially on the "They forbid this in their TOS". The paragraph about single login can be argued about, but the other one is clearly not related to card farming.
Yes, it's unlikely you'll get banned for having a few hundred accounts, especially if you're only farming trading cards for yourself. However if valve did ban you, they would be well within their rights, thanks to the wording of the agreement.
Well, dunno if you know about this, but laws > TOS. Microsoft already got a package when they tried to forbid reselling of OEM keys.
If steam bans you, then:
a) There has to be reason (e.g. violation of TOS)
b) This reason has to be clearly formulated
c) This reason can not collide with local law.
Unless all 3 are satisfied you can (at least in my country) sue steam and will most likely win (of couse it will cost you a lot of money which you get back after you win).
And to be sure to win it is very easy:
Steam has officially acknowleged the existense of idling software, but never explicit forbid it.
Of couse that does not tackle the 1 login at a time and the "impact on steam network" for big farms, but the rest is save.
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Wow I really don't understand your point to be honest. You agree that large scale farming might get you banned, but you still want to argue what these users are called. Like I say you are more than welcome to call them bots, I'll keep calling them fake, as to my understanding they are, especially if the only interaction they have with steam is idling to farm cards.
And again for the umpteenth time, I have never denied that using idling software is not the issue. The issue is people with the large number of 'bot' accounts and what they do with them. Something you seem to agree with, but still you are here arguing semantics.
Ok so basically it boils down to... myself and others say that the TOS does explicitly disallow for the use of bots to automate any steam marketplace action. I say that farming cards (which are sold on the marketplace) is exactly a marketplace action, you say it isn't. I'm not going to convince you otherwise, which is why I say the only way you'll know for sure is to test it out. The fact that they have banned some people with large networks of bot accounts suggests there is already some legal ground they have for doing that, some say it's because it was like a DDOS attack, maybe so? But then there's nothing in the TOS specifically that says you can't DDOS their servers, so whatever grounds they used for that ban are possibly the same grounds others may find used against them. Either way people saying that valve expressly allows you to have as many accounts as you want all connected to steam at one time are just plain wrong.
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but you still want to argue what these users are called.
Yes. Fake, as in faking something regarding steam accounts clearly refers to activly pretending something that is not the case. As long as a botaccount is clearly "labeled", there is nothing fake about it.
Fake accounts often refer to scammer or or similar scum. So even if I personally do not really like people with "commercial" botfarms, throwing them into the same pot is wrong.
The issue is people with the large number of 'bot' accounts and what they do with them. Something you seem to agree with, but still you are here arguing semantics.
The problem are not large scale bot farms. It's large scale bot farms owned by stupid people. Even if you have 5k bots, steam dose not care as long as you manage them in a ways, that does not DOS the steam network.
I say that farming cards (which are sold on the marketplace) is exactly a marketplace action, you say it isn't.
You say yourself that a marketplace is something where subscriptions are sold.
I can be trade banned, have no access to the market and no payment method at all, still I can drop cards.
I'm not going to convince you otherwise, which is why I say the only way you'll know for sure is to test it out.
Well that does not matter. It is simply not. Otherwise dropping cards would be linked to the community market or whatever, which it isn't.
SELLING the cards (or maybe even trading them) IS such an action, but not farming them.
And why ASKING for something, that is explicitly neither allowed nor forbidden, is a bad idea, have I explained enough times already.
But then there's nothing in the TOS specifically that says you can't DDOS their servers,
What??? Of course there is. Thats like one of the most important paragraphs...
Either way people saying that valve expressly allows you to have as many accounts as you want all connected to steam at one time are just plain wrong.
You are not able to read. I only argue that the do not FORBID farming cards. The opposit of the ACTIVE process of frobidding something is not the ACTIVE process of allowing something. It's the PASSIVE process of ignoring (tolerating) something to keep your options open.
And as I said, for multi accounts you can argue about the login stuff. But not the bot-market-action, thats clearly not related to farming.
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Right I'm done with talking stupid circles around the same things. Especially as you seem to ignore a lot of what I say, and zero in on specific words I've used. Like for example I say. "The issue is people with the large number of 'bot' accounts and what they do with them" you then respond with, "It's large scale bot farms owned by stupid people". Wow so doesn't that just mean that these people are doing stupid things with them... wow pretty much what I said.
And the marketplace doesn't only have to be where things are sold, trading is an action that happens on marketplaces too. So maybe idling the cards isn't an issue, but the minute you trade them you are participating in a market activity. If you are trade banned, can you trade? No? So I guess it's a part of the market then isn't it? If you're only idling cards with your bot network and never trading those cards, you are probably safe. Why are we even arguing this point? (And why are you idling cards on a 'bot' account if you don't plan on doing anything with them?)
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Especially as you seem to ignore a lot of what I say, and zero in on specific words I've used.
Likewise.
So you like calling people that go 1mph over the speed limit criminals? Because (at least in my country) there are different terms for different offenses. If you missuse words, I can tell you about this. And since you seem not to follow anything I say, but just stay on your opinion and "your definition of fake" I will stop on that point.
Words are hard, I know. Maybe theres something lost in translation and fake has different meanings in your language, but well.
Wow so doesn't that just mean that these people are doing stupid things with them... wow pretty much what I said.
No, as I clearly stated (please be so kind to read my comments). You CAN have a large botfarm, without causing any trouble for steam and without steam caring about you. And you can fuck up like the people that got banned did.
Thats like you CAN own a gun legally, but if you run around shooting people you get arrested and will not be able to own a gun from there on. Literally the same thing.
So maybe idling the cards isn't an issue
Yes.
but the minute you trade them you are participating in a market activity.
Yes. But am I doing this automatically? Maybe, maybe not. Unreleated to farming. If I send every offer manual and put up every card manual, than thats not against the TOS, is it?
If you're only idling cards with your bot network and never trading those cards, you are probably safe. Why are we even arguing this point? (And why are you idling cards on a 'bot' account if you don't plan on doing anything with them?
Again, I can automatically farm them and afterwards do everything manual.
Of couse most won't do that (at least for trading) and you have to argue again, what is part of the marketplace, but thats a different story.
Farming in general is not fobidden in the steam TOS.
Even large botfarms are not forbidden if you use different PCs for each bot and do time you messages to steam so they do not influence server performance (on one PC you can argue again). (Talking only about farming)
Bot accounts are not fake in any way, since they are not faking anything.
Pretending to be a different person, etc. is faking something. You can not "fake" a steamaccount, you can only fake the appeareance of that account. So if the account clearly says "This is a cardfarming bot." Where did you fake anything?
If you use a bot to boost playtimes/achievemts, to make an bot account look like a primary legit account. Thats faking. But you are still not faking a steamaccount, since well the accounts exists, you are just faking the appeareance of a primary account.
But your opinion seems to differ, and thats fine. I just noted, that you are missusing the word "fake" and that my opinion is backed up with arguments...
These are my two main points. On most of the other stuff I completly agree with you.
The thing is you accuse me of not reading your posts or ignoring most of it, yet you ignore half of the stuff I write...
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I honestly ignore half the stuff you post because I would be repeating myself over and over to reply to them. But hey, lets go round the mountain again.
I'm glad that you do agree on the main definition of what we are talking about which is that owning multiple accounts is not an issue, but rather what else is done with them. So in order to streamline my response I won't repeat that again, even if the exact definitions of what we consider negative actions may differ. I'll answer instead your highlighted points.
Bot accounts are not fake in any way, since they are not faking anything.
So they are actually playing those games that they claim to be playing then? They have them installed and are displaying graphics from that game whilst it earns them trading cards? And those hours they've racked up spent playing a game are a good reflection of hours someone has spent playing the game, that in no way skews the statistics or perceived popularity of that game? If so then, it's not a fake. If it is, then at least some part of what they are doing is 'fake'. And if all they are doing is this kind of thing, then I would call that account 'fake' without a doubt. And whilst idling on your primary account is also 'faking' time spent in the game, the fact you are also playing actual games on that account and interacting with your friends would make it obvious that the account itself isn't fake, as its only purpose isn't just to pretend to be doing something it's not for the benefit of the primary user.
Maybe this is a translation issue, but I can assure you this is a good definition of 'fake'. But again, the word used to describe them is really not the issue, and even having a few of these accounts is not the issue really. I've already said you are welcome to call them 'bot' accounts if you prefer.
Farming in general is not fobidden in the steam TOS.
When has anyone ever said that is was? No one has once said that. And if you host a whole series of bots, one per computer, it's not really what we're talking about is it? This is a scenario unrelated to what we're talking about, and I have agreed many times that something like this is not the issue being discussed?
As for the silly example of breaking the speed limit by 1mph? Well yes in this completely unrelated scenario, technically you are breaking the law and could get fined for it, depending on the law of your country. Some countries do treat speeding as a criminal act, and whilst 1mph isn't going to trigger jail time, go far enough over the limit and you could go to jail and be branded as a criminal. So as we're not talking about 1 or 2 or even 10 bot account, I agree that branding someone who has a few as a 'law-breaker' when it comes to steam's TOS is silly, and I doubt valve would ever act on those. But take it up to 50, 100, 1000, and maybe then we'll see?
I hope I answered enough of your points there? Feel free to point out anything I've missed that you'd like clarity on.
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So they are actually playing those games that they claim to be playing then?
Well I left Dota running while making dinner, or Binding of Isaac... No save-function. Half of my playtime is the game running in the background because more important stuff came up. Is that also faking?
But yes, if you refer to playtime, then you can use the word faking. But then a shitload of accounts are fake accounts. Not just bots.
But again, the word used to describe them is really not the issue, and even having a few of these accounts is not the issue really.
I never said, it is the (main) issue. It's just about clear wording. If someone (on SG, ST or steam in general) speaks about a fake account that usually refers to accounts that are meant to scam people. Accounts that are faking not only "the minimal amont of time needed for the cards", but also achievements, 100s of hours of playtime, to fake a REAL appearance.
For bot accounts there is already a more fitting word... bot account. Using fake account as well diffuses the meaning of that word. Not all bots are fake accounts (even after your definition. There are bots that do not farm cards) And a truckload of fake accounts are not bots.
When has anyone ever said that is was?
Ah, so it's ok, to automatically farm cards on one account?
And it's ok, to farm automatically cards on a second account on a different PC?
So it's ok, to farm 100 different accounts on 100 PCs?
Or where do you put the border? When steam network gets into trouble? Unless you are stupid that does not happen for tens of thousands of accounts.
When you sell those cards for steam wallet, when you sell them for real money?
If you say it's ok with one account, it's even ok with 5 accounts, but it's forbdden with 150 accounts, that just bad argumantation.
If I had a botfarm with 5k bots, on 5k PCs (again, you can argue abot that clause as well), hapilly famring cards, which I use to craft badges and level all my bots up. All that while having loadbalancer in place making sure there is no siginificant load on the steam network.
Does that violate the TOS in any way? No, it doesn't.
And you know what the funny thing is? Valve vaguely phrasing their stuff even helps people in certian countries. It is called consumer protection, and if something is unclear, than it has to be interpreted in favor of the consumer.
This is a scenario unrelated to what we're talking about
Not really. I highly doubt that a botfarm of 5k or more accounts is managed from one PC. But thats technically not a problem. I have (direct) access to about 30 PCs, where I could run a single ASF instance without someone complaining. Further probably 10-20 different server (where I do not know if they are v-servers sharing a physical sever, which is a problem of the TOS. Is it per physical computation unit, or per VServer...) and maybe 20 additonal PCs with indirect access.
So 50+ bots simulatniously is not a problem. Assuming that I do not can provide enough games for my bots, I can circle through them and farm them sequentially allowing easily for a botfarm of a few hundred bots according to steam TOS.
As for the silly example of breaking the speed limit by 1mph?
It's not silly. It's about throwing words together.
Well yes in this completely unrelated scenario
No it's not unrelated. If you think it is, you sadly didn't understood it.
technically you are breaking the law and could get fined for it, depending on the law of your country.
Yes, that is right. But (thats why I wrote in my country) there are to different words "Verbrechen" and "Ordnungswidrigkeit", which should translate to "crime" and "administrative offence".
You get punished in both cases, but you are only called a criminal in one of them.
If you start calling people admitting a "administrative offence" criminals you are just wrong and you are missusing the word criminal.
It was an example for only that. Missusage of words. Nothing more, nothing less.
PS:
I honestly ignore half the stuff you post because I would be repeating myself over and over to reply to them. But hey, lets go round the mountain again.
It's not about replying to it, it's about reading it.
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Is dota running while you're making supper, and the graphics are playing? No it's not fake at all. Is your computer saying that it's running Dota when all it's actually doing is lying to the Steam servers and saying it's playing? Yes, it's fake.
And I get that some people refer to fake accounts in the sense of scamming people, that's fine. You are welcome to make that distinction based on your understanding, just as I am free to call a hollow account that does nothing but idle cards 'fake', as that fits exactly into my definition.
Ah, so it's ok, to automatically farm cards on one account?
Yes.
And it's ok, to farm automatically cards on a second account on a different PC?
Yes, as above.
So it's ok, to farm 100 different accounts on 100 PCs?
Yes, still with you here.
Where have I ever said I have an issue with these scenarios, or that this is what we are talking about? To the contrary, at every juncture I have taken pains to agree that this type of farming is not really going to be an issue. Of course it's entirely possible valve may disagree, but I see scenarios where maybe a school has 100 computers and they've all got steam installed so the kids can play games. If valve ever questioned, they could explain, and the matter would hopefully be cleared up. As I say, I'm not them though, so this is just my logic which dictates that this is not breaching their terms of service in any way.
BUT even 5 accounts running from a single PC is potentially going to be an issue, as Valve can turn around and definitively say you've breached their terms by running then in a 'bot' configuration. Will that happen for 5 accounts? Probably not.
And then what you do with the items you earn from that idling could also be an issue. I don't know where the line is, for what they would consider abusive, and I don't know what the punishment would be, only valve would know that. But being as at least 3 people have been banned already, there is clearly a line somewhere and a set of actions that can result in a ban. No one knows, so coming up with a million scenarios like the ones you keep repeating over and over for me to repeat over and over and discussing them infinitely isn't going to get any closer to an answer is it?
Incidentally you say DDOS attacks are prohibited in their TOS, but I can't see it, all I can see is the reference to bots and the fact you're not allowed to use them for marketplace actions. I really did read the agreement, but maybe I missed this point, so I'm happy to be corrected on this point, as it would have been my mistake if I missed it.
Not really. I highly doubt that a botfarm of 5k or more accounts is managed from one PC.
Maybe not, but are there more than 1 running on a PC? Congratulations, Valve will have very good grounds to call it a bot farm. As above, what that limit may be, it would be entirely within their discretion as the TOS is clear enough when it comes to the use of bots. Regardless of what action they take after that, they would be within their rights according to the terms they laid out, which explicitly forbid the use of bots for marketplace actions.
And the only one using the word 'criminal' here is you, so I'm still not getting what your point was? Clearly I don't understand the point you are trying to make, being as of course I agree it's unfair to think a person doing 1mph over a speed limit is just as guilty as one doing 100 over, at at no point have I ever said it was. But how does this play into what you trying to say? Quite the opposite in fact. 1 mph over... no big deal. 10... maybe a fine. 50... demerits maybe. 100... jail time. So on one hand you're asking me where the line is, and then on the other using an example which does have distinct lines? Yeah I'm confused, I'll admit it.
I really must admit that based on the fact we are both repeating ourselves endlessly here, this is rather pointless. You say X. I say "yes i agree". You say you agree with me about a lot, but then still argue the same points over and over. WHEN WILL IT END I ASK YOU? :-)
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As above, what that limit may be, it would be entirely within their discretion as the TOS is clear enough when it comes to the use of bots
Thats where we disagree. Their TOS only fobids market actions with bots. The botfarm itself is fine. There is no line in the TOS that tackles that problem anyhow. Even the line with "access 1 account per PC" is discussable as mentioned before.
And the only one using the word 'criminal' here is you
This example is not about lines or anything. Just an example where a word would be missused, as is fake accounts. There is no depper meaning. So simplified:
Calling a "normal" bot account fake account, is like calling somone commiting an administrative offense a criminal. Mabe thats more clear.
About DOS (DDOS = Distributed DOS, so it's only DDOS if comming from multiple sources):
Valve may terminate your Account or a particular Subscription for any conduct or activity that is illegal, constitutes a Cheat, or otherwise negatively affects the enjoyment of Steam by other Subscribers.
DOS triggers "illegal" in many countries and "negatively affects the enjoyment of Steam by other Subscribers" in all countries. The only thing DOS does is messing with other people, which want to use the service as well.
Basically the steam sale is against their TOS, since it negativly affects people due to overloaded shop ;->
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Ok so in the same way I am interpreting that the TOS is clear in it's limitations on the use of bots (they even use that exact word), you are interpreting that line in the terms as encompassing a DOS attack, which is an interpretation I agree with. That would be the line they refer to when they block you for a DOS attack. I just couldn't see any specific reference to those words, so I thought I'd missed it.
Incidentally in the same breath, that same line could also be used against an bot farm that is flooding the steam marketplace with trading cards earned in a way that the average user isn't earning them. Is that not negatively affecting the enjoyment of Steam by other Subscribers? Not really wanting to debate that point to be honest, as I already think the use of a bot farm for trading purposes has clear wording that disallows it, you say otherwise, and I think we'll always disagree until the unlikely event the Valve one day clarifies.
And thank you for your clarification about the speeding analogy, I really didn't get it, but I see where you were going. I will keep calling these accounts 'fake' because it's my interpretation that they are. The negative inference of that word is deliberate, because to me a 'bot' can also be something you've described, which I think is perfectly fine, a second account logged in on another computer, that harvests trading cards. So in my own interpretation, I would call something a 'fake' account if it was like one of those which I believe has a negative impact on the steam ecosystem. To me a 'bot' isn't necessarily bad, but the type of accounts I'm talking about are. So we'll probably never come to an agreement.
And yes the steam sale is a self-inflicted DDOS, but they can't really blame one single person for that, now can they? Haha.
Anyway, thanks for the discussion, I always enjoy a bit of healthy debate and you were civil and patient, so thank you.
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I return the last line right away ;->
Guess we can end it here.
And yes, basically that line can be used to ban anyone for everything, because your actions led to someone somwhere having less fun ;->
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I don't know what it is, but I wouldn't be attempted to USD 25 to risk it
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Getting attention via making a forumpost doesn't seem to be good if you violate siterules would be my guess.
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You mean the "important discussion'?
Isnt that a bit extreme for a pernament ban?
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There are rules about not having multiple SG accounts. If any of those 150 bots had an SG account, he'd be permabanned. It's possible that's what happened here.
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i don't understand. why was he suspended permanently? because of the bot thing? he didn't say anything about using those bots on SG, right? what am i missing? ^^
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He doesn't have to admit it when it takes a few seconds to see that he's doing it, and actively winning giveaways with multiple accounts.
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He also had lots of not activated wins in one of his alts at least (the first one I checked), so he was probably activating the wins from his bots on his main :)
Opening this thread was probably not a good idea xD
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I think so, at least that one was perma suspended like his main one. It's easy and fast to check it (for support) if he was not using proxies or VPNs with the bots.
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Holy cow. I got a bunch of bots too for personal use. Farming SG GAs is really greedy. Even with Proxies / VPNs it shouldn't be too hard to find them though.
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Why do people get away with this for so long? Why do they have to be manually found? Wouldn't it be easy to add something to the site that checks for multiple users with the same IP and then alerts if a certain number of accounts on the same IP are detected?
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If something like this is not in use, it would be a really good idea to add it.
I'm guessing it wouldn't be much work to figure out if 20 users from the same IP are 20 real people who happen to work at the same place and all use SG from work, or if all of the accounts belong to the same person (one real account and 19 bots).
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There automatic measures are, at least, not good.
I reported one that scammed at indiegala (with 3 accounts), followed them to sg and found all 3 here too.
He got perma banned for multiaccounting but this one was a stupid one (in IG he posted links to his main account -with a twitter link- in his GA's... on steam all 3 are friends and so on...), so i don't think that he used VPN's or anything else and the multiaccounting should be detected by automatic measures....
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on steam all 3 are friends and so on...
But how do you know that's not legitimately three people?
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Because the 2 other accounts supported his twitter Acc. (from the main steam profile). Only the 2 little ones scammed in big with IG GA's (i don't say how exactly that others can't repeat it)
The other ones are lvl 3 and 5 at steam, same country (russia), name by 2 ones partly same...
and on sg the little one's had unactivated wins (+ the main acc had in his steamacc. games for trade that the little ones won...).. and a clear multiaccounting was seen by the support after the report.
If you want know more about "find such ones" you can read:
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/oLuSJ/steam-api-key-very-important-discussion#Dsye6Ss
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/oLuSJ/steam-api-key-very-important-discussion#2bifpOt
Maybe it helps. I would be glad if other's got catched (i think it give around 3k Autojoiners at sg).
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More than one account per IP is no proof at all. Some (most?) people have dynamic IPs. If I restart my router I get a new one. Maybe someone used this IP an hour ago on SG. Also it could be more people in one household / family using SG or two people using the same wlan (maybe a public one). I think it's not so easy to find these people who abuse the rules.
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Yes, but if the site sends out an alert to support when multiple account have the same IP, it would make the job of finding them much quicker and easier. If multiple accounts have the same IP and then the IP changes and now those same multiple accounts are all using the same new IP, something is wrong. When support gets the alert, they should be able to go back and check logs of the users, if possible.
Also, I don't know what this site collects, but can't sites collect a lot more identifying information on every user that connects to the site which would allow the site to see that all the account are connecting from the same device?
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And who should check these suspicious accounts? Support is understaffed at the moment.
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That would generate far more false positives that you can actually imagine. Moreover, saying that just 1% out of all of those alerts would be true is already overstatement. IP is not an indicator of anything, crapload of people have dynamic IPs, shared networks, portable hotspots and shitload of different possibilities to show as one. Commercial software for detecting such things uses a combination of all different factors one can think of, for example browser's user-agent, operating system and so on.
In general, IP alone does not mean anything. If you checked my account you'd notice that it's used by 2 IP addresses constantly. If you jumped on false assumption you could state that it's being used by 2 different people, because it's not possible otherwise for totally independent activity done at the exactly the same time. And you'd be only half-correct, because second IP belongs to my server and is being used by ArchiBoT 24/7, with official agreement from cg himself.
And that's the most simple situation you can think of, because amount of complex and actually very common ones is overwhelming.
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Who said anything about connecting from multiple IP addresses? That means nothing and would not trigger any alerts. Lots of people connect from their home computer, phone, laptop, other networks when they travel.
The problem is when you have multiple accounts connecting from the same IP address within a set time like 12 or 24 hours. And as I said, this would not ban anyone, it would just send an alert to support who can look into it. They would be able to do some research on the history of the multiple accounts connecting to the same IP and see if they always connect to the same IP together. There would be no false positive because a human would check and verify if someone is using multiple account.
I'm not sure, but with the amount of information websites get when someone connects, I bet they could tie each account to an actual device and see if multiple account are connecting from the same device. The IP means nothing and is only an easy automated way to gather the most likely accounts that are breaking the rules to do a real check by a human.
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The problem is when you have multiple accounts connecting from the same IP address within a set time like 12 or 24 hours.
And that means exactly the same as IP address, nothing at all. The connection was done, from this IP address, at given time. Nothing more, nothing less. This would generate the same amount of false positives. Yes, you could make use of extra data such as user-agent, OS and so on, but that data is not mandatory and can be easily faked. Most of the people are not smart enough to do so, but amount of false positives would still be higher than amount of the users that would be caught doing that, maybe no longer only 1%, but definitely not bigger than 10% tops.
And I don't even want to mention the code that needs to handle all of that, and people wasting time hunting for idiots breaking site's terms of use. If you ask me, I prefer from support members to handle legit tickets, like reroll tickets, rather than doing ineffective time-wasting witch hunts only because some moron has 3 L0 accounts and is entering public giveaways with them. Sooner or later he'll get banned anyway, why waste time going through 90% of false positive logs only to ban him faster? You really overestimate the actual quality of such detection systems. Implementing one that would provide even 50% of success ratio costs millions of dollars and is used privately by security agencies, with still a very poor results. Only together with other crucial data, like mobile phone activity you're able to quite precisely tell whether it's the same person, and even that can be easily faked with just a little of effort.
It's much, MUCH easier to implement a system that detects bot usage, and even that isn't necessarily a very easy task.
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I think you overestimate the number of users that show up using the same IP within a 12 or 24 hour period. I bet this would be a very low number of users and once that is pointed out, I don't think it would be hard to find out if they are using multiple accounts based on the other IP addresses they connect from or checking the other mentioned information.
Also, I'm pretty sure the site already has the code to do this. It just has to read a log to check for multiple users on the same IP within a set time. All that would need to be done is for a person to do a manual check of user logs once someone is flagged. If support doesn't have the time or does't feel like checking, they can just ignore it. Maybe add a tally to accounts for how many times the system has shown them to be connecting from the same IP as another account and then when support has the time, they can just check the accounts with the most flags.
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And if you have mobile internet, you may share same IP with tens or hundreds of households. At least here in Finland (though at least my ISP has opt-in for dynamic IP).
Wouldn't be unusual to have couple of SG users with same IP. But you don't need to be rocket scientist to determine same user using other factors. IP is still pretty good cause for investigation.
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I would really welcome it if SG does more against these rule breakers. But support is understaffed at the moment and complete automatic checks aren't easy to implement and could lead to false positives.
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False positives doesn't matter until there's too much. No reason to automatically ban anyone. But if someone's flagged and gets reported for unactivated win, that's right for concern. (You could automatically scan potential alts by showing list of users flagged as possible dupe and activated game afterwards and also if there's other such cases and you could even rank based on that -> top of list eventually bad users).
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When a IP change the logs show this. When a lot of users/acc. logs out and in with the same IP's its suspicious.
In your IP is always a country code -germany have as example 2 possibilities, i don't know exactly if the other countries have one or more- so your "other SG user with the same IP" must be from the same country, dial into the net at the same entry point (as example Munich) and such things (over the IP you can see the ISP that is different by different people as a easy example).
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this is already in place. when i was new here i got the recommendation from a co-worker. we were both logged in at the same time in the company - and i got permabanned. had to write support and explain the situation.
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Then maybe this user was using different IP addresses on the accounts, but this thread caught someones attention and they did some research into information that the automated check wouldn't notice.
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I think the automatic detection was disabled due to legitimate IP-overlap.
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But they just need to disable to automatic suspensions and allow an alert. Set it to something like multiple accounts using the same IP within 12 or 24 hours. Then if they get an alert, they can choose to look into it if they have the time or just ignore it.
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Don't some people's ips change often? Also, I'd prefer not to get my account perma-banned because someone in my house or area may also have an account. :/
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Using multiple IP addresses is very common with almost everyone and would not trigger an alert because it doesn't matter.
The problem is when you have multiple accounts connecting from the same IP address within a set time like 12 or 24 hours. This would not band anyone, it would just send an alert to support who can look into it. They would be able to do some research on the history of the multiple accounts connecting to the same IP and see if they always connect to the same IP together. There would be no false positive because a human would check and verify if someone is using multiple account.
I'm not sure, but with the amount of information websites get when someone connects, I bet they could tie each account to an actual device and see if multiple account are connecting from the same device. The IP means nothing and is only an easy automated way to gather the most likely accounts that are breaking the rules to do a real check by a human.
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But now that would mean more of staff's time is taken up checking ips, when it sounds like they're already busy as it is.
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Stopping users that register a bunch of accounts just to run bots that collect as many giveaways as they can should be a high priority.
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Well, try checking some of the bots that user links to from their profile, and check their SG accounts (Enhanced Steam has a quick link you can use to check the SG account of any Steam user, if they have one), and you might find permanently suspended accounts with wins on them ;)
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Support is selectively fast. They see a thread, they might ban out of own initiative. Their friends(*) tell them, it might have consequences.
OTOH, if you make a simple user report ticket, not much is likely to happen.
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Their friends(*) tell them
You can guess how our Touhou Giveaways drama-chat correlates to several support members being chat visitors :3.
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So this guy is one of the reasons my cards are worth less then they should.... What a jerk. I think he is doing it on purpose too :(
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What do you mean that you think he is doing it on purpose? How is it possible to farm with 150 accounts by accident? :P
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You can blame the programs which farm cards and their creators (especially taking into account that some of them include the feature of managing bots coughasfcough).
People don't have to play a game to get their cards anymore. As soon as a game is released or distributed for free or get bundled, there are a lot of people who get all its cards within 2 hours or less.
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or you can blame valve who allow these programs on purpose.
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I would blame Valve for the stupid card system, not for third party software that makes life easier in the situation at hand.
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These programs are not the problem.
Even before IM, I was downloading games and left them running for card drops....
The problem of EVERYTHING you have a problem with, are games that are distributed for less than the cards are worth.
If the cheapest bundle were the 1$ for 3 games humble stuff and the only freebies were some promotional very limited stuff, then none of the problems you seem to have would have come into play.
Noone buys a game (for a bot) that costs more than the cards are worth. Thats as easy as it is.
Because what you (or at least the top comment from this three) are upset about is "I can not make profit from my cards, because someone else is making the profit more efficiently."
If it's not about profit, but only about getting a few cents back, all problems solve themselve.
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True, but if the market was better/more fair. Then a "cheap card" would have a higher value so it would be 6 cent (for example) instead of 3. If that was the case people would still buy the cheapest card to complete their badge but the cheapest card would just be more expensive.
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When developers sell games for less than $0.03, what card price do you expect? There's still profit to be made by farming at low, low card prices.
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These 3 or 4 cent cards are concentrated around crap/scam games that ARE literally the main problem.
Even for heavily bundled games the price stays at 6 cent easily, if the game is decent.
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/EfBvr/ok-it-has-been-a-while-since-the-price-of-cards-on-steam-got-extremely-deflated#3I8jelI
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Well, it was Valve that destroyed the market by changing the purchase order system, destroyed the profits that is...it was nickels and dimes, now its pennies... :/
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Did I say it wrong?
The system where you can set a price, like 0.03$ to buy an item only when it gets that cheap.
It used to be different, you had to look for bargains yourself. When they introduced the new system most prices for boosters dropped from 15 cents down to 9 cents, single cards from 7 cents down to 3 cents. A race to the bottom.
That's what I meant :)
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Oh.
Well I think it has to do with developers making 'game shaped objects', https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/306552/Valve_wiped_nearly_200_fake_games_from_Steam.php etc, and the rise of other currencies than USD & EUR on Steam.
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I knew the guy from a long time ago and he was really nice to me in the past. It's so sad that he decided to go so far for... profit? Is this so important to make you take advantage of the SG community that is so awesome and special? Games were supposed to be about fun.
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Even I who is not a regular around here know that he just loves spouting bullshit and misinformation. Maybe you would want to refute his argument once to clarify information for the others and then move on since he's relentless. 😀
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They are quick to answer [..] with just complete bushit.
I haven't noticed any sort of specialization to their habit, myself, so no need to include that middle portion. :S
--
In regards to API keys, I've only ever heard of publisher API keys as being risky to share (though it's against terms of use to share any API key). As user keys go, as far as I'm aware, you're correct in that they're limited in what they can access. If you check the API calls list, it seems that every risky one [like ones authorizing microtransaction payments] require¹ a publisher key (which Valve itself notes² as being intentional).
¹ NOTE: This call requires a publisher API key to use this method. As such this API MUST be called from a secure server, and can never be used directly by clients!
² There are also methods that return sensitive data or perform a protected action and require special access permissions. These APIs require a publisher key, which you will need to create before calling any of them.
While access to the key'd likely allow you to leak the account's public information, you shouldn't be able to send out any modifications to the account itself. Either way, there's no productive reason to violate Valve's terms of use on the matter, so it's not something that should really have cause for being tested in the first place. :P
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It's been a while since I last took a look at the documentation, but you can't really do any account-related automation using the API key.
It'd also help if you didn't look at bullshit of other users but also bullshit of yourself.
Steam API allows for example to fetch your entire trading history, and decline ongoing trade offers on your behalf. I hope I don't need to elaborate how those two actions are as account-related as you can think of. Moreover, even ASF uses it.
Misleading information is quite often worse than no information at all.
Exactly. Which is why you should check info yourself before telling somebody else that he's wrong.
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Well, the question was about account-related activity, and getting trade offers or declining them is as account-related as you can think of. It's alright to not know everything, I don't know a lot of things too, but as you pointed out yourself, misleading information is worse than no information at all. You jumped onto user that had good, yet a bit stupid intentions, and you corrected him with much more dangerous information that could make some people believe that you can hand out API keys without a second thoughts because you can't do shit with them.
It's good to check on such things, especially if you're not just some noname on the internet. I learnt it the hard way.
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Holy shit!
I was wondering why 95% of SG are level 0 accounts... I guess you don't need to worry about your odds when you can have thousands of fake accounts enter any GA you want...
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Well, 90% of all accounts are also inactive. Roughly 50k active per week I'd estimate.
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50k? I thought I remember seeing an Alexa ranking page a couple years ago that said this site had around 200k unique visitors per day. I could be wrong though.
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unique visitors =/= users. Keep in mind that to register an account on SG you need 100$ worth of non-bundle games on your account - this alone eliminates majority of steam users (median for amount of games on account according to SteamSpy is just 2! So millions upon millions of people have account just to play 1-2 games on them). So someone is googling "free steam games", "game giveaways" etc, this person finds SG and bam - you have your unique user. But if we assume that these visitors will corellate with average Steam users, vast majority of them will never meet criteria to create an account.
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Doesn't sound like it would add up. We only have 50k users visit on average, but we have another 150k people visit the site each day that don't meet the requirements to join? These people should not be returning if they cannot join. At 150k per day, that would be 4.5 million per month, you would think the number of people that visit and realize they can't join would dry up really quick. I think one of these numbers are incorrect, the 50k or 200k. I don't think it is possible to have 150k unregistered users come to the site every day for a prolonged time.
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doesn't alexa show monthly traffic rather than daily?
also keep in mind that big chunk of traffic on the internet is not human-generated. We share a lot of links on SG, right? a lot of website collects data of incoming traffic, so each unique website someone ghoes from SG = ding extra user. Add all kind of bots, datagatherers, other algorithms. I don't think we have only 50k active users, but I also don't think we have hundreds of thousands of active users - numbers of entries don't add up to that.
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I don't remember how Alexa works, maybe it is per month, I'm trying to remember what I saw from like 2 or 3 years ago. I'm sure someone here has access to an Alexa account that could chime in, or CG probably knows even better than Alexa.
I tried searching and the best I could come up with was this comment from CG in Feb 2014 saying that 50k unique visitors would click on a giveaway. I don't know if he was just throwing a number out or if that was roughly based on stats, but the site had around 525k registered users at that time and it has double that now. That is the best I could come up with.
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not neccessary - acounts once registered remain forever, while users come and go, a lot of users quit SG over the years, so I doubt number of active users doubled, especially as number of entries in massive GAs hasn't doubled, and I see it as easiest way to compare proportion of active users.
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I guess now I'll start doing over level 0 giveaways.
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For those that are still wondering. The Steam API key is used by third party sites to authenticate logins, pull user stats and game info. I highly doubt there'd be any risk to sharing this apart from the fact that there's a limit to the number of API calls it can make in an hour, so if you were using your key to run a stats website for example and someone else got hold of your key and also used it, then you might hit the limit and have calls to the server declined. At least that's my understanding of it from the reading I've done in the API documentation.
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That's what I think too. Never seen or read anything else.
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Yes you are probably right. I had read up on it a while back and can't remember which functions required the key, but either way it's not going to let people steal things from your account.
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I found the page which I read before: https://steamcommunity.com/dev
Here it talks about the API key and the Open ID on the same page, but you're right, it doesn't refer to the Open ID needing a key, it just talks about it as being a part of the API they offer to developers.
It also clarifies pretty well what the API key can do. Only stats stuff basically.
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I highly doubt there'd be any risk to sharing this apart from the fact that there's a limit to the number of API calls it can make in an hour
And you'd be painfully wrong on this. Since I'm too lazy to go on this again, I'll just post log from ASF discord server:
API key is needed to send requests from within websites
a guy making e.g. cs:go roulette would want to separate bots dealing with items from API keys being used to run the website
as in, it's cheaper to buy those and hand out responsibility to somebody else rather than create fake accounts STILL under you, and get all of them banned in one go
it's really not much different than telling somebody to rob a bank on your behalf
he has to deal with cops and all the mess he created, you just collect the goal
API key identifies account precisely
it's the same as giving out your account credentials
only because you can do less with it doesn't mean it can't be used for illegal activity
(...)
moreover
because as Steam's ToS says, any action done within your credentials is deemed to be done by you
so in general Valve can't even sue that guy, only you at worst
you'd need to prove that it was not you who did the activity
and I think I don't need to tell how hard it'd be to prove that
it's really just hiring some low-level thug to hand out the dirty work for you
but here it's even better, as that low-level thug can't even confess and betray you
free access to Steam API in whatever way you wish
and no responsibility
any shit goes on the moron that handed out the credentials
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Ok, but how would the access that the API key gives be used in something illegal? And could it be used to, for example, steal items from the account?
I'm still wasn't planning on handing out my key in either case, but I'd say if the key is being abused, Valve will just disable it unless somehow the actions of the actual key were somehow illegal? You would know more about this, so I'm actually curious, but based on my reading up of their API, I don't see how the information you can glean from an API key equates to robbing a bank, especially if the person running an illegal gambling website could just as easily set up their own bot net and get all the keys they need from that. IE: There's no specific reason why your specific API key is special or gives access to your account, other than the scraping action being done 'in your name'. But as I say, you'd know more than me, so I'm open to enlightenment.
Edit: Reading their Wiki, I'm not seeing any calls that could call things specific to the API key that couldn't be seen by another key. https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Steam_Web_API
Maybe a link to the calls you say are dangerous would help us to all be better informed?
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Ok, but how would the access that the API key gives be used in something illegal? And could it be used to, for example, steal items from the account?
you can't assume scope of damage
because API key is login credential
and the scope can change anytime, in any way
right now you can e.g. decline a trade offer with API key alone
from your own account
this is only example, since I didn't even dig deep enough to find out entire functionality
it's not your account that is a target
you're just low-level thug doing dirty work
like operating cs:go roulette under your own account
and valve is openly banning them and all associated accounts, credentials and people
including you
(...)
but like I said, hacking your account is not the goal
you're only a toolStealing your items is not a goal. It never was. You're just a tool in a bigger process, and you risk a ban that is 10k times more likely than ASF ban for using 100+ accounts.
Edit: Reading their Wiki, I'm not seeing any calls that could call things specific to the API key that couldn't be seen by another key.
Then you should check better because getting your own trade offers or declining them are just 2 random functions ASF actually makes use of, so I know what the API is capable of. There is also Steamworks API that you don't have access to, which can use user's API key to some degree.
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Ok but where is that function documented then? That's all I'm asking. Because I agree that if it did allow trade offers it is dangerous and it's not something they are telling people about. Especially if it circumvents things like steam guard. If it's not documented it's probably something Valve should change and make people aware of, instead of distilling information through third party developers with special privileges.
And incidentally, if ASF is using our API key, then at what point did we give it permission to do so? Not everyone even has one if I understand it, as you have to go to the page and ask for one.
Just to be clear we are talking about the key found on this page:
https://steamcommunity.com/dev/apikey
Which is what the OP's 'friend' was requesting.
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https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Steam_Web_API/IEconService
And incidentally, if ASF is using our API key, then at what point did we give it permission to do so? Not everyone even has one if I understand it, as you have to go to the page and ask for one.
The moment you start the program, ASF gets API key automatically after logging in. If you use ASF, you authorize it to use your own account on your behalf. API is just a tool, since ASF has the maximum possible scope, because the moment it logs in into your account through built-in implementation of Steam network protocol, the scope includes everything you can ever do on your Steam account, be it from client, website, or even 2FA. API is just a part of the process, it's not even the most dangerous thing ASF has access to. So answering your question fully - you give it permission to do so the moment you start the program and log it in to your account.
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Ok thanks for that link, it's not exactly front and center is it? But regardless, this doesn't bypass the steam guard protections without being logged into the account as well, as ASF does. Either way if it is such a risk, Valve should put at least a bare minimum of warning around the page where you get the key.
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Like I said, API key is login credential, they can add new API endpoints at any time, with or without extra verification, at their own discretion. Just because right now it's not possible, doesn't mean that it won't be tomorrow.
You are responsible for the confidentiality of your login and password and for the security of your computer system. Valve is not responsible for the use of your password and Account or for all of the communication and activity on Steam that results from use of your login name and password by you, by any person to whom you may have intentionally or by negligence disclosed your login and/or password in violation of this confidentiality provision.
Handing out your account credentials to other users is dangerous regardless of what you can do with it, because the scope can change, and login credential can be used also in another ways, for example in social engineering as a way to hack your account.
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Well thanks for the info, you would think they'd explain the risks when you request the key. I still think it's not going to give someone the power to loot your account, but it does sound risky enough to not hand it out. Of course if they did give out that power to the key suddenly there might be more than a little bit of a problem for a lot of people, so I'm pretty sure they wouldn't ever be stupid enough to do that. But, stranger things have happened.
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Yep, indeed.
As someone above mentioned, it was a SG Darwin Award nominee. ¬_¬
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IDK what that is.....but he hammered his own leg..XD
How stupid can one be
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http://www.darwinawards.com/
I love these awards :)
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These people is the kind of people that have destroyed the steam market... so sad...
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Yeay... one Darwin Award to the winner of the BANHAMMER contest :D
ROFL... in his steam profile is written:
AVAIABLE GAMES TO TRADEBanHammer
(Maybe a look into his future before it happened? :-D -it is sooo evil... i like it :-D- )
Praise Odin, Thor and all other gods and be sure this one don't come to Valhalla :-DDDDD
He fits into my statistic of the bot/autojoiner users... nearly 85% from CIS/RUS, nearly 10% from Brazil, the rest is nearly only from turkey, all other countries so less that it can be overseen.
Maybe the support should check the CIS/RUS region "a bit" closer....
Alone the membercounter (Russia 142k, place 2) should give a big hint and nobody must be a rocket scientist to calculate 1+1...
Source: https://www.steamgifts.com/stats/community/users
Ps.: I have a lot of RUS/CIS Steam Friends, so i know it give a lot of nice ones that don't use bots/autojoiners or other bad things. My words are nothing in general against people from that countries.
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No wonder making low level public giveaways turns into cancer so often.
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One of my last public GA's, lvl 2:
337 entries... and around 180 of them had a place on my BL after the GA ends.
I looked only so close because i was frustrated of all the Autojoiners at the beginning (at least 30 of the first 50 are autojoiners).
With each public DLC GA you can catch autojoiners... i needed 3 rerolls for each DLC...
and only ONE of the entries that are wins or rerolled winners are made a joining by mistake. All others are autojoiners.
But you can't make anything...
warning others forbidden because calling out...
Support investigate them, to reduce there own work because saving a lot of reroll requests, don't happen because they are much too less mods for all the work (they need at least 5 more).
The only way to avoid all the bots and autojoiners are GA's with security measures (i prefer sgtools with a 0.5 real cv ratio... i never had problems with entries or winners with that rules active).
All in all VERY frustrating... because a function (Public GA's) is nearly not useable because of the bot/autojoiner infection
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I'm curious, how do you know when an account is an autojoiner? And you can tell that from someone who entered a DLC by mistake? I'm a little dubious, but if you know something I don't, I'd like to learn.
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I think he checks if the entry person already own the dlc one by one.
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See above.
Nope, not worth the work. I only check the winner :o)
Always, by each GA... you can find with sgtools a lot of "not activated wins" and such stuff and on the steam profiles you find sometimes interesting stuff too ... like bots and from that bots 2nd or 3th sg accounts (happened by the creatorof this thread).
Most of the people that cheat or use exploits are not the Einstein's on earth :o)
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It give easy signs.
Autojoiners jump into fresh created GA's faster then you can say "i am in". But not all that jumps into fresh GA's are Autojoiners.
Create 5 GA's, let them start in the future, all exactly at the same time, and you see always the same ones that jump in AND all 5 GA's with only second(s) between the joins. Make this with 30 GA's and you see the same lightspeed from the same Users.
There is no "maybe" ... this ones are autojoiners.
Second "sign": It give a Autojoiner Group (yes this §$&//(R% act very openly) with around 3k users and a google store page that shows 17k downloads.
It give more signs but too much to write.
Special to the DLC's... joining mistakes can happen from normal users. If it happens the people say sorry really soon (i would say in the first 2 days) and with a "nice" manner/behavior.
The autojoiner users react mostly slower, mostly unfriendly with mostly only "reroll" ... no explanation, no hi, no sorry. Because i am sometimes wicked i question then "why ?" and the answer is mostly "i have it". It's similar to a bad movie script :-D
And a lot of autojoiner people with higher levels are very well known and it is a open secret that they use autojoiner... but at sg you can't say there names and warn others because that will punished as calling out (not from interest that a few say it complete open that they use autojoiners).
I have reported a part but the support are much to less people and cg's "catch the autojoiners" are not implemented.
I hope the words from cg will transform, soon, in actions..... and then i hope all the autojoiners gets the BANHAMMER
(others have given up the hope and say "you are dumb when you not use autojoiners..." -in my thinking a clear sign that cg should hurry up and the support team should stocked up massively-)
And a very interesting fact is that i ever get 1 - 3 BL when i speak over the autojoiners....
maybe one's that don't want jump into my GA's..... :-D
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Thanks for the detailed response. It is helpful and informative.
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But what if they already have the DLC and still mark it as redeemed and then trade the key or whatever? How do you intend to spot that, when Steam API can't tell you much about most DLCs?
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You lie to them you want to send a gift. Winner has to accept your invite (its the only way to deliver gifts nowadays), and when you have them on FL you can easilly check DLC owning ;) you purchase as a gift, check if owns (you cannot send to someone who owns it already), then cancel purchase.
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Yeah but you can't do that with 50 winners without committing ritual suicide in the process.
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I did it with 52 winners ;p
Add the fact that these were all gift copies... ;p
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Well at least you could buy inventory gifts back then? Though you had to buy realtime to check winners' ownership.
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yes, you could ;) wouldn't dare to pull featured GA without keys these days ;)
but I still did check every winner ;p even got 20% of winners suspended xD
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You can check before you send when they are on your steam frienlist. Like zelghadis explained.
But normaly i try to trust the people.
And the Autojoiners don't want mostly risk there acc. for a, cheap, DLC.
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activity time (24h/24h) is the only thing i could think about... but then scripts would be rewritten to act in a 12hrs rythm or something like that...
i check the number of entries people have... 150k+ in 3yrs for example is scripted...
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also multijoin time. with scripts you can see exact timers up to a single second of any timer on SG, including entries. So if you have 20 GAs running it's not humanly possible that someone entered them all in 1 second. Timers are also useful for spotting multiaccounts in private/puzzle GAs, I've had at least one situation when each GA in private SGT protected train was entered by two accounts at the same time intervals (account A enters 1st GA, account B enters 3-4 seconds later, then repeating timer on all other GAs in train, turned out it was multiaccount).
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ESGST has this function implemented among many others, idk thou if its original function or was it introduced by other script in the first place.
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Thanks (i really should use it... a lot say do it it is good... and i always say "soon") :)
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We desperately need a closed forum to archive all the best threads this place has even seen
Instant classic.
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I made a mistake today that made me feeling all embarassed - but it had NOTHING on this. Thanks for making me laugh and feel better about myself, Charlie!
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I have about 150 BOTS that I use to drop cards. It turns out that today, a guy added me asking me if I wanted to sell the API's keys of these BOTS.
I didn't understand why he wanted to buy them. According to him, it would be for "research".
Then it came to my head: What can a person do with the API of an account in his possession?
P.S .: He offered me 25usd for the API's. The guy's account is level 233 and has more than 13k of games in the account. It doesn't look like a fake account.
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