Yeah, no it doesn't render it useless, it makes it a lot more involving to scam people, which is good.

"This allows users who have not secured their accounts to cancel any unauthorized trades and recover their items."

I'm not a fan of Steam, but I'm a little confused about the outrage here. The biggest complaint seems to be that this somehow punishes people for not having a phone connected with Steam, but isn't the point of this to protect those people?

All I know is, recently I started collecting some cards because monopoly money. And then chatting with a friend, we thought of trading some duplicates we had. The verification stuff was so annoying that we just gave up on it. Maybe because none of us wanted to give steam our phone number?

I would actually advice you against that. I will start collecting all the cards from now on. Bots will have a harder time to flip cards over, so the general price of them should go up.

And about the mobile authentication thing, i honestly don't see a problem with it. Blizzard was pushing tokens that were not available in my country for a wile, so i know something about it. With phones i'm more than ok. I always use mobile authentication if i'm able to, just because it does nothing else than to add one more layer of security.

It was more a general remark as another game store ask for an app authentification (thus SMS is not an option) and anothere one (currently in closed beta) asks too for an app authentification (I have to re-check their pdf documentation to see if they allow SMS).

For the methods of recovery in case of lost phone numbers, I would be very glad if you share them because I'm totally oblivious.... ^o^

PS: BTW, I doubt retired people would have any ideas how to run android emulators, have considerations for our elders ;)

Take a look at the troubleshooting section here

It's because people, specially kids with short patiance, want to take the path of least resistance and if something comes in the way of their comfort they throw a tantrum.

TLDR: spoiled kids on the internet.

COPY/PASTE:

"Can I share my phone number between multiple accounts?
No. Steam does not allow more than one account per phone number. You also cannot have multiple accounts with the same phone number."

==>> OK, adios! :o)

Joke aside, this is the kind of thing which rights away puts me off the list (as I have two steam accounts: a private one and a professional one)....

PS: Actually, reading the FAQ is just frightening in some ways as I would imagine those kind of restrictions for every accounts I have on the net (around 40 maybe ^o^). If GOG implemented this, I would only login once a week :o)


Paypal doesn't ask me a mobile authentification when logging in with my business account. Glad to be considered a young spoiled kid :o)

I don't remember how was the validation process for private paypal account as I opened mine many years ago but for the business one, it's really quite strict. In itself, Steam Guard is already enough for an "entertainment" account (using hardware configuration detection and such) and in worst case scenario (getting hacked), you still have your bank/creditcard transactions with steam to prove the account ownership. In that aspect the recent (six months ago) 5$ fee to be able to "level up" can be seen more as a security measure than a way to prevent bot accounts.

Can I trade you some for a Jack Keane 2 Steam key?

Woot? Steam Guard is cookie based, with all that entails. No hardware configuration check or anything like that.

Is there some sort of benefit to having these cards? Seriously, I'm aware you get them like achievements can can trade them, but what's the actual point?

You get steam levels! That's almost as important as an steam achievement! Nay, it's more!!!! Because you get backgrounds for your profile and icons for the chat. How is that not totally awesome!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Seriously, there's no point. But I couldn't use steam credit anywhere else because reasons, and I got annoyed at seeing the 2€ there, so I thought what the hell. What can I say, I was a bit bored.

Indeed. Send me all your cards and keys, and I will send you some torches and pitchforks Don't worry if it takes some time, it is... ummm... just the escrow thingy, you know. So yes, send me all your cards and keys.

There is no point at all. It is a collectible thing, and like most collections of anything there is no other point than in the collection itself. Some of the cards are quite nice, though, and some developers use them to showcase concept art and such. Some I would like to draw attention to is the cards for Tower of Gun, where the developer explains the reason by each, and the art work for Defense Grid - pop art at its best. So apart from this, yes - there is no point.