These features will also be available to third party developers to incorporate into their own applications via Valve’s free development and publishing suite, Steamworks.
Not entirely sure how to take this bit... Hopefully developers won't turn it into some new DRM. "Sorry, you can only install this Steam game on one PC. Please buy your $60 game again." I'm looking at you, EA.
“Account phishing and hijacking are our #1 support issues,â€
Translation....
Because the idiots that use our service keep calling us every time someone figures out that a birthday is not a strong password, I guess we may as well do something about it....
It all comes down to money, support costs, its expensive, in fact, I bet its as big of an operational expense for them as the infrastructure itself.
Though, I will say, that is my one gripe with Steam as a platform, love it overall, but if you have a problem, get in line, its going to be a while. I'm sure they recognize this and they have to do something pro active. A service about getting things in an instant needs to have that level of service too, and Steam just does not offer that today. I'm afraid this is a necessary evil.
I'm hoping that this is just a case of Valve trying to make their Steam platform as idiot-proof for naive users as possible. But even so, since I'm assuming the lock-to-authorized-PCs feature of Steam Guard is completely optional (as it should be), those that use bad passwords probably won't bother with Steam Guard either. Can't teach those who are unwilling to learn.
Comments
Translation....
Because the idiots that use our service keep calling us every time someone figures out that a birthday is not a strong password, I guess we may as well do something about it....
It all comes down to money, support costs, its expensive, in fact, I bet its as big of an operational expense for them as the infrastructure itself.
Though, I will say, that is my one gripe with Steam as a platform, love it overall, but if you have a problem, get in line, its going to be a while. I'm sure they recognize this and they have to do something pro active. A service about getting things in an instant needs to have that level of service too, and Steam just does not offer that today. I'm afraid this is a necessary evil.
I'm afraid it may be partly because of Nick's observation. I'm a little concerned about where this might be headed.