You Now Need to Give Valve Your Telphone Number to Play DoTA 2

[J.McMillen]

That's a highly unrealistic scenario and we both know it. Anyone that would go that far out of the way to do that wouldn't bother just taking a few peoples random steam inventory items...

True, but it's vastly more believable than the scenario you'll find people spouting off in the Steam forums about people hacking your Steam client to display hacked trade windows with false information about what items are being traded by both sides. That is the "reasoning" why we can't a a simple code fob like Blizzard uses, where we could just enter the code in the trade window to confirm our identity when making a trade or posting something on the market.

 

[Leg End]

Except, spending a few seconds to input a 10 digit number ONCE when one finally decides to play Ranked isn't a hurdle.

If it was just a random ten digit number, sure. But this number is a personal phone number. Sometimes I begin to wonder how many people would put in a certain nine digit number to be able to do things. People actually wonder why burner phones and dual-sims are a thing.

So longer queue times, the inability to play with friends in other regions. And an astronomical blow to the professional scene, which relies on the international nature of Dota's servers. Great solution.. /s.

But it saves us from the Cyka!

Don't cry outrage over a good solution to an existing problem, while suggesting a bullshit one that would create more problems than it'd solve, while also causing even more of an uproar than this.

Then... make it a choice to play ranked internationally or not? Problem solved period for all games ever, send me my check in the mail.

 

[babinro]

Not sure how I feel about this one.

On the surface I don't actually care. Dozens upon dozens of companies already have my phone number for one reason or another so its not like this is meaningful breach of personal information or space.

Is there a meaningful amount of people who play competitive online games and yet don't have a phone number of any kind? As far as barriers to entry are concerned I'm not sure this would negatively impact many players. Those that it does SHOULD have another process in place to bypass this through customer service though.

I guess I'm fine with it. I don't have the energy or passion to be upset and entering your phone number takes seconds...its no more inconvenient than naming your profile when you start a game. All I can say is that this better be accomplishing its intended goal because if not its a needless bit of player inconveniencing.

 

[Infernal Lawyer]

They could have just made the game not free to play anymore. There's plenty of players already, in fact it's got one of the largest player bases on Steam currently. So just put a price tag on it.

There IS a non-ranked mode, you know. If you want to keep playing casual or even custom modes, you don't need to give them your phone number.

So, I don't know, maybe an upfront fee for playing ranked? Of course then you'll get people just accusing them of being greedy. People are throwing a hissy fit over phone numbers, there's no way they'll be happier about an actual fee.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I didn't realize we had so many ron swansons on here....

if it solves the hacking problem, doesn't cost you any money, is an extremely small one time inconvenience, it's tough for me to be pissed about it.

 

[Fulbert]

Since Russians are required to provide their ID and place of residence when buying a SIM card and seeing how the ISPs are now free to trade personal data without the users' consent, I'd say that does effectively discourage a large portion of the Russian player base from participating in ranked matches. I mean, you could still purchase stolen burner SIM cards and use them to get into the game but who would do that? Some kind of a seedy teenager eager to cheat their way into the game and ruin the experience for others for teh lulz?
I'd love to see how the cheaters-to-players ratio changes after these new rules go into effect.

 

[Johnny Novgorod]

Cheater's justice is a priority with me but that sounds like a hassle for much ado about nothing.