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

[OldNewNewOld]

I stopped playing Dota years ago, but if I didn't I certainly would have dropped the game now. I don't like giving my info everywhere. There is absolutely no need for a video game developer to know my private phone number and them knowing it doesn't come at any really benefit for me. Just more information for them to sell and abuse.

 

[Bindal]

As I know from experience how smurfs can completely screw over the competetive games such as this, I'd say this is fairly reasonable. And considering that you already give Valve your phone number whenever making a purchase on Steam, people are without a doubt overreacting.

I never had to enter any phone number anywhere when buying games on Steam.

You have to enter it along with the other credentials and personal info.

No, I don't. Never had.
I charge my Steam Wallet via Steam Cards I buy in a store.
And when I buy games on Steam, I just select "use funds from my Steam Wallet".
That's literally all I have to do to pay.
I would need to enter all that stuff you are talking about if I would pay via credit card. Which I don't. And never will.

 

[Poetic Nova]

inb4 you can't purchase games on Steam without giving them your phone number (and I refuse to give it to them).

 

[Owlslayer]

This should help with the smurfing problem people are having recently. Lots of people have been making a lot of noise regarding that recently. Or perhaps that's just a few really loud people, I'm not sure, hah! Perhaps it'll help reducing the toxicity as well. And the same patch is supposed to do something against the bots as well (tho i've never run into any bots, or at least didn't notice them, haha!). So i guess we'll see how this goes. I'll be hoping for the best.

 

[Petter Jonsson]

As I know from experience how smurfs can completely screw over the competetive games such as this, I'd say this is fairly reasonable. And considering that you already give Valve your phone number whenever making a purchase on Steam, people are without a doubt overreacting.

I never had to enter any phone number anywhere when buying games on Steam.

You have to enter it along with the other credentials and personal info.

No, I don't. Never had.
I charge my Steam Wallet via Steam Cards I buy in a store.
And when I buy games on Steam, I just select "use funds from my Steam Wallet".
That's literally all I have to do to pay.
I would need to enter all that stuff you are talking about if I would pay via credit card. Which I don't. And never will.

If you'd written it in your first comment it would've been more clear as to why you don't have to, now I know.
A lot of people do, however, pay directly with their credit cards, and the fact remains; Valve already has a boatload of phone numbers belonging to Steam users for verification purposes, this is not a new thing.

 

[Bindal]

As I know from experience how smurfs can completely screw over the competetive games such as this, I'd say this is fairly reasonable. And considering that you already give Valve your phone number whenever making a purchase on Steam, people are without a doubt overreacting.

I never had to enter any phone number anywhere when buying games on Steam.

You have to enter it along with the other credentials and personal info.

No, I don't. Never had.
I charge my Steam Wallet via Steam Cards I buy in a store.
And when I buy games on Steam, I just select "use funds from my Steam Wallet".
That's literally all I have to do to pay.
I would need to enter all that stuff you are talking about if I would pay via credit card. Which I don't. And never will.

If you'd written it in your first comment it would've been more clear as to why you don't have to, now I know.
A lot of people do, however, pay directly with their credit cards, and the fact remains; Valve already has a boatload of phone numbers belonging to Steam users for verification purposes, this is not a new thing.

Must be a US-only-thing then because most people I know live in Europe and pay via PayPal, Steamcards or PaySafeCards (last ones are functionally the same as Steamcards).

Also, why should I have written that I don't use credit cards? You should just not have presumed that everyone uses them, instead, when there are other methods available. And all non-credit-card-payments don't require anything else.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Fuck off with the "security" BS. Bad enough the market is locked out for people who dont two-step verify. I just want to trade my cards in peace dammit.

As for this...good thing I dont play Dota 2...or MOBAs in general.

Oh thius isn't about security. It's about keeping smurfers outta ranked.

 

[J.McMillen]

And I still can't trade with anyone reasonably because I don't have a smartphone.

To add insult to injury: Valve claimed they would work on a way for people without smartphone to trade properly.
About three to four years ago by now.

Guess they don't care about people without smartphones.

Then explain how I am able to use the Authenticator WITHOUT a smartphone. Simple, it will run on any iOS or Android device whether it's a phone or not. The only thing you need a phone for is the one-time text message with the code to activate the Steam app on the device of your choice. Even an old, dumb, flip phone can do that.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

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.

 

[mad825]

And I still can't trade with anyone reasonably because I don't have a smartphone.

Yeah, this sort of thing is getting absurd. For me it had gotten to the point where I had to buy a cheap second, second hand smart phone just to deal with all this bullshit so it doesn't get lost and some random stranger has access to my life on the internet.

 

[Bindal]

And I still can't trade with anyone reasonably because I don't have a smartphone.

To add insult to injury: Valve claimed they would work on a way for people without smartphone to trade properly.
About three to four years ago by now.

Guess they don't care about people without smartphones.

Then explain how I am able to use the Authenticator WITHOUT a smartphone. Simple, it will run on any iOS or Android device whether it's a phone or not. The only thing you need a phone for is the one-time text message with the code to activate the Steam app on the device of your choice. Even an old, dumb, flip phone can do that.

Valve mentioned a complete non iOS/Android approach - which still needs to accept that they are a phone to some degree.
While your solution is nothing Valve came up with to begin with, it's just a side effect how things work with the default.

In other words: Valve fixed fuck all in three years despite claiming that they would try to do so (which is no surprise, actually)

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.

The reason it has that large playerbase is the fact it's F2P. Making it paid would cause the playercount to drop immensely because quite a lot people would just not want to pay for it, period.

 

[EquestrianGeneral]

The article title is very misleading; you do not need a phone number to play the game at all, you need a phone number to play the Ranked Matchmaking, which is a small subset of the available options. This kind of misleading title is really quite unprofessional and strikes me as either clickbait or not fully understanding what the update did. Either way, I kinda expect better.

The update is fine. People need to stop overreacting. There are more people in the world with phones than people seem to think. Anyone saying that this is "going too far" or that they refuse to give their "information" to Valve need to chill; it's just a phone number, they're not asking for your social security or whatever. You give them your fucking credit card info when you purchase games.

 

[J.McMillen]

Valve mentioned a complete non iOS/Android approach - which still needs to accept that they are a phone to some degree.
While your solution is nothing Valve came up with to begin with, it's just a side effect how things work with the default.

In other words: Valve fixed fuck all in three years despite claiming that they would try to do so (which is no surprise, actually)

Mentioned, not promised. Also, maybe they decided that putting both pieces of software on the same machine (Steam & Authenticator) would still make someone vulnerable to a hack that allows remote access to the PC. If someone remotely gained control of your desktop they would have access to both programs and could easily gift and authenticate your inventory to a shell account then quickly traded off or sold on the market to unsuspecting buyers.

Two factor security only truly works when two separate devices are used.

 

[Bindal]

Valve mentioned a complete non iOS/Android approach - which still needs to accept that they are a phone to some degree.
While your solution is nothing Valve came up with to begin with, it's just a side effect how things work with the default.

In other words: Valve fixed fuck all in three years despite claiming that they would try to do so (which is no surprise, actually)

Mentioned, not promised. Also, maybe they decided that putting both pieces of software on the same machine (Steam & Authenticator) would still make someone vulnerable to a hack that allows remote access to the PC. If someone remotely gained control of your desktop they would have access to both programs and could easily gift and authenticate your inventory to a shell account then quickly traded off or sold on the market to unsuspecting buyers.

Two factor security only truly works when two separate devices are used.

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...

The article title is very misleading; you do not need a phone number to play the game at all, you need a phone number to play the Ranked Matchmaking, which is a small subset of the available options.

That is mentioned in the article and it's probably presumed that most people play ranked matchmaking to begin with.

 

[Vigormortis]

None of you really give a shit. You're just crying outrage because it's some kind of hobby for you people. You'll all forget about it pretty quickly..

Hi. I'd like to welcome you to The Escapist.

The article title is very misleading; you do not need a phone number to play the game at all, you need a phone number to play the Ranked Matchmaking, which is a small subset of the available options. This kind of misleading title is really quite unprofessional and strikes me as either clickbait or not fully understanding what the update did. Either way, I kinda expect better.

I take it you're not familiar with Steven Bogus Bogos?

Yeah, this sort of thing is par for the fucking course with him. Anything to stir up a shitstorm of a 'nontroversy'.

Seriously, Steven, is it worth it? I assume you're paid by views but is the money good enough to counterbalance the damage you're doing to what remains of your reputation? Come on, brother. You can be better than that.

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.

Holy christ, do you have any idea of the hissy fit the internet would throw if they did that? Especially with the item market present in the game?

Look at how up in arms people are in this thread over the simple act of requiring a phone number for ranked play[footnote]Not play in general, RANKED. That means only a small subset of Dota 2's player base is required to give a phone number to play a small subset of Dota 2's vast array of play options. And even then, it's a subset in desperate need of a system to cut down on smurf accounts. Something that requiring a phone number immediately remedies.[/footnote]. Hell, remember the tantrum people threw when TF2 went free to play? Imagine the tantrum people would throw over Dota 2 suddenly going premium...

 

[EquestrianGeneral]

That is mentioned in the article and it's probably presumed that most people play ranked matchmaking to begin with.

Mentioning it in the article doesn't change the fact that the title is inaccurate and clickbait. I appreciate that they made the distinction in the article itself, but the title is still not representative of either the article or the truth.

Your assumption is both likely incorrect and meaningless. Regardless of the what the majority do, the reporting of the situation should be as accurate as possible. Failing to properly convey a key detail in the title of an article such as this is frankly poor "journalism."

 

[Leg End]

That's the fucking point? Those who are bothered are likely the culprits this change is trying to push away.

Or people tired of bullshit. I dunno, somehow I get the feeling that more people are just tired of pointless hurdles.

Reread my comment. It wasn't something that was denied.

Then let's just keep each playerbase to their own regions. A far better solution. "Toxicity" values shoot down over night and we don't have to see Cyka Blyat anymore, only standard cursing in English and probably a bit of Spanish that is fun for the whole family.

Common logic isn't your strongest area, is it?

Mreh.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

The reason it has that large playerbase is the fact it's F2P. Making it paid would cause the playercount to drop immensely because quite a lot people would just not want to pay for it, period.

It wouldn't affect the existing players or anyone who's got DOTA 2 in their library. It would only affect newcomers and by extension smurf accounts. It's a better solution than to make it more difficult for people to play the game.