Jake

Idle Thumbs 270: BIG GAME HUCKSTER$$$$

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"In 2011, we added a feature to Steam that enabled users to trade in-game items as a way to make it easier for people to get the items they wanted in games featuring in-game economies.

 

Since then a number of gambling sites started leveraging the Steam trading system, and there’s been some false assumptions about our involvement with these sites. We’d like to clarify that we have no business relationships with any of these sites. We have never received any revenue from them. And Steam does not have a system for turning in-game items into real world currency.

 

These sites have basically pieced together their operations in two-part fashion. First, they are using the OpenID API as a way for users to prove ownership of their Steam accounts and items. Any other information they obtain about a user's Steam account is either manually disclosed by the user or obtained from the user’s Steam Community profile (when the user has chosen to make their profile public). Second, they create automated Steam accounts that make the same web calls as individual Steam users. 

 

Using the OpenID API and making the same web calls as Steam users to run a gambling business is not allowed by our API nor our user agreements. We are going to start sending notices to these sites requesting they cease operations through Steam, and further pursue the matter as necessary. Users should probably consider this information as they manage their in-game item inventory and trade activity.

 

-Erik Johnson"

 

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That's interesting, that's pretty much admitting that they can tell the difference between bots being used by these gambling sites and other users, and have done nothing about it until their face was rubbed in it. I still held on to a shred of hope that maybe they just didn't know or couldn't tell.

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Now who's got scrambled eggs all over his face.

whose*

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There's actually a free game on Steam called Endless Sky that is more or less a copy of Escape Velocity

 

i've managed to play 11 hours of this already. it's really fun!

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