Yeah I agree but it's not stopping people for using it entirely, just certain community features. For example, I made a Steam account in 2009 when I got my physical copy of TF2.
If it was the only thing I ever played I would be screwed right now. And that's a game by Valve no less, you would think they could allow those retail keys at least.
First, in this scenario what features would you be screwed out of? Voting on Greenlight? Why are you voting if you have interest in none of the games. Chatting? You can still chat through the desktop client. Why would you be chatting through mobile? Because you met all your best IRL friends through TF2 and they can't contact you any other way and even though you have a monthly data plan you can't spare five bucks to reach out to these crucial friends and you're not willing to talk to them via the desktop client or ail or Twitter or Facebook? Marketplace features? If you added money to your wallet to buy items at any point, you wouldn't be locked out so how are you using the marketplace to begin with?
Second, this scenario requires you not only to have only bought TF2 and be playing it regularly 6 years later to be affected, you also need to have never tried Mann vs Machine or bought any TF2 items. This is like a vanishing edge case.
But yea, if somehow all of this is true, then you've got a scenario where Valve is asking you--as a ridiculously specific user who has very high needs for their services and no desire to pay a penny--for a $5 one-time fee to use their social services. And if you're saying "but every other social service is free", remember you have already ruled out using them because if you hadn't you wouldn't be inconvenienced by this change.
And if you're STILL upset, then I promise you someone from our Steam thread will give you five dollars if you go in and state your case. So this impacts literally no one on GAF.
But yes, I agree:
- Nongaffers
- who don't play any PC games
- who don't want to play any PC games
- who don't use social networking
- who need to use Steam's social network
- who have to use it from mobile
- who won't use any other mobile social network
- who won't pay a one-time $5 fee (which again they can spend to get content so it's not even a fee, it's just a minimum purchase)
- who can't ask any of the many friends--that they talk to on a daily basis on Steam and need to continue doing so all the time even though they can't use any communication outlet besides Steam and can't use Steam on desktop--to loan them $5
Will be negatively impacted by this. I feel pretty bad for those people, not only because of this change but also because of their crippling neurosis.