Valve Corp’s Steam Client is one of the most popular digital distribution platforms in gaming, reaching several million concurrent users each day. As with any popular online service, Steam frequently has to contend with malicious accounts attempting to spam or phish other users, and to fight this, Valve has announced that it will be limiting features for all users who have not spent at least $5 on Steam.

“Malicious users often operate in the community on accounts which have not spent any money, reducing the individual risk of performing the actions they do,” Valve wrote on the Steam support site. “One of the best pieces of information we can compare between regular users and malicious users are their spending habits as typically the accounts being used have no investment in their longevity. Due to this being a common scenario we have decided to restrict certain community features until an account has met or exceeded $5.00 USD in Steam.”

According to Valve, limited user accounts will be unable to access the following features (via Steam support):

• Sending friend invites
• Opening group chat
• Voting on Greenlight, Steam Reviews and Workshop items
• Participating in the Steam Market
• Posting frequently in the Steam Discussions
• Gaining Steam Profile Levels (Locked to level 0) and Trading Cards
• Submitting content on the Steam Workshop
• Posting in an item’s Steam Workshop Discussions
• Accessing the Steam Web API
• Using browser and mobile chat

In order to remove the limitations, users are required to spend the equivalent of $5 either by adding funds to their Steam Wallet, registering a Steam Wallet gift card, making a purchase on the Steam store, or buying a Steam gift. The gateway value is based on USD regardless of the user’s local currency, so the amount required may be higher or lower depending on conversion rates.

Activating retail copies of games or playing titles during a Free Weekend do not count as a purchase on the Steam store and will not remove the limitations.

Limited user accounts are the latest security feature added to Steam, but Valve is also testing out a two-step authentication app that is similar Blizzard Entertainment’s Battle.net Mobile Authenticator.

Image credit: Valve Corporation / Steam