Ditch Facebook-link exclusivity on 300-friend limit.

[RJackson]

Quoting the Support FAQ:

Only a very small number of our customers are reaching the limit of 250 friends. We felt that they should have the opportunity to utilize the Facebook profile linking feature without having to remove some of their existing friends first.

I'm one of those small number of customers that sometimes reach the 250-friend limit, and I've reached it again. I'm also a customer that isn't a heavy user of Facebook and would rather keep my Facebook profile exclusive to those I know IRL - as such I do not want to link it to my Steam account.

The justification for the increase in limit as stated by the Support FAQ makes sense - those with full friends lists might find some Facebook friends to add when the feature was introduced - but what doesn't make sense is the exclusivity of the increased limit. The extra 50 friends available for those with linked accounts isn't reserved for Facebook friends of users, it's an overall increase for Steam friends in general so a user with a linked Facebook account could end up with 300 non-Facebook friends. Increasing the limit to 300 globally, i.e. for those with non-Facebook friends, achieves the same intent as stated in the support FAQ but it also allows users like myself extra space instead of effectively penalizing those users for having a large e-social presence and opting out of associating my Steam and Facebook accounts.

I therefore suggest that the exclusivity of an increased friends-list limit be removed so that every user of Steam has their limit increased to 300.

Thanks,
RJackson

[TeKraken]

can't you create another facebook account?

[RJackson]

Originally Posted by TeKraken

can't you create another facebook account?

I could but my intent is not to get around the current system, it is to improve it; why should I take extra steps, enabling features I would not use, to increase my friends-list limit when the reason that the increased limit is exclusive is flawed, it is better to try and fix the flaw.

[heffebaycay]

Originally Posted by RJackson

I'm one of those small number of customers that sometimes reach the 250-friend limit, and I've reached it again. I'm also a customer that isn't a heavy user of Facebook and would rather keep my Facebook profile exclusive to those I know IRL - as such I do not want to link it to my Steam account.

Hold it right there! Right when the Facebook integration feature was added to Steam, there were privacy issues: basically anyone could find out the Facebook profile ID of a Steam user who linked his Facebook/Steam account without being friend on Steam with that user.

When notified of the issue, the devs who worked on that feature changed it so the Facebook information of a specific Steam user would only be accessible in Steam if you are Facebook friend with that person. Here's what a dev told me back then:

In Steam, the only way user A will get user B’s Facebook info is if user A and user B are already friends on Facebook. So in that case, Steam is not leaking any private information that both user A and user B don’t know already by using Facebook.

It makes the rule simple, easy to understand, with no leaking privacy or global check box (or worse one per friend as I may not want to share my FB info with all my 250 friends anyway but only some of them).

And if as a user, I hate Facebook and I’m not linked to Facebook, I will never see any FB info associated with my friends.

I think that this covers pretty much your concerns.

[beatme101]

Some of us, like me, will never use Facebook. If I wanted that many people on my 'friends' list, why should I not be able to?

It wouldn't be as effective advertising for Facebook if they changed that.