Steam account name change

[HoLyCoW]

Originally Posted by Amander

You don't have to give people the full URL, your community name is enough.

But even that is a hassle... they have to open the community page, then copy and paste my community name, then click on add me as a friend.

Why couldn't they just add me as a friend through the "+ Add a Friend..." button? It just doesn't make sense.

If that were the case, why not just get rid of the "+Add a Friend..." button and make everyone swap community names?

[Amander]

The "Add a friend" button should be change to allow searching for community names.

[HoLyCoW]

Originally Posted by Amander

The "Add a friend" button should be change to allow searching for community names.

That would be nice.... yes, I would certainly be happy with that. That being said however, it's still not the current case and until that happens, it would be great to be able to change my account name.

(Actually, I think I really like the idea of Valve selling authenticators.)

[Amander]

An authentificator might actually cause problems by people believing that they're totally safe with them which they're actually not.

[Yob]

I think there are issues with support and security if they would allow for a account name change.

[mrbign]

It would be nice to be able to do it. Maybe Steam isn't built in a way that makes it possible but that's not the point - it'd be nice to be able to do it and it's a bit rigid to not allow it. This is a suggestion forum after all.

To those asking what difference it makes - obviously it makes a difference to these people because they want it changed. I call myself TJ and so do my friends but if my name was Thomas Pussinboots Jefferson then I might want to change that despite it making no functional difference to anyone but me. My apologies in advance for any Thomas Pussinboots Jefferson out there.

[L1ON]

Originally Posted by mrbign

To those asking what difference it makes - obviously it makes a difference to these people because they want it changed.

Aye, it makes a difference to me as well. Early Steam adopters shouldn't be punished in this way.

Originally Posted by Yob

I think there are issues with support and security if they would allow for a account name change.

There's always a solution to such problems. The verification methods could be made as complex as necessary. You can already change your account name for some of Steam's competitors.

[Amander]

Originally Posted by L1ON

punished

Aren't you exaggerating? Just a little bit? Or a much more bigger bit?

[L1ON]

Originally Posted by Amander

Aren't you exaggerating? Just a little bit? Or a much more bigger bit?

Nope!

[Amander]

Originally Posted by L1ON

Nope!

Then explain the harm created by you having an old email address as the Steam account name.

[L1ON]

Originally Posted by Amander

Then explain the harm created by you having an old email address as the Steam account name.

Let's face it, no one truly wants to have to log into their favorite gaming platform, where they might have spent 100s of dollars with, let's say, TeenageNickname@AbandonedEmail.com and see it in the top right of the software at all times. Mine isn't quite that bad, but I know others that have it worse.

Meanwhile, my friends who joined Steam 5 years later than me log in with things like FirstnameLastname or GamerTag. The primary harm is psychological: it's a consistent inconvenience and annoyance to the people that have already spoken out here.

Additionally, some might say it is a security risk being able to change the login name, but it could also be considered a security risk not being able to change it: if someone unscrupulous manages to discover your account name, then they are already halfway into breaking into your account forever after.

I don't think anyone is saying you should be able to change your account name every 5 minutes, but it's almost always better to have options than to lack them. As I already said, they could implement any variety of verification methods to reduce the risks of allowing this. And they could even make it a paid procedure as has been suggested.

[theirman]

EXACTLY the same issue here. Glad I found an active topic on this.
Same thing happened here. Registered in september 2003 with my, now abandoned (gmail ftw), @hotmail.com. It has been sitting on the right upper corner for years and I'm sick of it. I just want to change it to my current steamcommunity profile.

Did any of you already tried steam support? I might give it a try.

[Amander]

Try it and report the results.

[razvan252]

Originally Posted by L1ON

Additionally, some might say it is a security risk being able to change the login name, but it could also be considered a security risk not being able to change it: if someone unscrupulous manages to discover your account name, then they are already halfway into breaking into your account forever after.

The account name itself gives no vital information whatsoever. They cannot break into your account unless you give them the password or keyloggers but that's pretty rare. Think about it, if you give someone your email does that mean they quickly go and try to hijack it? However, if someone by a long shot somehow would manage to hijack my account and paid 5$ or whatever to change the name of my 350+$ account than i would be pretty jarateed at valve. Then i would probably need to recover it by the steam ID but i have no idea what that is. So how would i know which account is mine? It would be more or less forever lost to some dumb kid that thinks cheating on vac servers is l33t.

Once and for all
THE DISADVANTAGES ARE FAR HIGHER THAN THE ADVANTAGES
please stop asking for it.

[L1ON]

Originally Posted by razvan252

However, if someone by a long shot somehow would manage to hijack my account and paid 5$ or whatever to change the name of my 350+$ account than i would be pretty jarateed at valve. Then i would probably need to recover it by the steam ID but i have no idea what that is. So how would i know which account is mine? It would be more or less forever lost to some dumb kid that thinks cheating on vac servers is l33t.

The change would be logged on Valve's servers just like every purchase is logged and every Steam Community comment is logged and every time someone gets decapitated by an Eyelander in Team Fortress 2 is logged. Support would be able to access this information and, therefore, in the event of an account hijack + name change the recovery process would be exactly the same as it is now.