SteamDRM (133)
Monitoring IPv6 (83) and Captive Portal checks
Steam Datagram Relay (183)
Steam DataSuite ()
Deleted games on Steam (106)
2023 
2012 
2003 Steam is a digital gaming distribution platform operated by Valve Corporation. The platform offers automation of software updates, multiplayer features, cloud storage and a variety of community features for players and developers.
Zu den Kernfunktionen der digitalen Vertriebsplattform gehören
Although Steam is one of the most popular digital distribution platforms for video games, there are also some factually critical aspects to consider
Monopoly position: Steam is the dominant platform in the field of digital game distribution. As a result, the company has enormous power over pricing and conditions for developers and publishers, and makes the power felt by consumers as well.
On the platform there is a moderation team with helpers who contribute significantly in public forum areas to the opinion formation of customers, influence and steer them. In addition to the behavior-based methods, there are technical aids such as Text & Chatfilter that are used.
To control user-generated content, e.g. critical product reviews, various filters are active on the platform that analyze and censor content or do not display it at all. In addition, developers and publishers have the option of defaming content at will.
Another means is the introduction of the so-called Review Bombings in early 2019. Not only are customers insulted in context, they are also prescribed what content they have to write and how.
Anything that does not fit into the scheme is classified as "Review Bombing" and graded. This applies above all to critical scenarios and poor ratings together with the reading displeasure of customers about a product or developer/publisher. Furthermore, it should be noted that positive ratings (however meaningless they are) are not evaluated as review bombing.
This is contrary to customer rights, as they have a right to information. Even if providers or services get away badly.
Valve Corporation uses machine learning to filter and censor user-generated content. Amazon Rekognition, Google Vision, among others, are used for this purpose.
In terms of data protection, this is questionable, as user data is completely screened. You can find out more in the linked blog articles on Steam UGC (User generated content) or in a post in which you will learn how to block Steam-Cloud uploads.
The system was presented as a partial aspect of the "Steamlabs", which in the end are nothing other than a presentation of various experiments carried out by Valve Corporation. Primary focus is on monetization and personalized advertising.
An opt-out does not exist
The company Valve Corporation advertises in a product advertisng with the following text
We've become accustomed to seeing a diverse representation of games and developers on each month's list, so it was no surprise to see that yet again in July, with games coming from nine different countries (check the list below for full country & developer details). No matter where players are plugged in, they are able to choose from games made all over the world.
If the situation were not so sad, one could laugh at this self-congratulation, because this is where the regional restitions and further control of consumer behavior come into play. Further restrictions such as giving away product keys (games) are sometimes made impossible by geo-blockades. Because users are here from a friendly
Due to regional price differences, the gift you are trying to ship cannot be sent to the recipient's region.
welcomed. The world is quite small.
In July 2021, Steam-Wallet codes were banned for international use altogether (Source: Steam Support )
To avoid fraud as described HERE , we have made some changes to how Steam credit codes can be redeemed on Steam. Users using retail Steam credit codes purchased in the local currency will not be affected by these changes.
Each Steam account is linked to a specific currency. This is displayed in the upper right corner of the Steam client. Users who try to redeem a credit code issued in another currency will now receive an error message.
This restriction was implemented exactly as the following topic in terms of VPN use and global purchases became more and more of a conversation and numerous publishers (mainly Asian companies)... Price agreement?) have increased their prices by 300-500%, especially in affected countries such as Argentina or Russia.
At the beginning of 2019, various VPN providers withdrew from Russia to maintain their sovereignty. The background was a decree of the Russian government and the Roskomnadzor . VPN providers included NordVPN, Hide My Ass (belong to Avast), Hola VPN, OpenVPN, ExpressVPN, TorGuard, IPVanish, Kaspersky Secure Connection and VPN Unlimited. VyprVPN and Opera VPN have also been affected since June 2021. VPNs have also been classified as a national threat.
A lot, because in addition to the Valve Corporation, the entire industry has benefited from this, for which a trade in cheap product keys is a thorn in the side. Until that date, it was possible to get Russian (RU/CIS) game keys cheaply from third-party providers or even to change your own shop region in Steam on Russia. That was more or less done in one fell swoop.
Alternative was now Argentina, as they still had to offer favorable prices for games in a regional comparison and people of course wonder why they should pay 5x so much for one and the same product.
Of course, the screw was also turned further. In addition to price agreements and recommendations from Valve to developers, the prices for games in this area also gradually increased. End of the song? Absurd price increases of partly 300-500% and the sediment in Steam of cheap trash titles has economic activity, since overpriced products in certain areas nobody can afford... or will.
Bildgröße: 0.00 | xpx | Format: webpIn mid-2020, the first addresses of VPN providers were blocked by Valve. Example NordVPN and the provider PureVPN were affected in the test. With the two services, no changes or even a new registration were possible. Furthermore, shop regions were reset to accounts by employees and payment terms and collection of address data were expanded.
Valve Corporation and leading publishers such as Bandai NAMCO Entertainment, Plaion, CAPCOM Co., Ltd., Focus Home Interactive and ZeniMax Media, Inc. have frequently faced criticism in terms of market abuse, antitrust violations, violations of competition law and illegal price fixing. This has not changed to this day.
On the contrary. Price increases and geo-blockades have shot through the ceiling since then.
Working links and sources related to the EU press releases from 2017 strangely disappeared very quickly from various search engines and individual pages. Can, however, as here in the archived article on antitrust law: Commission opens three investigations into alleged anti-competitive conduct in electronic commerce can be viewed in the Internet Archive or in the original press release from 2017 under antitrust law: Commission opens three investigations into online commerce
Optionally as archived PDF download
IP-17-201_DE.pdf (63.13 KB)The ruling was made in January 2021
In January 2021, firms involved were fined €7.8 million. Valve Corporation denies allegations.
Interested parties can read the press release of the European Commission under the following link
Antitrust: Commission fines Valve and five PC video game publishersVersion numbers are adapted according to the Steam package version (e.g. 1634158817), which can be viewed in the Steam client under "Help, About Steam" and at the same time serve as a feature in the passed User-Agent when page views.
In spelling that is understandable to us, the following data
Timestamp 1565473496: Sat Aug 10 2019 21:44:56
Timestamp 1634158817: Wed Oct 13 2021 21:00:17
panorama Aug 9 2019 18:45:10
Valve/Steam HTTP Client 1.0 (0;Windows;tenfoot)
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 10.0; en-US; Valve Steam Tenfoot/1599174997; ) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/79.0.3945.117 Safari/537.36
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; Valve Steam Gamepad/default/1679680416) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/85.0.4183.121 Safari/537.36
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 10.0; en-US; Valve Steam Client/default/1565407153; ) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/72.0.3626.121 Safari/537.36
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 10.0; en-US; Valve Steam Client/default/1599174997; ) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/79.0.3945.117 Safari/537.36
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 10.0; en-US; Valve Steam Client/default/1634158817; ) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/79.0.3945.117 Safari/537.36
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0Valve/Steam HTTP Client 1.0 (client;windows;16;1565473496)Valve/Steam HTTP Client 1.0 (0)
Valve/Steam HTTP Client 1.0
In the case of "errors" or other partly incomprehensible actions, the crash.steampowered.com is sometimes activated automatically in the background and sends various data and files of the user to Steam without further confirmations. The files themselves can estimate several MB of scope.
The crash log uploader is also often misused for analytics by some companies. Either additionally as Crashlytics or single. The upload is activated by the two filesC:\Users\****\AppData\Local\CEF\User Data\CrashpadMetrics-active.pmaD:\Steam\bin\cef\cef.win7x64\steamwebhelper.exe --type=crashpad-handler /prefetch:7 --max-uploads=5 --max-db-size=20 --max-db-age=5 --monitor-self-annotation=ptype=crashpad-handler --database=D:\Steam\dumps "--metrics-dir=C:\Users\******\AppData\Local\CEF\User Data" --url=http://crash.steampowered.com/submit --annotation=platform=win64 --annotation=product=cefwebhelper --annotation=version=1543346820 --initial-client-data=0x324,0x328,0x32c,0x31c,0x330,0x7ffc831f1f78,0x7ffc831f1f88,0x7ffc831f1f98The log files to be sent can be found under "*.*\steam\dumps" zu finden.
An example is the "20181026030305_1.dmp" with a size of 861kb, which was uploaded unnoticed in the background with all system information and other things of the user.
The file name uses the date and time.
Among other things, Valve/Steam receives continuous user data and makes the visible request for the "hardware survey" seem more like a bad joke. Blocking at all levels recommended.
Contents of the crash logs can vary according to title and function and can also be traced even with freely available crash dump analyzers.
Both files are also part of the Spyware Cleaners, which removes these curious program components together with other telemetry and spyware data from the Steam directory.
Without using Paypal itself, or let alone selecting, cookies are nevertheless set and joyfully contacted the Paypalserver.
Bildgröße: 0.00 | xpx | Format: jpgSteam's use of PayPal is standard usage for the completion of purchases and fraud prevention only. If you do not wish to participate in PayPal purchases, you can do so by avoiding the PayPal payment option.
More pictures in the Gallerie.
In short: GDS - It was active for a long time for various products on the Steam platform and was initialized during the respective startup process.
Function:The request scheme always remained the same. So all servers are contacted via the ipv4 address 208.64.200.105 and one lets through all traffic. Often these are the GDS2 and GDS 4 addresses. The following example was taken from the game DARQ.exe.
[03.12 07:55:22] DARQ.exe (3304) - resolve gds1.steampowered.com : DNS
[03.12 07:55:26] DARQ.exe (3304) - resolve gds2.steampowered.com : DNS
[03.12 07:55:26] DARQ.exe (3304) - resolve gds3.steampowered.com : DNS
[03.12 07:55:27] DARQ.exe (3304) - resolve gds4.steampowered.com : DNS
[03.12 07:55:27] DARQ.exe (3304) - gds4.steampowered.com:27030 matching Default rule
[03.12 07:55:29] DARQ.exe (3304) - gds4.steampowered.com:27030 open
[03.12 07:55:29] DARQ.exe (3304) - gds4.steampowered.com:27030 close, 9 bytes sent, 13 bytes received, lifetime <1 sec
