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New Security Updates Affecting Trading Heading To Steam Next Week
Steam has plans to implement a number of new security measures affecting item trading on March 9.
The new updates are a product of research conducted and data collected in the months following the introduction of some new tools back in December. You can read about those here.
Here are the big, forward-facing changes that will affect players:
- Trade hold duration will be increased to 15 days (for long-time Steam friends the duration will remain 1 day)
- Listing on the Steam Community Market will have a hold of 15 days before an item can be sold
- Steam Support will no longer restore items that have left accounts following a successful trade or market transaction (a process that previously created duplicates of original items)
Ideally, these new changes, plus the addition of the recently introduced authenticator app will help facilitate Steam's item trading economy and hinder those seeking to manipulate it for personal gain.
[Source: Steam]
Our Take
The act of trading items on Steam is a surprisingly complicated and economics-driven one. Many issues were born of the need to duplicate items for those who fell victim to fraudulent trades or purchases. Hopefully these changes, though small overall, will be worth the inconvenience of having to wait on certain trades.
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