Users Need an Alternative to Steam Workshop to Share Wallpapers

[FrostyJawa]

As most of you probably know already, in order to use Steam Workshop, you must now connect a valid bank account to Steam. Wallpaper Engine users cannot opt out of this.

If an individual Wallpaper Engine creator wants to monetise their submissions for commercial use, I'm okay with that. But I don't... and I'm not about to link my personal bank account to Steam for any reason! That is far too much personal information to be giving out just to use a Steam feature that started off as being free!

I genuinely love Wallpaper Engine and I respectfully ask the developers of Wallpaper Engine seriously consider establishing a Non-Commercial alternative to Steam Workshop, otherwise I will have to stop using Wallpaper Engine altogether.

[Biohazard]

Originally posted by FrostyJawa:

As most of you probably know already, in order to use Steam Workshop, you must now connect a valid bank account to Steam. Wallpaper Engine users cannot opt out of this.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, to my knowledge you can "upload" publicly to the Steam Workshop as soon as your account is not limited anymore, which does not require linking a bank account: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/71D3-35C2-AD96-AA3A

Downloading or uploading friends-only submissions is also possible with a limited account.

A single time $4 purchase does not allow us to provide a global, redundant content network with no upload restrictions. If we were to provide our own network infrastructure then access to Wallpaper Engine would have to become a monthly subscription higher than the current single time purchase. I'm sure you can see that this just doesn't make much sense. If you don't want to use Steam at all now, then this is also fine, once installed you can absolutely use Wallpaper Engine without having to run Steam, there are no artificial restrictions in place anywhere in the program and you can freely import or create wallpapers without running Steam for that.

[Capt.Luke]

Originally posted by FrostyJawa:

As most of you probably know already, in order to use Steam Workshop, you must now connect a valid bank account to Steam. Wallpaper Engine users cannot opt out of this.

its totally optional and by no mean an obligation.
I am a living proof, every wallpaer is free here
find me 1 that you have to pay for
I uploaded 100s , never had to enter any bank info.
it is only if you want to, it like this for years
nothing has changed

[rina]

i’m confused? you absolutely do not need to connect a bank account to stream.

also there is no alternative to steam for apps like these. small teams cant afford expensive dedicated servers, so stream workshop works perfectly fine

[FrostyJawa]

Originally posted by Biohazard:

Originally posted by FrostyJawa:

As most of you probably know already, in order to use Steam Workshop, you must now connect a valid bank account to Steam. Wallpaper Engine users cannot opt out of this.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, to my knowledge you can "upload" publicly to the Steam Workshop as soon as your account is not limited anymore, which does not require linking a bank account: https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/71D3-35C2-AD96-AA3A

Downloading or uploading friends-only submissions is also possible with a limited account.

A single time $4 purchase does not allow us to provide a global, redundant content network with no upload restrictions. If we were to provide our own network infrastructure then access to Wallpaper Engine would have to become a monthly subscription higher than the current single time purchase. I'm sure you can see that this just doesn't make much sense. If you don't want to use Steam at all now, then this is also fine, once installed you can absolutely use Wallpaper Engine without having to run Steam, there are no artificial restrictions in place anywhere in the program and you can freely import or create wallpapers without running Steam for that.

Thank you for responding so quickly. I appreciate it!

Apparently, for my Steam account this bank-account-linking is not optional.

I was informed with my last wallpaper upload to the Workshop (last night) that I had to link my bank account to Steam in order to proceed with the upload in accordance with their new terms of service involving "Getting Paid on Steam."

I found this odd and I contacted Steam's Support to question this bank-account-linking and requested a possible opt-out. Support replied to my support ticket stating that I would have to supply a bank account in order to continue using the Workshop.

Here is the response from Support:

Message from Steam Support on Mar 13 @ 12:49pm | 12 hours ago
Hello,

To submit your items in Steam Workshop, you will need to provide valid bank information even though you don't want to receive revenue share on your items.

To find out more about what is required, as well as answers to other frequently asked questions about being paid for contributions, please see the following link:

http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/workshoppaymentinfofaq

If you are running into issues with this process or have tax related questions, please email our finance department at: [e-mail]

Thanks for using Steam,
Chun-Lin

And so, I deleted all of my previously uploaded wallpapers from my Workshop collection (38 wallpapers in total), unsubscribed from the uploaded wallpapers made by other users, and promptly uninstalled Wallpaper Engine. I regret having to do this because I genuinely enjoy Wallpaper Engine! It is a wonderful program!

I may have to delete my Steam account next if I am pestered any further with supplying Steam with a bank account.

Once again, thank you for responding.

[Capt.Luke]

maybe you should have ask them WHY you need to and not everyone else
am afraid you asked them the wrong question.
you did not had to delete anything.
there most be a reason why they did this to your account (if true)

did you agree to this ?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/workshoplegalagreement

[Biohazard]

I think that Steam support is just confused about your question. This Workshop does not support "paid" items, therefore this section of the Steam agreement is not relevant and no bank account needs to be provided. They must have assumed you are uploading to a Workshop for paid items - or they didn't confirm the configuration of this Workshop.

Workshops like CS:GO/Dota2 support paid items and in order to receive money, you have to give Valve your bank account details and since Valve doesn't want to write two legal agreements, both Workshop configurations are included in the same text. But as I explained, this is irrelevant here, this Workshop only supports free items.

I hope this makes sense, I think the issue is just that Valve has combined free and paid Workshops into a single legal text for their convenience and the section that concerns you about the bank account details does not apply to the Workshop integrated in Wallpaper Engine. At no place should you have seen a form or a prompt to enter your bank account, if this is what happened then something must be going wrong with Steam and it sounds like a bug Valve should look into.

[FrostyJawa]

I thank all of you for your responses. I appreciate it.

At this point and time, I really don't know what to think.

The thing is, I had uploaded 38 wallpapers prior to this incident and never once was asked to link my bank account to Steam.

After the most recent Steam update which I did accept before opening the Steam Client (and did not see any mention of "Getting Paid on Steam"), when I attempted to upload my last wallpaper, I was confronted with activating "Getting Paid on Steam" and was told that I cannot submit my items to the Workshop until I provide valid bank information.

I've never seen that dialog before which made me think that was either a new requirement for Steam Workshop for everybody, a mistake on Steam's part, or possibly a phishing attempt to obtain Steam users' banking information... Considering how 77 million Sony PSN users' accounts got hacked back in 2011, I took this last possibility very seriously which is why I questioned Support over this in the first place... and Support simply repeated what the dialog had said.

I have never uploaded anything to the Workshop asking for money, but just like many others in the community I shared stuff for free. If Steam has decided to lock down the Workshop as another source of monetisation, that is Steam's choice. However, that is certainly not my intent and I am not about to give my personal banking information out to Steam.

As for my previous wallpapers (which I thankfully backed up), I may post them and future wallpapers on The Internet Archive.

In any case, I would suggest that everybody be on guard.

[butcho]

And the reason you deleted all your wallpapers and unsubed from other peoples workshop items is how exactly related to the banking request?

Maybe people liked your work and maybe you've enjoyed the work of others. I'll never understand this "I rage-quit and take you all with me"-mentality.

[FrostyJawa]

I deleted my wallpapers specifically because if Steam is now monetising the Steam Workshop, I do not want to be placed under the obligation of having to supply my personal bank information to Steam. I am actively withdrawing myself from any and all participation in the Steam Workshop to protect myself from this intrusion. I will not give my personal bank information to Steam.

As for my wallpapers, if I can re-upload them to the Internet Archive, I will do so.

[Capt.Luke]

Originally posted by FrostyJawa:

I deleted my wallpapers specifically because if Steam is now monetising the Steam Workshop, I do not want to be placed under the obligation of having to supply my personal bank information to Steam. I am actively withdrawing myself from any and all participation in the Steam Workshop to protect myself from this intrusion. I will not give my personal bank information to Steam.

As for my wallpapers, if I can re-upload them to the Internet Archive, I will do so.

that fact still remain, WPE does NOT allow to getting paid on steam workshop
this getting paid on steam is not new. it was here for many many years
I would like to see a screen shoot of when it ask you to fill the "getting pay on steam form"
because this feature is not a wallpaper engine feature it is a steam feature. so basicly you will be asked this for any game you play/own. so there is definitively something wrong with the account (if it is even your). because the only way I can think of is that you bought this account from someone else who in the past, activated this getting paid on steam feature and before selling the account to you he disableled it , but now when you are trying to upload stuff it basicly asking you your bank account to confirm that you are the real owner of the account.

I did some research on the web and here on the steam forum. you are a unique case.
like steam will not activate this feature, by it self. no sir. that is impossible.
you sure your account was not highjacked?

[Biohazard]

Originally posted by Capt.Luke:

that fact still remain, WPE does NOT allow to getting paid on steam workshop
this getting paid on steam is not new. it was here for many many years

Yes, the text Steam shows includes curated (paid) Workshop features although Wallpaper Engine doesn't use them, we are only using the ready-to-use (free) Workshop functions.

Every time Valve updates the subscriber agreement, it needs to be agreed to again for new uploads, just like on the app store of Apple or when making purchases on Steam. The last update was on 24th of February (see the date at the bottom of the subscriber agreement) so this is why the prompt was shown to the OP again by Steam since Valve updated the subscriber agreement.

So this has nothing to do with the Steam account being used or anything the account has done, it's just that Valve updated the agreement a few weeks ago and Steam will prompt for it to be agreed to again. You probably have seen it yourself recently since you made a couple of uploads since the 24th as well.

The OP made their decision and I don't believe it's possible to restore submissions once deleted if they would change their mind now, so I will lock this thread since I believe the question has been answered (Valve updated the agreement, therefore Steam prompts for it to be agreed to again and although Wallpaper Engine doesn't use paid Workshop features, it is mentioned in the agreement automatically that paid Workshop features are supported by Steam in general).