Is a card farmer/idle like Archi Steam Farm against the Steam Subscriber Agreement?

[Scoopy]

As the title says...

[Glimmer]

Depends on how tightly/loosely you want to interpret this

You may not use Cheats, automation software (bots), mods, hacks, or any other unauthorized third-party software, to modify or automate any Subscription Marketplace process.

Receiving cards may be considered part of the Subscription Marketplace process, and those programs are certainly automation. That being said, they've been around since STC started and there hasn't been one credible claim of getting banned because of those programs.

Unfortunately, Valve refuses to make any definitive statement on the topic so it's left in a grey zone. My assumption is that Valve doesn't care about them, but doesn't want to set a precedent to avoid floods of "but it's similar to <insert card farming program> that's why you shouldn't ban be for using <insert other automation program>"

[flobefall]

Those idlers are existing for yeeeeaars now and Valve is aware of it - and noone got banned for such tools yet, so don't worry.

[Levi]

I am inclined to say it's an grey area, as Glimmer said.

That snippet from the SSA is also why i'm alluding to this.

To further convolute things, no user has been 'banned' or 'warned' in any way for idling games; with the purpose of automating card drops.

There has been no official statement to say; that it's allowed or not allowed.

The topic has been discussed quite a few times, so you can probably search the discussions and have a peak of those threads.

[MancSoulja]

Steam added Idle Master to a list of VAC conflicting software years ago, although they will never officially support it, being added to that list is about as close as you can get.

It means Valve know people have this software installed and you're unable to join VAC enabled servers while the software is activated so you don't accidentally trigger a ban.