Saturday, December 31, 2011

What kinds of things happen when I link Steam and Facebook?

Question

I really hate Facebook apps. I've probably blocked a few hundred or so. Mostly the reasons are twofold:

  1. I don't want to spam my friends with random crap that I'm doing
  2. I find that most gaming is more interesting to me in a more rich environment (consoles, or a DirectX experience), and none of the games are really appealing when I've got other games to play.

So, what will happen if I merge Steam and Facebook?

  • Will it automagically post to facebook any time I get a steam achievement?
  • Will it post to facebook at other times?
  • Do I have control over that? Can I hold back posts to facebook?
  • What kind of information is available to my friends on each service?

Answer

This Facebook FAQ from the Steam Knowledgebase seems to answer most of your questions.

When you link your Facebook account to Steam, all that happens is that Steam tries to find if any of your Facebook friends are also on Steam, and suggests that you add them. You also get the option to invite your Facebook friends to link accounts as well, via a wall post (looks like this), but that can simply be declined.

Your Steam friend limit is also increased from 250 to 300.

The support article explicitly states that nothing will be posted to your wall automatically:

Are you going to post status messages to my wall?
Steam will not post anything to your Facebook wall without your permission.

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