Latest Steam update forces you to give up your legal rights

[MrPopo]

Does anyone know if it would hold any legal water if I sent them a message saying "I clicked agree to the subscriber agreement, but I am formally stating that this agreement does not include the section regarding binding arbitration"?

I'm 90% confident that if you hit agree then you are bound by the arbitration section, even if you send such a follow up email. I'm fairly certain that there is verbage that says that only Valve can amend the agreement, so you clicking agree is agreeing to the EULA as written. Other companies have included specific opt-outs, but that isn't included here.

[Jmustang1968]

@ JT - I say go for it by the way of a "lawsuit" refund of your locked out games and get out of Steam. Too bad many consumers will just blindly click okay.

In other news, I have been piling up on older PC games from the Thrift Store with License Agreements that cannot force my hand, even when I disagree with them.

Or that blind consumer thinks class action lawsuits are bullshit and wouldn't participate in them anyway.

Or even if they did care about it, the small percent chance there would be one to my benefit is far outweighed by the affordable prices of the games and convenience of the service. This is really a non issue to me, that's blown out of proportion.

I am glad they will be preventing the usual frivolity and money grabbing by lawyers on behalf of some disgruntled consumer that wants to stick it to a company simply because something annoyed them or they didn't get their way.

[Hobie-wan]

I don't really want to spend a lot of time on this, but I dislike what they are doing and I really dislike how they are doing it (by locking people out who won't agree).

I'm wondering if one didn't let Steam update and just stayed in offline mode if you'd more or less be able to play what you had on that PC indefinitely. It wouldn't help with any you hadn't downloaded though.

But still, you can still sue if you want, just not class action if you agree. Granted it could change again, but Valve seems to be going about this in a far more transparent way than Sony and the like. They were nice enough to send you a nice explanation. If you're that worried about it changing again in the future, agree, download all 650 games and use the Steam function to archive them, then if Steam does turn evil down the road, you can search your conscience and perhaps search for ways to make the stuff you paid for work.

[RyaNtheSlayA]

@JT

If you haven't tried it yet, I'm sure you can play at least some of your Steam games without Steam pretty easily.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common

There you will find all of your non-Source/Valve games I believe. While the ones that use Steamworks will probably not work, any that just use Steam as a launching interface/overlay should work just fine. All GFWL games can all be launched this way as I recall as well.

[jfrost]

Living in Brazil, I pretty much don't have any legal rights anyway, so I just agreed to the thing and that was it. However, I would be curious to see if you actually pursued legal action against them.

The other day I saw a guy who went to great lengths just to see that his Mac was repaired by Apple. Apple tried to bully him but he stuck to his guns, even if it was easier just to let it go. A very entertaining story.

[J T]

@JT

If you haven't tried it yet, I'm sure you can play at least some of your Steam games without Steam pretty easily.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common

There you will find all of your non-Source/Valve games I believe. While the ones that use Steamworks will probably not work, any that just use Steam as a launching interface/overlay should work just fine. All GFWL games can all be launched this way as I recall as well.

I knew this was true of some of my old iD games, but I didn't know it was true of GFWL. Thanks! I never thought I'd be glad to have games with GFWL!

[nightrnr]

Legality aside, you could always search out a game fix/hack for the .exe of certain games.

Not a perfect option, but it is an alternative.

[Lokkenjawnz]

Legality aside, you could always search out a game fix/hack for the .exe of certain games.

Not a perfect option, but it is an alternative.

Yeah, I really don't understand the fuss over this. They've always been able to do things like this, they're not saying that they're going to lock you out over nothing, they're saying that you have to agree to their services to use the games that you already agreed to license from them. If you really are paranoid about it, just pirate the games, the end result is the same.

Hell, of all the companies to pull stuff like this, I have no issue with Valve doing it. They're just covering their asses in case of something ridiculous. Plus, they've already gone on record that should anything happen to the company that they have methods in place to release everyone's games so they can still be played. I trust Valve, they're one of the few tech companies out there that seem to listen.

[J T]

Plus, they've already gone on record that should anything happen to the company that they have methods in place to release everyone's games so they can still be played.

You really don't read those subscriber agreements updates, do you? For a while now it has said:

"Steam and your Subscription(s) require the automatic download and installation of Software onto your computer. Valve hereby grants, and you accept, a limited, terminable, non-exclusive license and right to use the Software for your personal use in accordance with this Agreement, including the Subscription Terms. The Software is licensed, not sold. Your license confers no title or ownership in the Software. To make use of the Software, you must have a Steam Account and you may be required to be running the Steam client and maintaining a connection to the Internet."

^^^This is what you have clicked an 'agree' button to if you are currently able to use Steam.

I used to think they would unlock your games if they went out of business too. People on online forums told me that would happen and it was one of the things that made me feel better about using Steam's service. But I never heard it from Valve directly, and you probably haven't either. Don't bank on it. They are letting you know in your Subscriber Agreement that you do not own your games and that they can terminate your license or shut off your account whenever. Steam is still in business and I can't access hundreds of games I've already paid for. Why would I expect to be able to access them if they went out of business?

[MrPopo]

Because the reason you can't access them is you're being difficult. If you and Steam were on good terms when Valve shut down you'd have a reasonable expectation that they'd do the unlock update. Right now they're saying "Hey guy, we still want you to play, but you have to promise to not be a dick" and you're saying "Hey now, I have a right to be a dick, and while I doubt I'll exercise that right, I don't want to give away that right".