Latest Steam update forces you to give up your legal rights

[J T]

It's official. They are not going to let me opt out of the new binding arbitration and my account will remain locked and preventing me from playing my purchased games unless I click 'agree' to the new subscriber agreement.

Here are the details...
My follow-up message:

Dear Valve,

I understand your company’s position in favor of a binding arbitration clause. Here is my position: I do not feel comfortable in signing over my personal right to pursue a class action law suit with your company or any other.

I am also outraged that I have been denied access to my library of games that I purchased through Steam. This is a clear effort to strong-arm me into signing away my access to a legal channel that I don’t feel comfortable in signing away access to. I have never pursued legal action against Valve in the past, I have been a continuous paying customer, and I have provided you with years of free word-of-mouth advertising. I do not deserve to be treated this way. I would therefore, once again, like to ask you to allow me the option of opting out of the “binding arbitration” clause while still being able to retain access to the games I have purchased through your site and to maintain access to the Steam service.

Thank you.

Their response:

Our Steam Subscriber Agreement describes the conditions under which we agree to do business with our customers.

As indicated in the previous SSA, Valve retains the right to change these terms periodically.

If you do not agree to use our service on these terms then you will not be able to access your Steam account.

[Hobie-wan]

Again, it doesn't keep you from filing a lawsuit if you decide to. Just not to join a class action lawsuit. Honestly it was foolish of you to think they'd say "Well ok, but just for you".

As I said, if this is really bothering you this much, you'd probably never buy any software ever again, or any electronic hardware either. You're still under all sort of contracts between the OS, your ISP, and connecting to a network with your phone. Gamewise stick to board games and old offline classic stuff. That's the only way to be sure you're not dealing with an icky EULA.

[nightrnr]

As I said, if this is really bothering you this much, you'd probably never buy any software ever again, or any electronic hardware either. You're still under all sort of contracts between the OS, your ISP, and connecting to a network with your phone. Gamewise stick to board games and old offline classic stuff. That's the only way to be sure you're not dealing with an icky EULA.

Satirical advice. I love and hate it at the same time.

Realistically, of course, we're not giving up our games.
But I still have a hard time taking these things seriously in the 1st place. You could put in the agreement that you must sacrifice your firstborn in worship of Steam and people would still click "accept"...
...and legally binding or not, that's not going to happen (yes, I know infant sacrifice isn't even legal, not my point).

If people feel like they are being treated unfairly, they will either walk away (with the rest of their money) or find ways around the system.
Piss off gamers enough and you even encourage a rationalized setting for piracy.

[J T]

Again, it doesn't keep you from filing a lawsuit if you decide to. Just not to join a class action lawsuit.

I understand this, and it doesn't matter- it's the principle of this that bothers me. The laws that grant us access to the legal system for resolving disputes are an important set of rights. Granted, Valve are providing an alternative to what they are taking away, but they are still taking away a right to a specific channel of the legal system that you would otherwise have access to (class action lawsuits). I think it is unconscionable to allow corporations to do this, and ever since the Concepcion ruling it has gotten worse. My little fight is just one way of saying "that's not okay!"

Honestly it was foolish of you to think they'd say "Well ok, but just for you".

I never thought they would do it for me and me alone. What I was hoping was that they might see enough complaints to realize this was a mistake in customer relations. If we just instantly click 'agree' to whatever they throw at us without a complaint then they begin to think that they can just put whatever they want into their SSA.

As I said, if this is really bothering you this much, you'd probably never buy any software ever again, or any electronic hardware either. You're still under all sort of contracts between the OS, your ISP, and connecting to a network with your phone. Gamewise stick to board games and old offline classic stuff. That's the only way to be sure you're not dealing with an icky EULA.

I ignored it when you said this the first time. I'll ignore it again because I like you and don't care to trade insults and snark, but seriously, don't patronize me.

[Hobie-wan]

My little fight is just one way of saying "that's not okay!"

That's fine and good. However do more than just email. Even if you send a well thought out one, it will be as effective as an internet petition. Real letters and phone calls are more likely to have an impact. Perhaps pay them an actual visit since you're in the same state. That will likely have more impact.

I ignored it when you said this the first time. I'll ignore it again because I like you and don't care to trade insults and snark, but seriously, don't patronize me.

I promise I'm not trying to be a jerk. Really, take a look at some other EULAs. They're all full of all sorts of weasel words.

You're a better man than me for objecting on principle instead of just mostly ignoring (though we can disagree on the seriousness of the class action bit), but a few emails isn't likely to make a lot of difference. Need to do more to make a lasting impression of your displeasure.

[J T]

I promise I'm not trying to be a jerk. Really, take a look at some other EULAs. They're all full of all sorts of weasel words.

I know. Even GOG's EULA has heaps of crafty legalese in it, and GOG.com is the most consumer-friendly of all of the digital distributors.

The MAJOR difference though, is that because GOG games are DRM-Free, GOG only has the power to shut off access to the games I have not yet downloaded and they cannot prevent me from installing and playing games I have already put onto a backup drive from their service.

With the vast majority of my Steam games, I cannot play them without the Steam service (even if I already have them installed). And to use the Steam service means agreeing to the Steam Subscriber Agreement (SSA) without exception, regardless of what is in the SSA or what gets added later. There are a lot of games that I bought during the recent summer sale (right before this most recent change to the SSA) that I did not have a chance to download, install or play. This means that I have paid for those games (or the "subscription" to those games to be technical and clear), but I have not received any product or service from Valve as a result of that payment. Also, no refund is possible for any game I've purchased (regardless of whether the game was ever even delivered) because their SSA also states that they give no refunds.

We may disagree on the issue of class action lawsuits, but doesn't the way they go about enforcing this kind of seem like a scam to you?


It's not like if you ever disagreed with a change to your EULA with Nintendo that Nintendo could come to your house and steal all of your NES, SNES, and N64 games until you complied with their demands. That is effectively what Valve is doing via their subscriber agreement and business model.

[Hobie-wan]

The "we can change the agreement at any time" has been there from the beginning though. We agreed to accept it in the first place. Full stop.

It that was not acceptable, it shouldn't have been agreed to when first installing Steam. I don't particularly like it either, but I've decided I'd live with it for being able to play HL2 and the cheap sale games I've enjoyed over the years. I've seen the "we can change terms later" in many other places too. Most services also have a no refunds policy to head off buyers remorse and other abuses. If they track whether you've ever downloaded something on your account, talk to them with a real letter, on the phone, or in person. It might not get you anywhere either, but emails are nearly as useful as farting in a headwind if you're questioning a major policy.

I do not consider the Diablo III server and auction house nonsense agreeable, therefore I'll never play that game despite loving D1 and D2 and playing them for years.

[isiolia]

We may disagree on the issue of class action lawsuits, but doesn't the way they go about enforcing this kind of seem like a scam to you?

It's not like if you ever disagreed with a change to your EULA with Nintendo that Nintendo could come to your house and steal all of your NES, SNES, and N64 games until you complied with their demands. That is effectively what Steam is doing via their subscriber agreement and business model.

Older stuff, sure. Though, a large enough violation could get you in trouble anyway. They just probably won't find out if what you're doing is small scale enough.

Newer stuff... the EULA for the DSi says Nintendo can try to remove hacks, and allows for the possibility that they might brick the system in the process. The one for the 3DS basically extends that to giving Nintendo the right to remote brick a hacked system (here under Chapter III).

Personally, I don't see what Valve is doing as a scam exactly. Plenty of businesses place restrictions on their customers that are more restricting than what the actual law might state. Don't talk during the movie, no outside food and drink, no flash photography, whatever.
For a long-term service, like Steam, it's only logical that they'd need to include a clause that allows them to change those rules as they see necessary. It's not like they can put a new sign in the window before they open the next day.
If they gave the possibility of cashing out, it could be exploited. People would load up on games during sales, cancel their accounts for a refund the next time the EULA was amended, and then create a new account. It'd open up a whole new avenue of issues to deal with.

As anti-user as most EULAs can seem, they're largely there to protect the company. You know as well as I do that the US is one litigation happy nation, and that given a window of opportunity, pretty much every company would be getting sued by someone, somewhere, if they though they could make a quick buck by doing so.

So, Valve looks around and sees other heavyweights in the industry getting away with putting a no class actions clause in their EULA. Presumably because they have lawyers that aren't pants-on-head retarded, they decide to include it too. Like other common clauses in EULAs, it had precedent for being allowed (at least for now), and provides for huge protection for the company.

If they were the first ones to slip that phrasing in, and then a month later changed things to say that game purchases now expire, then I'd be less willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. As it stands, they adopted what is on the path to being a fairly standard EULA clause, in a transparent manner.

[nightrnr]

Well, I finally got all my GOG stuff backed up (minus a few of the extras that I don't care about).
I think I'm taking JT's advice/example and backing up my purchases right away.

I'd also like to link this article from wololo:

http://wololo.net/2012/08/20/breaking-p ... -the-ugly/

I share most of his opinions (and not just that article either).

[DinnerX]

Corporations have flipped ownership on its ear for their own convenience, profit, and protection.

Somewhere there's a Richard Stallman video relevant to this.