Ok, I am not too upset with this right now.

First, Compared to say the blizzard EULA that pretty much steals the copyright of your thoughts related to the game the steam EULA seems pretty good. Any US court would rule that arbitration for a class action meriting lawsuit is not due process of law. Despite the contractual agreement saying that arbitration must be used or a small claims court, due process is a constitutional right and would have to be met by whatever settlement is reached. It is a rather elastic stipulation in article 12.

Second Steam agreed to pay legal fees if you are seeking fewer that 10K.

Thirdly have there been any suits that need to amount to 10K or more in settlement, ever? Steam does microtransactions of only up 500 bucks. Even then I fail to see how valve would be responsible for any major issues.

Fourthly customer service should be able to resolve most issues without the need to go to court.

Fifthly I don't recall seeing anything that would protect valve from being responsible for damages; its not an agreement to not sue its an agreement to do it by cheaper ways.

Sixthly courts are the last way I would try to do these things. They are expensive, slow, and fickle. Most arbitrators/ombudsmen I have had to deal with in america are retired judges and the like. They will be just. I want a citation on those statistics.

Overall I am fine with the change as is. It seems to be fair to the user. Legally we are entitled to due process and if arbitration would not adequately allow for damages etc to be visited a court would likely rule in favor of the claimant. Right now this makes me feel like valve is trying to be fair and not self-protective. I can understand your unease at loosing legal rights but that is life and society. You have to give up a little to live with other people. Other eulas I have seen are horrifying. Just read the starcraft 2 one that makes you perform litigation in the LA area on their terms; it probably wouldn't be found constitutional but somebody would have to challenge it. As a bit of an example I will just mention water rights. The US is mostly in droubt this year with 1-46% of average annual precipitation in afflicted areas. Farmers and people have water rights because there are cities like LA downstream. Just because the river crosses your property doesn't mean you need all of it. In fact it helps you to let some go so that in return CA grows your veggies. Its natural to be afraid of loosing something, but videogames are entertainment and it honestly  should not be a big deal. Its not like they are stripping your rights pertaining to any other legal relations.

harpo

You're the exception. I choose games on Steam over other sources because of their achievements (Puzzle Quest II for example).

I also like their other features and it's so convinient to have everyting in one package. Like I can get a screenshot the oldfashioned way of "pressing printscreen --> alt+tab --> Start --> type paint --> ctrl + v --> save"

OR

I press ' (which I bound to "take Steam screenshot) and later add some text and upload it for everyone (or Steam friends or noone) to see.

One more reason to insert all games I have into Steam.

If you're black, you got to look at America a little bit different. You got to look at America like the uncle who paid for you to go to college, but who molested you.

*Chris Rock

Yeah, That's Steam in a fucking nut shell for gamers.  They might give us great shit, but we hate ourselves afterwards for letting them into our computer and occasionally do lan parties where we cry about it.  Steam is the pedo van with the best suckers.  RUN!

I want an alternative to Steam because it could easily go bad for consumers very quickly.  And any game (particularly primary single player) that is reliant on a web-site service to be played at all is at the mercy of whether that web-site continues to operate in the same way or is sold to less "discerning" owners.

I agree with Krazikarl on this one. I know you are upset right now, But you will probably realise later that is nothing you can do about it and you will comply with this ... sorry.

jocuri

This is a legitimate worry.  Everyone "goes evil" eventually if they get big enough.   I wouldn't even trust Brad if Stardock had Valve's market share.

Sure if may be theoretical now, but it won't be some day, and I'd want to be prepared for that day.

Why do people think there is only Steam?  I hate how Steam works.

I much prefer how Impulse used to work (or stardock central before that) with buy, download, unlock - go.  Most other digitial distributors work the same way, like direct2drive or amazon's digital.  No clue if GS is doing the same now.  Other outlets do sales and deals too.

I was kind of bummed when Stardock got rid of Impulse.  That was my prefered way to get games.  It took care of the patching stuff for you too which is convenient but it didn't completely hook into and affect your gaming.  You ran it when you wanted to run it.

Basically I just want a good digital distributor.  I don't give a flying monkey poo about achievement or any social hooks into games as Steam does them.  I actually don't want my games tied in to such things, I want them to stand alone from the distributor.

Steam is like MS...controlling so much of the market that you get to a "oh well, may as well just use/buy it on steam and put up with it's BS" state.

Given a choice, I'll buy games directly from the developer.  Beyond that, I usually just go with whatever digital source is the least expensive, and a great deal of the time, that does end up being Steam.  That or the game is steamworks bound and you're stuck with Steam no matter what - not much point in buying a game from elsewhere if you're just going to get a steam key and have to use steam anyways.

 In regards to the OP...I can think of reasons to dislike Steam but I can't see how this arbitration thing is even remotely relevant.  I'm not sure I could name a single legal issue with a game that I care about.  Maybe some parents spazzing out over violence or some such BS.  The idea of suing over a game is kind of laughable.

You can still take them to small claims court or arbitration for that 1000$.

this change of SSA only take away option of class action lawsuits.

Also unless your clain is demed to be frivolous by small claims court / arbitration, Valve will pay your expenses up to 10 000$.

And I say "I dont care" because in this country we dont have class action lawsuits anyway, so this didnt change anything for me.