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.

The courts normally side with reason, and while these stats are discouraging, legislation and/or common law could easily patch these issues.

harpo

Indeed, a non-Steam option is definitely welcome. I was perfectly happy with the way Sins worked before, but I hardly even want Rebellion now that Steam is involved. I don't want or need all of the Steam features, because virtually all of them can be done without needing third party software. THQ already forced me into using Steam for Supreme Commander Gold, if I ever want to reinstall it, without my knowledge, after I bought a non-Steam version.

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.

I have the SAME issues regarding sublimated ICE as zeta for the SAME reasons

harpo

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!

so true semaz, so true, BUT I do my BEST to KILL the bastards if they attempt anything with ME.

harpo

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.

... there's always the ms store from win8+

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

Im not sure what the big deal is so far all the negative posts ive read are based on hypothetical what ifs. So heres some reality, video game producers can sell there product for cheaper if they sell it online because they dont have to worry about packaging, that also means they can release it sooner as packaging is a lengthy process. As well a product can be released somewhat unfinished so earlier as they can just quick patch it on release day before it goes on sale.

It has already been proven that PC video games are a dead retail market thanks to anti-pirating measures being useless. Goto any gamestop, EB games or well anywhere that sells PC games and youll notice it getting smaller. The gamestop closest to my place doesnt even carry PC games anymore other than a few MMO's like world of warcraft because as the manager even told me there just not selling and he cant accept returns so there too much of a hassle.

As for steams policys ive personally had nothing but fantastic experiences with the steam reps and so has alot of people i know. One quick example my cousin accidentally bought the trinity pack for Sins thinking it was the one he needed to play with me as it had all the expansions rather than rebellion which he figured must not be what he needed. He emailed steam telling him he made the mistake and they had him buy rebellion and within a couple days had refunded what he paid for trinity. Steam could have let him hang out to dry on that one and do nothing but they were fantastic with him.

Id be amazed if online purchasing isnt going to become the only way to buy video games, I personally dont know anyone who goes to stores to buy anything but a collectors edition of WOW these days and i personally wont buy a game i cant download online as im terrible about keeping track of my CD's and boxes and just end up throwing them out within a year cause ive garbaged them. Now thanks to steam which i buy almost all my games from im more likely to go back and play an old game because its just a simple reinstall and im good to go.

As for the EULA clauses in steam youll find the same thing or something similar everywhere, im pretty sure if you went through origins EULA youd find something similar or at least something just as offensive but in the end the company does also have to protect itself and i understand that and as much as some games require steam to play you dont necessarily have to play steam in online mode which does allow you to bypass any issues. As for online multiplayer requiring steam it doesnt, me and my cousin live in different citys and dont even play sins together through the ironclad servers so theres many ways around having to use a companys build in online services if you feel the need.

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.

And if Steam don't like the laws in any particular country they can always "Not available in your region"

Ironic that consumers talk about boycotting Steam when Steam can boycott entire countries!!

People should learn to accept that Steam have and or are close to having absolute power over their games. Why do we need checks and balances of power, Steam are good guys, and I'm sure they always will be, trust them!

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.

what if Steam bricked your account of dozens of games under false pretenses, and you couldn't get it resolved because they wouldn't believe you.

This has happened before at least once.  You'd be out of stuff you've spent around $1,000 for.  That's something I'd want to sue over.

While I don't tihnk current Valve would do anything too bad, it's future Valve I'm worried about, not current Valve.  When you buy from Steam, Valve has a lot of power other whether you can use your game or not.

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$.

I would say 'buyer beware'.

If you know that your account can be bricked and you'd lose access to all your games as a consequence, I recommend not spending that money on their site in the first place. If everyone doesn't spend money on their site because of that reason....they'll change there policy....or go bankrupt.

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

From now on, I just won't do business  with the Steam store.  I assume any issues with Steam will revolve in the end around payment issues, so  I'll just buy things outside of Steam from now on, unless absolutely necessary.

If I buy any game that requires Steamworks, it will be from another site such as Gamersgate.