(STEAM) Am I the only one?

[snakeakaossi]

I know, I know. "You're never the only one." But this time, it actually feels like I'm the only schmuck out there who bit the bullet and cancelled[footnote]Rather, I'm in the process of trying to.[/footnote] my Steam account rather than agree to the onerous new TOS?

Mate, please don't cancel your steam. The current TOS is more lenient than the previous one and is more clear on proper codes of conduct, should an issue arise. It even has clauses in which it says you can sue them, although not in a direct wording. They are giving you a better deal than you already had.

I've read the whole bloody thing, please believe me.

 

[targren]

Mate, please don't cancel your steam. The current TOS is more lenient than the previous one and is more clear on proper codes of conduct, should an issue arise. It even has clauses in which it says you can sue them, although not in a direct wording. They are giving you a better deal than you already had.

I've read the whole bloody thing, please believe me.

I've read it, too, and I honestly resent the implication that I've not. I have a funny habit of reading any contracts ever since a potential employer tried to slip one of those nasty "we own everything you program even in your personal time" clauses into an employment contract.

They allow you only to sue them in Small claims court, where the judgment values are capped, to limit the "damage" you can do to them. How that works out to being a "better deal" for me, I can't imagine.

 

[NotALiberal]

Mate, please don't cancel your steam. The current TOS is more lenient than the previous one and is more clear on proper codes of conduct, should an issue arise. It even has clauses in which it says you can sue them, although not in a direct wording. They are giving you a better deal than you already had.

I've read the whole bloody thing, please believe me.

I've read it, too, and I honestly resent the implication that I've not. I have a funny habit of reading any contracts ever since a potential employer tried to slip one of those nasty "we own everything you program even in your personal time" clauses into an employment contract.

They allow you only to sue them in Small claims court, where the judgment values are capped, to limit the "damage" you can do to them. How that works out to being a "better deal" for me, I can't imagine.

$10,000 is not "small" by any amount, considering that is a lot more than all of Steam's catalog combined. Have a nice day boycotting most major companies in America though, considering this is for once, not "anti-consumer" practice, so much as it is trying to stop that occasional prick who starts a class action suit in hopes of winning a big payout over some frivolous technicality or loophole. Despite the fact that IF they do win, their payout will be miniscule, and the only people who get payed well are the goddamned lawyers. On Valves side too, considering lawyers are goddamn expensive, and even a frivolous lawsuit which gets dismissed will still cost them into the tens of thousands of $.

Do you even logic? This just screams knee jerk reactionary based off the fact that Valve (which seems to have a LOT more people who think too many people love them leading to said person hating Valve out of some sort of weird hipster complex) did it. Guess what? If Valve say burned down your house, and then gave out your credit card info, that ToS ain't going to do shit because then you won't even sue class action, it'll be in a higher court system.

EDIT: I would like to point out also, you are not some righteous white knight sticking it to the big greedy corporation, you are just being a knee jerk reactionary.

Pretty much every other major corporation in America have the same clause in their ToS. Sony, Microsoft, and pretty much every major game publisher based in America have the exact same clause in their TOS, only they don't offer to pay all the of the arbitration costs whether or not they win or lose.

Having said that, if you own any of the following: Xbox 360, PS3, PSP, PS Vita, an XBL account, a PSN account, you should immediately sell/deactivate them, and stop buying games published by most major publishers. While you're at it, go find a list of all the companies with such a clause in their ToS, and boycott their products too. I can guarantee you wouldn't be able to use much at all. This is all assuming you live in America, ToS like this won't hold up in a country like Australia or most European countries, so if you don't live in America, these new ToS don't affect you in a single way, and even if they did, you should not give a single fuck for the reasons listed above.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Even on the off chance that Gabe Newell grows a goatee or a handlebar mustache so he can start twirling it with a glass of Scotch and a white cat in his lap; I seriously doubt that many people will actually read the Terms of Service for anything. Anything at all.

I don't know about you, but when it's on paper then oh-ho; shit gets real. I scrutinize each and every point and try to pit my puny brain against these pages and pages of obtuse legalese. My reflex is that when I have to sign something, it actually becomes Important Stuff.

Ticking a box and clicking Next, though? Um, not that much. Most installers come with a seldom-used "Print" button right under the EULA's box that's going to spit out all eleventy-billion pages of the thing on paper for you to obsess over. Who does that for games, though? I mean, seriously. You've just cracked open your copy of your personally most anticipated game of the last year, and you're going to sit through legal gobbledygook?

Nope. Nobody does that.

I've agreed to a fuckton of DRM-infested crap in my time. The PC ports of Assassin's Creed I, 2, and Revelations, Spore's God-forsaken installation and activation limits, Diablo III's always-online requirement, and so on. I ***** and moan like the rest of them, but fact is I shut up and take it because some of these titles are next-to-impossible to crack or otherwise run in an entirely offline manner.

My take on this is that Valve's legal team and Valve's actual software engineers are two very distinct groups. If Legal decided to make the Terms of Service more draconian, I'm not going to chastise the guys running the content farms. I won't throw a lawsuit their way because I have precious little money as it is and couldn't afford any kind of legal wrangling.

I'll keep doing what I've been doing in the advent that Valve ever severely shoots itself in the foot. I've looked over these ToS and I seriously don't see what the fuss is about. Losing your collection is equal to being refused service. You're essentially refused service every time you choose to tick "I do not accept these Terms and Conditions" - seeing as the installer for most games either stalls there or goes "Okay, then. Quitting installer. Bye!"

Steam's the gateway. Obviously, if the gateway gets closed, they're not going to go "Oh, well, you said no? Fine, here's a roundabout way to claim all of your purchased but currently not downloaded or installed content". They won't because they can't. There's tech concerns that prevent this.

We've always known Steam had failings. The effects of not agreeing to their terms or anything resembling a severe power outage in their content hosts could bring the whole system crashing down for the average user. Anyone who uses Steam has essentially agreed to these limitations and accepted the fact that he or she will have to live while being aware of these facts.

So honestly? Throwing stuff around about lawsuits or just flat-out saying no seems a bit idiotic. If it bothers you that much, then back up your stuff over a certain period of time, crack everything, resolve to playing only single-player, and you're done.

 

[Lunar Templar]

Also, given the thread topic, and your current avatar, this image seems appropriate . . .

Spoiler

[sub][sub]You need to have seen the Discord episodes to get this.[/sub][/sub]

ah the single biggest lie ever told XD!!

OT:
nope, there's still stuff i want off steam, and besides, i have no reason to sue them, steam dose exactly what i expect it to do

 

[targren]

$10,000 is not "small" by any amount, considering that is a lot more than all of Steam's catalog combined. Have a nice day boycotting most major companies in America though, considering this is for once, not "anti-consumer" practice, so much as it is trying to stop that occasional prick who starts a class action suit in hopes of winning a big payout over some frivolous technicality or loophole.

Factual Error #1: You don't compare it to the size of the catalog, genius. You compare it to their revenues, which $10k (or $5k, which is the small claims limit in my state) is barely a drop in the bucket.

Factual Error #2: It only applies to "Service" based companies. I don't have to sign a contract to go to the grocery store, the gas station, or the movie theater. I can go to a bar and not sign any waivers, and there's nothing stopping me from suing the drug store if they give me viagra instead of my headache medicine. So no, that's hardly "most major companies."

And if this is not, as you claim an "anti-consumer" practice, then WHERE is the consideration for the consumer? This move is 100% in favor of the corporation, with NOTHING offered to the consumer in return, except for continued access to what they've already purchased (which makes it, by definition, a "contract of adhesion.")

Despite the fact that IF they do win, their payout will be miniscule, and the only people who get payed well are the goddamned lawyers. On Valves side too, considering lawyers are goddamn expensive, and even a frivolous lawsuit which gets dismissed will still cost them into the tens of thousands of $.

Ah, this old saw again, which I've already debunked multiple times already. The purpose is not for a "payout" to the customers, it's to punish the corporation. That the lawyers are the only ones to really benefit is another broken part of the same system that allows garbage like unilaterally changing contracts in the first place, but it doesn't change the fact that CA suits are intended to be punitive.

Do you even logic? This just screams knee jerk reactionary based off the fact that Valve (which seems to have a LOT more people who think too many people love them leading to said person hating Valve out of some sort of weird hipster complex) did it.

No, I don't "logic[sic]." I think you accidentally the verb. And playing the persecution card is particularly amusing, since they're the ones taking the offensive posture.

Guess what? If Valve say burned down your house, and then gave out your credit card info, that ToS ain't going to do shit because then you won't even sue class action, it'll be in a higher court system.

Uh... that would be felony arson and professional malfeasance, respectively. Of course I wouldn't sue class action. Do you even know what a class action suit is? If you're going to set up strawmen, at least make sure you've got a good stick to hold them up. This one just blew away in a stiff breeze.

EDIT: I would like to point out also, you are not some righteous white knight sticking it to the big greedy corporation, you are just being a knee jerk reactionary.

And I would like to point out also, that you are not as erudite as you clearly imagine yourself to be. Your arguments are based on apologism and propaganda, as opposed to logic and reality, and the words you use clearly don't mean what you think they mean.

Pretty much every other major corporation in America have the same clause in their ToS. Sony, Microsoft, and pretty much every major game publisher based in America have the exact same clause in their TOS, only they don't offer to pay all the of the arbitration costs whether or not they win or lose.

What a small, insignificant view of the world you have. "Sony, Microsoft and pretty much every other game publisher based in America" are not even close to "EVERY OTHER MAJOR CORPORATION." Not even a little bit.

Having said that, if you own any of the following: Xbox 360, PS3, PSP, PS Vita, an XBL account, a PSN account, you should immediately sell/deactivate them, and stop buying games published by most major publishers.

The only one of those I own is an Xbox360, and your logic is flawed (again) in the assumption that that implies an XBL account, which I don't have. The difference between XBL and Steam is that, without the XBL account, I can still play my legally purchased games on my Xbox.

you should not give a single fuck for the reasons listed above.

The reasons listed above aren't real reasons. They have no connection to logic other than "everyone else is doing it" (false premise) and fail on the face of them as video games are NOT required for me to live, anyway.

Go back to shill school. You're not very good at it.

 

[Moromillas]

I just read page one.

I am just flabbergasted at how many people are more than happy to not have these rights, or just don't care about them.

Ok, sure, you're not going to sue Valve today, or even next week. But why should you sign something that says you're not allowed to? Why shouldn't players be allowed to do this again? Yeah, that was rhetorical, players should be allowed to if they so chose.

Start saying "Oh, btw, they signed this saying they can't do that" and people no longer have a way to settle their grievances... the legal way.

That's not the way it works. Valve's ToS won't do shit if you file a suit against them, it just stops greedy exploitation by scumbags looking to make a quick bug off some technical loophole with a frivolous class action suit (which cost both time and a lot of money). Which is very common in America.

I mean for fucks sake, they'll pay ALL the legal fees, win or lose, and then they'll pay you up to $10,000 (and as noted above, Steam's entire catalog isn't even WORTH $10,000), so please stop with the self righteous indignation.

Wow, just wow.

No, that legal system you're talking about has been around for a loooong time, and with the peoples help, has been made as fair as possible over the years. The solution to this mystical money grubbing exploit you're talking about, is not letting companies set up their own private legal systems. Jesus Christ.

That's a joke...right? Please tell me no one is possibly that dense. It ISN'T setting up their own "private legal systems", it's fucking arbitration as decided by a 3rd party with no ties to either Valve or the plantiff. Also, class action suits only really DO benefit litigation lawyers. In a majority of class action suits, the people suing get peanuts IF they win, while the lawyers get a big fat paycheck, add to the fact that many MANY companies use misinformation and ignorance of the people suing to avoid massive payouts, it's a joke of a "legal system".

Logic on this site, it doesn't even exist.

EDIT: I am referring to class action suits, not cases taken up by the Supreme Court or such.

You just contradicted yourself and described a form of private legal system. Right, you need to go and have a read of AT&T Mobility v. Conception outcome so you know what you're talking about. Furthermore, no, I'm not going to conspiracy land with you, and this business of snide offhand remarks like people being dense needs to end. If you want to be treated with respect you need to drop the attitude, or just fuck off if you can't do that, it's that simple.

 

[Something Amyss]

I love the "I don't plan to sue Valve" responses. It's kind of like saying "I don't need insurance because I don't plan to have a fire."

Regardless, I agreed to the ToU, mostly because it almost certainly won't hold in court for long.

Except for the fact that if the problem is large enough to sue for over $10,000, that ToS ain't going to do shit, in which case you'd actually be filing something above a class action. In fact, this is one of the fairest ways of settling small disputes, provided you have a legitimate complaint, and that you don't want more than fucking $10,000 (I'm pretty sure Steam's entire catalog isn't even worth that much in which case you have no reason to claim more than $10,000 unless you're just being a greedy cock). They pay all the legal fees, and cover all the costs, EVEN IF THEY LOSE.

I really don't see what everyone's fucking deal is, in a sue happy country like America, where frivolous class action suits are an everyday occurrence to some scumbag looking to make a quick buck, I don't see how this is ANYTHING but good business sense. Jesus Christ, people on this site make me mad sometimes.

You use "fact" very loosely here. Not an insult, just a statement of fact.