Accpet Steam's New EULA or Say Goodbye To Your Steam Account UPDATED

[Zoomy]

Gabe himself said that if steam went down permanently, they have a contingency plan for thier customers, saying that you will be able to keep your games.

That statement is inherently worthless. For one thing, does "their customers" refer to Steam users or just people who bought Valve games? As far as I know, Valve does not have ownership of pretty much anything on Steam except a few titles, so will their "contingencies" extend to the third party titles that make up 99% of their inventory? Also, what if the circumstances of the collapse of Steam mean their back-up plans are rendered worthless. Best laid plans of mice and men et cetera.

Besides, if Steam falls, then most likely so do the servers. What happens when someone wants to change to a new computer? Without access to the Steam servers, how will they re-download the titles they "purchased" on Steam?

Remember, Gabe also said we'd have Episode Three by Xmas 2007 [http://uk.gamespot.com/news/half-life-2-episode-one-gold-two-dated-three-announced-6151796].

 

[Epona]

This really has soured me on Steam. I will be buying much less from them in the future until we get some kind of a pro-consumer ruling in this area. I think it's outrageous to sell people games (or make them register a retail copy) and then have the ability to take them away over a unilateral changing TOS.

You realize that the only thing that changed was the part where you agree not to file a class-action lawsuit, and that the second you first signed up for Steam, you agreed to the same terms of ownership that are in effect today.

I am aware of that. Are you aware that this has raised awareness of the idea that Steam can take your games away over you not accepting an unilaterally altered TOS?

Many injustices are not noticed by the masses until later, this is one of those times. For example, the masses still have to realize that DD games from Nintendo are tied to the hardware. Figure that shit's gonna hit the fan soon with the release of the 3DSXL and the WiiU. People will say "it's been that way since 2006 when the Wii came out" but it won't matter.

 

[Epona]

http://wegotthiscovered.com/news/valve-accept-steam-subscriber-agreement-disable-account/

So if you disagree.

That's how EVERY online service works.

I already know that I'm just posting news for people to disccuss about.

Help me understand...what is the discussion value of a company using the identical process of every other company?

Maybe you could add some discussion yourself to explain what it is you expect people to discuss. This seems a lot like "the sky is blue...discuss".

Does every other company take away what you have already paid for?

They aren't taking them away. They are saying you can't use their service if you don't agree to their service terms. And yes, every company does that if they have TOS and you don't agree to them.

If I don't agree to the next PSN EULA, will my games stop working?

Any games that require you to use the PSN won't work and you won't be able to access the PSN network.

So no, my games won't stop working.

So no, your games from them aren't a service. They were a retail sale of merchandise.

People, is it really that hard to understand the difference between signing a service contract and signing a purchase or licensing contract?

I view my Steam games the same as I view downloadable games from PSN. I BOUGHT them.

You may VIEW it that way, but that's not the contract you agreed to. The other party isn't responsible for you not understanding that you were in fact buying a service, not a product. You, according to the contract you agreed to, did not buy those Steam games.

Sorry, I simply don't accept that. The process for buying a game is Add to Cart--> Purchase for Myself.

Nothing about a subscription or rental in there. OnLive is a subscription service.

This takes us back to people who don't seem to understand that they are actually bound by the contracts they agree to and should read them so they understand what they are buying.

Except that I don't believe this contract would hold up in a court of law. I guess we'll see but Europe has already shown some common sense in this area. The games are just as OWNED as physical ones bought at retail.

This really has soured me on Steam. I will be buying much less from them in the future until we get some kind of a pro-consumer ruling in this area. I think it's outrageous to sell people games (or make them register a retail copy) and then have the ability to take them away over a unilateral changing TOS.

It doesn't matter you don't think it will hold up, the terms are the terms. If you sign a contract hoping its invalid...well you are taking a chance indeed.

While I think the Steam process is scummy, and thus don't use it, I see no reason why it wouldn't be considered valid. People sometimes think of leased cars as owned too, but they aren't. They are 100% leasing company property. What the contract says matters.

That said, you are now doing the correct thing by not buying from a company when you don't agree with the contract they put in front of you (which btw said they could change it any time they wanted unilaterally).

Contracts do not override laws. A contract that demands your first born be delivered to Valve at such time as Valve's choosing would be worthless.

I do not believe they can legally take away games people have purchased.

 

[dyre]

Yeah, I didn't really enjoy the feeling of being strong-armed into signing that new agreement. Interesting thing is, banning class action lawsuits isn't really that outrageous. Class actions in this case are just a way for lawyers to get rich while individuals get like $5 apiece if they're lucky. Honestly, if they asked me to voluntarily give up the "right" to get caught up in a class action in return for a shiny bauble, I'd probably do it.

Instead, they're all "promise to never do it or we'll nullify all your legitimate purchases." Which is rather rude, to put it mildly.

 

[sanquin]

I don't care about the new ToS.

1: The Dutch law states that a company may not without your right to file a class-action lawsuit against them. Dutch law goes above such things as a ToS.
2: A new 'contract' (the ToS) is only legal if it's signed at the time of purchase. If you first purchased a game, then only after that got a ToS to read, then it's not eligible. As law states that you have to be able to read the rules at the time of purchase for the rules to actually take effect. In other words, this new ToS doesn't apply to any game you bought before it.

 

[Epona]

I don't care about the new ToS.

1: The Dutch law states that a company may not without your right to file a class-action lawsuit against them. Dutch law goes above such things as a ToS.
2: A new 'contract' (the ToS) is only legal if it's signed at the time of purchase. If you first purchased a game, then only after that got a ToS to read, then it's not eligible. As law states that you have to be able to read the rules at the time of purchase for the rules to actually take effect. In other words, this new ToS doesn't apply to any game you bought before it.

2. This is the way it should be by default for all Steam customers. You can disagree with the TOS and your account goes into a no buy mode but you can still get patches (since it's not possible to patch many Steam games without using Steam) and you can still re-download all the games you bought.

For those about to object, it's no different than someone who voluntarily stops buying from Steam right now but still has an active account. Also, Steam is consumer-friendly aren't they? They should do the right thing without laws to force them to.

I also agree with 1 but that has been ruled on here and that is WHY all these companies are adding the clause. Hopefully that will be overturned.

 

[Rutskarn]

(Dousing my penis in hot coffee, tripping over my own kids, becoming fat..)

It's important to know that most "ridiculous lawsuit" stories are badly misrepresented to seem that way. For example, McDonalds wasn't sued because a woman spilled hot coffee on her lap, she sued because the coffee she was served was so hot it was unfit for human consumption. It didn't just ruin her sweatpants, it literally gave her third degree burns that left her in the hospital for eight days and under medical care for two years.

There was a lawsuit there.

 

[oplinger]

(Dousing my penis in hot coffee, tripping over my own kids, becoming fat..)

It's important to know that most "ridiculous lawsuit" stories are badly misrepresented to seem that way. For example, McDonalds wasn't sued because a woman spilled hot coffee on her lap, she sued because the coffee she was served was so hot it was unfit for human consumption. It didn't just ruin her sweatpants, it literally gave her third degree burns that left her in the hospital for eight days and under medical care for two years.

There was a lawsuit there.

Indeed. Coffee is hot. Coffee is brewed at 203 degrees Fahrenheit. She was not as careful as she should have been with the coffee. Injuries or not, she was either unaware that coffee is hot in her 79 years of existence, or she was just not being as careful as she should have been with scalding hot liquid.

To quote the UK case with a similar incident

If this submission be right, McDonald's should not have served drinks at any temperature which would have caused a bad scalding injury. The evidence is that tea or coffee served at a temperature of 65 °C will cause a deep thickness burn if it is in contact with the skin for just two seconds. Thus, if McDonald?s were going to avoid the risk of injury by a deep thickness burn they would have had to have served tea and coffee at between 55 °C and 60 °C. But tea ought to be brewed with boiling water if it is to give its best flavour and coffee ought to be brewed at between 85 °C and 95 °C. Further, people generally like to allow a hot drink to cool to the temperature they prefer. Accordingly, I have no doubt that tea and coffee served at between 55 °C and 60 °C would not have been acceptable to McDonald's customers. Indeed, on the evidence, I find that the public want to be able to buy tea and coffee served hot, that is to say at a temperature of at least 65 °C, even though they know (as I think they must be taken to do for the purposes of answering issues (1) and (2)) that there is a risk of a scalding injury if the drink is spilled.

After the lawsuit, they lowered the temperature of their coffee to 90 degrees celsius. Still enough to cause third degree burns. The woman was out to ruin coffee, or punish Mcdonalds for her own lack of safety.

That is why it is commonly quoted as a ridiculous lawsuit. It was not "unfit for human consumption" it was how hot coffee should be.

Policy then was to serve coffee at 82-88°C. Policy now is between 80-90°C.

 

[sethisjimmy]

Why people pretend Steam isn't DRM is beyond me. You don't own your Steam games, and this just proves it.

 

[Animyr]

Hmmm. I use steam alot and I didn't know about this, thanks to the OP for bringing it to my attention. Sucks about the refund too.

That being said, you didn't accept the agreement, and are then surprised you got hung out to dry? Why? Did you really think that if you said "no" steam would let you just dance on your merry way? What did you think TOS agreements are for?

 

[Lawlhat]

It is unfortunate, but I also don't plan on taking any class action suits against Valve anytime soon, so the real impact is minimal.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

I don't care about the new ToS.

1: The Dutch law states that a company may not without your right to file a class-action lawsuit against them. Dutch law goes above such things as a ToS.
2: A new 'contract' (the ToS) is only legal if it's signed at the time of purchase. If you first purchased a game, then only after that got a ToS to read, then it's not eligible. As law states that you have to be able to read the rules at the time of purchase for the rules to actually take effect. In other words, this new ToS doesn't apply to any game you bought before it.

Would that every country made such fucking sense. Attempting to amend an agreement to retroactively affect things it didn't even originally apply to and saying that if you don't agree, you don't have access to anything you got before the amendment should be a criminal offense. You shouldn't be allowed to just change the rules when it suits you, then play "Oh, but it says here you can't sue me!".

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I'd suggest that I'm not particularly happy about them changing the rules halfway thru the game, and then threatening to go home and take the ball with them if you don't like it...

However, I'm caught in the same thrall as many, I just don't see Steam as the same kind of beast as EA, Ubisoft, Activision and the like, and I don't think they're out to screw me.

Also, I'm fairly sure that if the TOS doesn't stand up to legal scrutiny, you can contest it in court, the law beats shoddily knocked up contracts any day of the week.

I can had 'The employee has the right to murder any staff member underperforming' in a twenty page contract, but the police are still going to drag me away when they come into the office and see me hunched over a bloody corpse, stabbing and stabbing and stabbing and sta-, ahem, I think I've made me point.

 

[lacktheknack]

http://wegotthiscovered.com/news/valve-accept-steam-subscriber-agreement-disable-account/

So if you disagree.

That's how EVERY online service works.

I already know that I'm just posting news for people to disccuss about.

Help me understand...what is the discussion value of a company using the identical process of every other company?

Maybe you could add some discussion yourself to explain what it is you expect people to discuss. This seems a lot like "the sky is blue...discuss".

Does every other company take away what you have already paid for?

They aren't taking them away. They are saying you can't use their service if you don't agree to their service terms. And yes, every company does that if they have TOS and you don't agree to them.

If I don't agree to the next PSN EULA, will my games stop working?

Any games that require you to use the PSN won't work and you won't be able to access the PSN network.

So no, my games won't stop working.

So no, your games from them aren't a service. They were a retail sale of merchandise.

People, is it really that hard to understand the difference between signing a service contract and signing a purchase or licensing contract?

I view my Steam games the same as I view downloadable games from PSN. I BOUGHT them.

Apparently, you didn't read the ToS very well.

Apparently I don't recognize the claim that I am only renting my games from Steam. I PURCHASED them, I didn't RENT them and I didn't SUBSCRIBE to them.

I patiently await a court to rule that digital games are bought and owned.

That would be quite nice.

I just allow for the idea of "subscription", because it doesn't bother me. I've permanently "subscribed" for very reasonable prices, and there's no reason for them to take them away from me. The only time they would would be if I pirate (I don't) or I participate in a class-action lawsuit (I hate those bloody things). If I ever feel I've been "unsubscribed" unfairly, they'll PAY me to take them to small claims court. I'm OK with all that.

Although, again, a law passed saying that digital purchases are not "unsubscribable" wouldn't ruffle my feathers any.

 

[Korten12]

Since I don't plan on suing Valve... Don't give a flying fuck about this. :/