Steam TOS Leads to Trouble in Germany

Xan Krieger

Completely insane
Feb 11, 2009
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I would like it if there was some place that kept a copy of the games that everyone owns so if Steam goes under for whatever reason we all have access to the games we all bought. The thought of losing everything based on the actions of one company is horrific. Good for Germany, I fully support them.
 

Evil Smurf

Admin of Catoholics Anonymous
Nov 11, 2011
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Valve, this is not medicine and does not slap me on the knee. Stop it.
 

Frostbite3789

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Jul 12, 2010
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V da Mighty Taco said:
This is why competition can be a very good thing. If this goes down with Steam and EA capitalizes on this by making Origin's EULA more user-friendly than Steam's, even I would start using Origin and the DD industry would be encouraged to follow suit or provide some other incentive in order to compete.

Of course, this is EA here. The odds of them figuring out what user-friendly means are slim-to-none unless their entire upper management was replaced with competent people.
Their ToS is the same as Steam's and don't look now but they did have a massive sale on all the Battlefield games yesterday.

I'm not saying they might actually change for the better, but anything is possible.
 

Lyri

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Dec 8, 2008
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Aeshi said:
You could always just decline the update this TOS comes with. You don't need the latest version of Steam to play your games/whatever, else it'd be basically unusable given the frequency with which it updates and said updates reluctance to stick.
I thought that was the whole point of this debacle is that you couldn't decline the new ToS?

Once you decline it you get locked out of your account and games.
 

lacktheknack

Je suis joined jewels.
Jan 19, 2009
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I guess I'm the only one who agreed with the terms because I found them acceptable.

They don't take away your right to sue, they even will PAY YOUR LEGAL FEES if you take them to small-claims court. They just don't want a class action lawsuit. I'm OK with this.
 

Royas

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Apr 25, 2008
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This was originally a reply to Falterfire, but I royally screwed up the quoting and couldn't fix it, so pretend I'm quoting him here. :)


If a contract is contradicted by law, the terms of that contract may not be enforceable, regardless of whether or not you agreed to them. In this case, Germany has already said that digital licenses are sold and are the same as any other product. If the contract or TOS says otherwise, the TOS will likely be wrong. Not the law.

I can sign a contract saying I agree to let you jack me in the face, but since assault is illegal, you would still likely go to jail. The law trumps the contract. This is really no different.
 

Falterfire

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Jul 9, 2012
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Royas said:
This was originally a reply to Falterfire, but I royally screwed up the quoting and couldn't fix it, so pretend I'm quoting him here. :)


If a contract is contradicted by law, the terms of that contract may not be enforceable, regardless of whether or not you agreed to them. In this case, Germany has already said that digital licenses are sold and are the same as any other product. If the contract or TOS says otherwise, the TOS will likely be wrong. Not the law.

I can sign a contract saying I agree to let you jack me in the face, but since assault is illegal, you would still likely go to jail. The law trumps the contract. This is really no different.
Then we're on the same page. Based on my reading of the TOS and admittedly lackluster knowledge of German property law, the TOS is legal, in which case it would be enforceable.

If you are correct (And there's a solid chance you are if you know anything about German property law since I don't) then yes, if the ToS is illegal then Steam is in trouble.

What Steam's response will be if the ToS is found to be illegal, I don't know. I am fairly certain the response is unlikely to be favorable for the consumers though. But hey, I might be wrong and all that changes is the whole no-class-action-lawsuit thing gets removed in which case I will be very happy to be wrong.
 

V da Mighty Taco

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Apr 9, 2011
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Frostbite3789 said:
V da Mighty Taco said:
This is why competition can be a very good thing. If this goes down with Steam and EA capitalizes on this by making Origin's EULA more user-friendly than Steam's, even I would start using Origin and the DD industry would be encouraged to follow suit or provide some other incentive in order to compete.

Of course, this is EA here. The odds of them figuring out what user-friendly means are slim-to-none unless their entire upper management was replaced with competent people.
Their ToS is the same as Steam's and don't look now but they did have a massive sale on all the Battlefield games yesterday.

I'm not saying they might actually change for the better, but anything is possible.
I don't want to get into this argument or start a flame war over this, so I'm just going to avoid discussing whether or not they're the same. I will reiterate, though, that my point was that they could capitalize on this if they released a better EULA than Steam. With all the hatred for all the one-sided anti-customer EULAs in multiple industries, laxing the EULA on Origin a bit would make people feel like progress is being made and would probably help EA out on gathering the good will and respect that they so sorely lack right now. Unfortunately, as long as they are being ran by people like John Riccitiello and Peter Moore, that's highly unlikely to happen.

Captcha: "down pour" I don't know why, but that seems fitting.
 

Spitfire

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Dec 27, 2008
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Good. That was a serious mistake on Valve's part, and I'm really curious to see how they'll respond to this.
 

chadachada123

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Jan 17, 2011
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Falterfire said:
As for the VZDZ, I don't know what their end goal is.

If they want Steam to allow users to reject terms of service, obviously Valve is just going to shut down their service anywhere that ruling applies: As a business, they don't want to be stuck in a position where they aren't allowed to legally protect themselves with a ToS.

If they want Steam to switch to a 'I can sell my license' system, they'd have to persuade Valve it was worth it to completely renegotiate all of their deals with all the publishers they currently sell games from in order to obtain such permission (Since I'm almost certain their contract includes a bit about licenses being non-transferable once activated) and that's not likely to end well for the customers either since it would probably not apply retroactively. Most likely it would end with Steam, once again, just withdrawing their service from anywhere with such a ruling.
I don't see how "allowing users to deny UPDATED terms of services" is at ALL equatable to "allow(ing) users to reject terms of service." Users in the former would still be held to their old, unupdated terms of service.

The former appears to be the goal of the VZDZ, not the latter, and your reasoning seems to be arguing against the latter.

Steam would look like pretty big dicks for leaving a country because of the former, but would totally be justified in the event of the latter, in my opinion.
 

Upbeat Zombie

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Jun 29, 2010
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While I love Steam, and Valve like everyone else they'll probably need somebody to keep them in check every now and again.
 

idarkphoenixi

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May 2, 2011
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It is pretty baffling that declining the TOS would result in not only permanent deactivation but the loss of all purchased content and no hope of getting them back. I mean, how many people said no without realising all the things that were to follow??

Maybe it's just me but the reasonable option would be to let them decline at no penalty and if they want to access the online features ever again they can just accept at their own leisure.
 

Some_weirdGuy

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Nov 25, 2010
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Excellent to hear. I'm as much a valve fan as anyone and it's a nice change to actually get reasonably priced games (and also ridiculous sales), but one of my suspicions from the start was that Steam can basically steal these games back whenever they want, or go changing the rules and force you to comply.

and that is really exactly what just happened with the TOS change.
 

Twilight_guy

Sight, Sound, and Mind
Nov 24, 2008
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So they're demanding that the company changes its policies or they'll sue them. You do realize this is a bad precedent for every other company. What keeps them from saying that any other business practice is bad and suing them until the business bends to their will. Valve is a monopoly and holds you like a spider over a fire. You knew that when you bought from them, and you agreed to it. Demanding they change after the fat isn't right.
 

Ancientgamer

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Jan 16, 2009
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What valve is doing is indeed coercion, but in the USA at least it doesn't mean anything, you can't sign away your rights, whether for a TOS or anything else.
 

Dendio

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Mar 24, 2010
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Its a company. These things will get worse until something turns it around
You can use steam without placing it upon a pedestal. I just like the sales tbh
 

Falterfire

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chadachada123 said:
I don't see how "allowing users to deny UPDATED terms of services" is at ALL equatable to "allow(ing) users to reject terms of service." Users in the former would still be held to their old, unupdated terms of service.

The former appears to be the goal of the VZDZ, not the latter, and your reasoning seems to be arguing against the latter.

Steam would look like pretty big dicks for leaving a country because of the former, but would totally be justified in the event of the latter, in my opinion.
Well, given that the existing terms of service expires when the new one comes out, yes you do have to update to the new terms of service. Why does the old one expire? Because legally it would be a mess for Steam to support multiple versions of the Terms of Service concurrently. Could you imagine trying to manage such a system 8 years down the line when a series of (mostly minor) changes results in having to manage which specific version out of the probably eight or so ToS agreements over the years people were using?

Besides, if they change their ToS it's usually because something was wrong (At least in their opinion) with the old one and they no longer feel that it adequately covers what they believe needs to be covered for them to provide the service. So they especially don't want people sticking with old ToS agreements and exploiting the differences (Whether real or simply considered as such by Valve) between them.

I'm hoping you can at least see why holding down multiple simultaneous ToS agreements is a bad idea for Valve, even if you hate the ToS agreement they're currently using.
 

chadachada123

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Jan 17, 2011
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Falterfire said:
chadachada123 said:
I don't see how "allowing users to deny UPDATED terms of services" is at ALL equatable to "allow(ing) users to reject terms of service." Users in the former would still be held to their old, unupdated terms of service.

The former appears to be the goal of the VZDZ, not the latter, and your reasoning seems to be arguing against the latter.

Steam would look like pretty big dicks for leaving a country because of the former, but would totally be justified in the event of the latter, in my opinion.
Well, given that the existing terms of service expires when the new one comes out, yes you do have to update to the new terms of service. Why does the old one expire? Because legally it would be a mess for Steam to support multiple versions of the Terms of Service concurrently. Could you imagine trying to manage such a system 8 years down the line when a series of (mostly minor) changes results in having to manage which specific version out of the probably eight or so ToS agreements over the years people were using?

Besides, if they change their ToS it's usually because something was wrong (At least in their opinion) with the old one and they no longer feel that it adequately covers what they believe needs to be covered for them to provide the service. So they especially don't want people sticking with old ToS agreements and exploiting the differences (Whether real or simply considered as such by Valve) between them.

I'm hoping you can at least see why holding down multiple simultaneous ToS agreements is a bad idea for Valve, even if you hate the ToS agreement they're currently using.
Given that we're in the technological age, I highly doubt that it would be that complicated for a developer/publisher like Valve to come up with a system.

They could also not update their TOS unless it actually needs to be updated, with only a change every year or so max, barring court rulings.

I can see your point, but I consider it laziness more than anything else.
 

Ashannon Blackthorn

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Sep 5, 2011
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All Valve needs to do is this. Tell people to either agree or disagree with the new ToS. if they say no. Freeze their account for buying new games. Tell them they have x time (like 1-2 months) to download all games in their library to a hard drive and after that time delete the account. Valve gets its ToS, the users who don't like it keep their games and far as I can see win for all.

Now they'd have oti ensure that the person got the message. emails and notices are fine but people can always say they didn't get them. So I'd say lock the account and to unlock it the person has to hit a "yes I know about the time limit to download my games" or something similiar.
 

Insomniac55

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Dec 6, 2008
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This is good... and to be honest I'd wished that more of a stink had been kicked up about this. I mean, I clicked 'accept' just like so many others because I use my Steam account too much, and have too much money tied up in it, to do anything else. And while I like Valve, this little change and their reaction was bullshit. The terms of service they previously had probably had provisions giving them the right to change whatever they want, whenever they want... But this change was NOT done in a way that treated the consumer fairly. Can they get away with it? Yeah. Should they? No.

I hope they destroyed it court and rethink their business practices.