Valve Drops the Hammer On Infringing Dota 2 Mace

[Jaythulhu]

Ya know, I'm aware they've done some great stuff for PC gaming, but overall, FUCK VALVE. I still haven't forgiven them for their retarded nonsense and the bullshit they pulled on Troika, and how Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines (one of the greatest PC rpgs ever made, once you get the fan patches and a few mods) suffered as a result.

 

[Th37thTrump3t]

Wonderful, glad to know me not supporting steam anymore is valid. He does something as small as this and gets banned for it and loses access to all the games he paid for.

Small? He stole another person/company's Intellectual Property and passed it off as his own for SALE in a different game product. That's not small, that's HUGE! He deserved his ban.

Yeah and he spent who knows how much off games on Steam. Ban him from ever playing the game again and prevent him from making money off the item , but losing 1000s of dollars worth of games is not fair. I'm never replacing my discs if getting banned is this easy.

Why don't we do some math then. If he put this item out to sell, and the item was bought by 24,603 people, then even at $.10 a pop that's still just under two and a half grand he just made. And I highly doubt he had over $2500 worth of games on his Steam account.

Also, the fact that Valve decided to monetize the item can get them sued by the company that created Aion. They are covering their asses and rightfully so. People are so quick to demonize a company that is just looking out for their best interest and in turn their consumer's best interest. This guy deserved the ban. And he can always create another account and re-buy the games.

You come into my home, start tossing my game discs = $X into a bag and I have the lawful right to shoot you dead on the spot. You delete my Steam account of games = $X and... what? Nothing? This digital property divide will come back to haunt us all.

You forget that the government and the banks can take away everything you own just as easily as Valve can take away the games you paid for, for something as simple as owing them money.

 

[LackofCertainty]

Since Valve bans don't remove your access to your games this whole discussion is kinda moot, but upon finding this out I am disappointed in Valve.

I was under the impression that if someone did something seriously wrong through Steam, Valve had a serious punishment to dole out. (thereby discouraging people from doing bad stuff) Instead I learned that their harshest punishment, is basically a slap on the wrist. You don't lose anything, and all it takes is for the person to make a new account to continue using the steam service.

Also, to the people who are upset at the very idea of Steam "Taking away your games" I have a perspective to propose. Steam is not taking away your games, they are no longer allowing you to use your service. If you have all your games stored on a spare hard-drive, then you are still allowed to play them directly as much as you want. The only thing "Valve taking your games" would mean is that they turned off your access to their servers and wouldn't allow you to use their remote storage anymore.

In other words, if you're paranoid about Valve taking your games (which they don't actually do) then pay 50$ to buy another HD and store your games on that. Or, you could just not use Steam, I guess. It's no skin off my nose.


One more time for the people in the cheap seats. This post is hypothetical in nature, because:

Valve does not take away your games even when they ban accounts. ... because Valve is awesome. (I admit I am a big steam fan)

But why do they hate steam?

Because it's the hero gamers deserve, but not the one they need right now. So, we'll hate it, because it can take it. Because it's not our hero. It's a silent guardian. A watchful protector. A Dark Knight.

^This made me giggle like an idiot. Thank you Sir/Madam.

 

[JWAN]

I don't know how much money the guy made off the mace (and will thus lose) but the part that really stings is the ban from Steam, which means the loss of all the games in his library. I would never condone plagiarism, but that's an awfully harsh punishment and one that I don't think necessarily speaks well of Steam. Transgressions must be punished, but stripping someone of games he's rightfully paid for is a little too heavy-handed for my liking.

I don't know about that. Valve is taking a huge risk with this type of monetary exchange and they made it clear, crystal clear, in the T&S agreement what would happen to people who abuse the system. Could you imagine what could have happened if Valve would have been caught and sued? People could have lost their jobs from this. Companies have been sued into bankruptcy for much less than this. I'm not saying to drag this guy out and flog him but this is the best option, that sends a message BEFORE the lawyers get involved. Hell, T&S's aren't legally binding in *some* countries so this guy could sue and get it back.

 

[JWAN]

That's the one thing I hate about sites like Stream.You get banned you lose all your games.If that's not a crock of shit I don't know what is.Could you imaging Nintendo or Sega doing this back in the 90's? Oh you let a friend borrow your Sonic 2 game? Well your banned from Sega!We will take all your Sega games back!

It's sad that we can't own the games we buy now a days.

I'm thinking the article here is wrong and that dude didn't really lose his games, and that the person who wrote the article just assumed being banned means you lose your game (it used to mean that too)

According to this he didn't lose his games http://www.shacknews.com/article/73450/steam-account-bans-no-longer-take-away-all-your-games

Even if he did lose his games, I'm pretty sure the T&S explains what happens for plagiarism.
People literally, could have lost their jobs over this and I'm glad that clearer heads prevailed and the lawyers didn't need to come swooping in.
Yet.

 

[Something Amyss]

Um, how does it not speak well of Steam? It shows that Steam will ban you if you violate their Terms of Service and open them up to potential legal liability and/or lawsuits. That's an admirable trait, not one deserving of scorn.

As long as you're Valve and not, say, EA.