Steam forcing NEW BAD agreement on us !?!?

[Bad Microsoft, bad!]

UPDATE: Title changed because I now realize the whole idea is that Steam was already losing badly via arbitration so they switched it to "you can only sue in the State of Washington in the USA.)

I saw the popup Steam is putting on some computers telling people about having to agree to the new terms.

Being so weary of all the times big companies force arbitration onto customers, I assumed it was going to be yet another one of those.

But I was pretty SHOCKED to see what it said!

Rather than force arbitration on us, as they and so very very very many big companies had done in the past, Steam is removing it! Sending disputes BACK TO THE COUIRTS!

Wow.

No idea what prompted that.

It's JUST PLAIN WEIRD! (Hooray for lack of crooked aribtration boards!)

[Chronocide]

Nguyên văn bởi Bad Microsoft, bad!:

No idea what prompted that.

It's JUST PLAIN WEIRD! (Hooray for lack of crooked aribtration boards!)

Nguyên văn bởi Chronocide:

Nguyên văn bởi Bishop Knight:

It's related to the Valve Corp vs Zaiger LLC lawsuite. Valve tried to block Zaiger from taking them to court and Valve lost. So, now they can be sued. The changes are good for Steam users. It means you don't have to go to arbitration before suing Valve.

Yeah, this seems to be the reason.
raw data here: https://casetext.com/case/valve-corp-v-zaiger-llc
reddit response here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/1fqdoxa/agree/

Summary here: https://www.bucherlawfirm.com/steam-case-explained and quoted below:
"Valve was sued in a class action lawsuit by developers for their anticompetitive restraints on pricing. Federal Judge John C. Coughenour ruled that those claims were credible and that Steam gamers can claim compensation for Valve's illegal monopoly, but gamers, unlike developers, must file individual arbitrations to do so. Bucher Law PLLC represents consumers in filing arbitration claims at no out of pocket cost. That means Bucher Law PLLC takes a portion of what we recover for you, and if you recover nothing, our services are free. If you want to learn more about Valve's anticompetitive pricing policies, you can watch the short video above or download the 115-page class action complaint which details Valve' improper conduct by clicking the button below."

So basically, because arbitration is free provided Steam loses the lawsuit, Steam users can earn free money by arbitration with steam.

So the change is make steam users need to pay for a lawyer, thus reducing the potential lawsuits because lawyers are expensive and most steam purchases are too petty to bother hiring a lawyer for.

[lailaamell]

Nguyên văn bởi Chronocide:

Nguyên văn bởi Bad Microsoft, bad!:

No idea what prompted that.

It's JUST PLAIN WEIRD! (Hooray for lack of crooked aribtration boards!)

Nguyên văn bởi Chronocide:

Yeah, this seems to be the reason.
raw data here: https://casetext.com/case/valve-corp-v-zaiger-llc
reddit response here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/1fqdoxa/agree/

Summary here: https://www.bucherlawfirm.com/steam-case-explained and quoted below:
"Valve was sued in a class action lawsuit by developers for their anticompetitive restraints on pricing. Federal Judge John C. Coughenour ruled that those claims were credible and that Steam gamers can claim compensation for Valve's illegal monopoly, but gamers, unlike developers, must file individual arbitrations to do so. Bucher Law PLLC represents consumers in filing arbitration claims at no out of pocket cost. That means Bucher Law PLLC takes a portion of what we recover for you, and if you recover nothing, our services are free. If you want to learn more about Valve's anticompetitive pricing policies, you can watch the short video above or download the 115-page class action complaint which details Valve' improper conduct by clicking the button below."

So basically, because arbitration is free provided Steam loses the lawsuit, Steam users can earn free money by arbitration with steam.

So the change is make steam users need to pay for a lawyer, thus reducing the potential lawsuits because lawyers are expensive and most steam purchases are too petty to bother hiring a lawyer for.

Oh remeber that one wolf fire wanted keys from steam and when they sold keys cheaper than price they set on steam as is their right

[Bad Microsoft, bad!]

Many states and countries are likely to just ignore that clause. "Not uphold it" to sound more legal.

But if you win a lawsuit against Steam, maybe you need to try to COLLECT your award in Washington because Steam doesn't have assests elsewhere? Anyone know?

[peppermint hollows]

Yeah they specify King County, Washington (state) which is where Valve is headquartered.

[Squirrel With Acorn]

Nguyên văn bởi lailaamell:

Nguyên văn bởi Chronocide:

Oh remeber that one wolf fire wanted keys from steam and when they sold keys cheaper than price they set on steam as is their right

Wolfire was wanting to sell the non Steam version on the PC for cheaper price and Valve threatened them with actions against the Steam version of the game if they did that.

Valve did this to many other developers as shown in the emails recently released in the wolfire v Valve lawsuit.

[battlezoby]

Nguyên văn bởi Anoi Hidalgo:

Nguyên văn bởi Zelhart:

This is great for Class action lawsuits! this is terrible for small individual cases. You waive your rights to a court outside of washington DC, you waive your right to arbitration, so you cant just call in you have to show up.. I dont see the "Good" part of this.

its Washington state mate. But im still unsure if they can actually demand you ise their local courta or not

They certainly can "demand it"...

But many U.S. states will not uphold that clause and will largely ignore it.

[lailaamell]

Nguyên văn bởi Purple:

Nguyên văn bởi lailaamell:

Oh remeber that one wolf fire wanted keys from steam and when they sold keys cheaper than price they set on steam as is their right

Wolfire was wanting to sell the non Steam version on the PC for cheaper price and Valve threatened them with actions against the Steam version of the game if they did that.

Valve did this to many other developers as shown in the emails recently released in the wolfire v Valve lawsuit.

This is why no store should have most of the games and why forced exclusivity of games and removal from steam to be put on other stores would benefit everyone it would lower valves influence force competition encourage every publisher to make their own store and launcher instead of using steam

[battlezoby]

Nguyên văn bởi peppermint hollows:

Yeah they specify King County, Washington (state) which is where Valve is headquartered.

Yea. States can be pretty biased toward their local big businesses. Moreso counties.

I live in Massachusetts where we have far more teaching hospitals and medical schools than most states. Unsurprisingly, we also have a lot of laws protecting doctors and hospitals that don't appear in other states.

Real big on is that you can't collect more than $50,000 for damages from a negligent "non-profit" hospital no matter how much damage they did or how much damage a court/jury awards you.

Of course, being "non-profit" doesn't mean people can't earn huge salaries while working for them and doing all sort of potentially negligent things.

I read the actual court file for a case where the victims were having problems collecting, but the Commonwealth of Massachusetts itself imposed huge FINES (hundreds of thousands of dollars I think) instead allowing that type of money to go to the victims. (The case was about the death of newborn infant.)

[battlezoby]

Nguyên văn bởi Anoi Hidalgo:

Nguyên văn bởi battlezoby:

They certainly can "demand it"...

But many U.S. states will not uphold that clause and will largely ignore it.

ive looked into a bit. It differs from state to state. Some of them would make Valve appear in their state court since they do business there, other states would difer to the agreement and you'd have to go to WA

Yea. I have little doubt Massachussetts wouldn't care much about that clause. (Although Republican-appointed Judges seem to be bringing this state more and more pro-big business. Even though it's was so Democrat that it was the ONLY state to not vote for Nixon's reelection. We used to have "Don't blame me, I'm from Massachusetts" bumper stickers because of that.)

Update: Or maybe I'm wrong about Massachussets. Damn Republican goveners have been loading this state up with pro-Big-Business judges that don't give a damn about real people.

Some research into actual laws seem to imply things have been changing over the past decade, and even during the past 4-5 years.

[Belgrim]

Nguyên văn bởi Zelhart:

This is great for Class action lawsuits! this is terrible for small individual cases. You waive your rights to a court outside of washington DC, you waive your right to arbitration, so you cant just call in you have to show up.. I dont see the "Good" part of this.

King County is Seattle NOT Washington DC. (I used to live in Seattle...)

[Mad Scientist]

Nguyên văn bởi Zelhart:

This is great for Class action lawsuits! this is terrible for small individual cases. You waive your rights to a court outside of washington DC, you waive your right to arbitration, so you cant just call in you have to show up.. I dont see the "Good" part of this.

State of Washington is not Washington DC.

[Haruspex]

The Zaiger lawsuit got dismissed[casetext.com]. This is very likely in response. Removing forced arbitration is absolutely a pro-consumer move, and it closes a loophole that ambulance chasers like Zaiger tried to use.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Nguyên văn bởi Haruspex:

The Zaiger lawsuit got dismissed[casetext.com]. This is very likely in response. Removing forced arbitration is absolutely a pro-consumer move, and it closes a loophole that ambulance chasers like Zaiger tried to use.

That wasn't the whole lawsuit.

What was dismissed was the claim Zaiger was abusing the arbitration claims because the court doesn't have personal jurisdiction over Zaiger.

[crunchyfrog]

It's not weird at all, because if you've been watching how this has been moving through the courts (and in other countries) then you'd probably be expecting it.

I've always been an advocate of legal matters on here for years.

Back before the current refund policy I was constantly impressing that I felt that Valve would change their refunds thing when the EU law came into force and was watching carefully. As it turned out not only did they have to change but they adopted it globally just after 2015.

The forced arbitration clause was increibly unpopular. But worse than this there have been several problems using it from various companies.

There was one hilarious case where loads of users got toegether and individually swamped a company with tons of forced arbirtration, exposing the problem that they didn't think this through and a class action would have been better.

But on top of this there have been certain issues through some courts where it's either been misapplied or question by judges. This sort of thing typically ends up with changes.

When you add that to the fact that many other countries render this stuff illegal (like we do in UK and Europe), then you shouldn't be too surprised.

[Bad Microsoft, bad!]

It's no wonder why they want to keep the lawsuits in Washington State - that's where Microsoft is and it's a safe bet that Microsoft has already conditioned the legislators and set court precedent in favor of big software compaines.

If you think people have problems with Steam, look up all the lawsuits in various countries vs. Microsoft. Microsoft is so bad, it lost a major lawsuit and was ordered to be split up. Only thing that saved them in that President Bush got into office and his D.A. intentionally lost the appeal.

Odd thing is that Microsoft/Blizzard are seemingly competitors now, but they both seem to be headquartered in the same US state with less than 2.5% of US population.