The new terms are about taking your rights away

[Arksyne]

Valve is trying to work around a new California law that would force them to admit they're not SELLING you anything, you're not BUYING anything at all - you're just renting your games. Valve could take the licenses away any time they want.

Valve, like most corporate people, are a bunch of greedy cowards, and won't admit that to your face.

Instead, they've change the terms so you promise you live in King County, Washington along with all the greedy tech bros at Amazon and Microsoft.

Start buying games on GoG whenever you can. They actually *sell* you the game!

[Boblin the Goblin]

Originally posted by I block trolls, idiots & liars:

Originally posted by CANCELCULTURE:

If they had ever told us to read the Steam Subscriber Agreement, we'd have known that Steam is a subscription rental service.

https://store.steampowered.com/subscriber_agreement/?snr=1_44_44_



Terms that did not change.

I laugh that people still pre order and or pay full price for rentals.

Valve has claimed to be a "subscription rental service" in court on more than a few occasions, and in many cases the court has rejected the claim.

I Germany, well, the EU, many sections of the STEAM subscriber agreement are null and void as it violates the laws here.


I've been getting most of my newer games on PlayStation...Physical copies still exist, and the best thing, a used game market...something STEAM killed on PC.

That post makes that name extremely ironic.

[Slav Mcgopnik]

The only change was that they no longer require you to go through arbitration.

This is huge, because arbitration exists so that big corpos can dump any small scale case into the dumpster and ignore it,

This is also one of the only times i have seen a TOS change tell you exactly what changed rather than just say “accepted the updated TOS pls”.

They handled this well and boosted your rights and people still complain.

[mldb88]

Originally posted by Slav Mcgopnik:

The only change was that they no longer require you to go through arbitration.

This is huge, because arbitration exists so that big corpos can dump any small scale case into the dumpster and ignore it,

This is also one of the only times i have seen a TOS change tell you exactly what changed rather than just say “accepted the updated TOS pls”.

They handled this well and boosted your rights and people still complain.

Yup, most of the people who are complaining either didn’t read/understand the update or are part of the crowd that intentionally spreads misinformation in an attempt to stir up drama/ anti steam sentiments

[Animus]

Originally posted by Mad Scientist:

Originally posted by Preacher:

Physical media and/or owning the files on your computer will always be superior than trusting a third party to not revoke them from you for any reason.

While true, its also extremely difficult to be banned from steam for an account itself via lock or deletion, it takes actual effort to achieve. Basically someone has to choose to be a nuisance for a prolonged amount of time.

Not just a nuisance, but actively harmful to Steam or its users.

The only recorded case of an account getting fully locked/banned, and its game access removed, was from a guy who basically spent years harassing and threatening people, Steam support staff included.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Slav Mcgopnik:

The only change was that they no longer require you to go through arbitration.

This is huge, because arbitration exists so that big corpos can dump any small scale case into the dumpster and ignore it,

This is also one of the only times i have seen a TOS change tell you exactly what changed rather than just say “accepted the updated TOS pls”.

They handled this well and boosted your rights and people still complain.

The only people put out were scam lawyers who kept using the arbitration as basically a harrassment tactic to force companies into a settlement.

Arbitration is done at the company's expense so every time an arbitration case comes up they have to spend money to look at it address it and send it away, and then the lawyer comes back next month with another submission...and so on and so on.

So the change is that arbitration is now OPTIONAL. Il.e weither Valve or the consumer can decline arbitration and go straight to court. Neither side is forced/obligated to go through arbitration.

The thing is filning in court is done at the plantiff's expense intially.
If the plantiff wins then then reimbursement for the legal fees is generally part and parcel of the awards.

And yeah you can kinda tell this was likely the first time many people ever actually read the SSA. It's also quite cute how thiey think 'I'mma go to GoG' When GoG's ToS have never substantially differed from STeams.

[Marky]

im scared now im going to lose all my games why?

[Marky]

also i didn't do anything wrong

[peppermint hollows]

Originally posted by Marky:

im scared now im going to lose all my games why?

You're not going to lose your games.

[veracsthane]

its amazing how no one realized this despite nearly 15 years of politcal chat bans that did exactly that and i know a few people stupid enough to think california did something good. califronia never does anything good or right in 2024 and its just a matter of time until we find out what they are doing.

[veracsthane]

Originally posted by peppermint hollows:

Originally posted by Marky:

im scared now im going to lose all my games why?

You're not going to lose your games.

you arent going to lose your games "YET"

give it time after gabe dies and microsoft buys steam.

[EyEsQuB]

so may steam boot lickers

[Nx Machina]

Originally posted by Arksyne:

Valve is trying to work around a new California law that would force them to admit they're not SELLING you anything, you're not BUYING anything at all - you're just renting your games. Valve could take the licenses away any time they want.

Valve, like most corporate people, are a bunch of greedy cowards, and won't admit that to your face.

Instead, they've change the terms so you promise you live in King County, Washington along with all the greedy tech bros at Amazon and Microsoft.

Start buying games on GoG whenever you can. They actually *sell* you the game!

Why is it that people assume and presume it is only Valve?

https://www.blizzard.com/en-us/legal/fba4d00f-c7e4-4883-b8b9-1b4500a402ea/blizzard-end-user-license-agreement

[veracsthane]

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Originally posted by Arksyne:

Valve is trying to work around a new California law that would force them to admit they're not SELLING you anything, you're not BUYING anything at all - you're just renting your games. Valve could take the licenses away any time they want.

Valve, like most corporate people, are a bunch of greedy cowards, and won't admit that to your face.

Instead, they've change the terms so you promise you live in King County, Washington along with all the greedy tech bros at Amazon and Microsoft.

Start buying games on GoG whenever you can. They actually *sell* you the game!

Why is it that people assume and presume it is only Valve?

https://www.blizzard.com/en-us/legal/fba4d00f-c7e4-4883-b8b9-1b4500a402ea/blizzard-end-user-license-agreement

like i said its not steam its the law from the leftest coasts. steam doesnt have a choice. anyone who does a digital copy should be dropping a new ula

btw most of the tos and ula will be dumped in the future so you dont need to worry about this. its an issue with the ip law and things will get bad enough thanks to crap like pocket pair and nintendo that there will be forced updates to existing law and it will either cause another round of update or kill of quite alot of industries not just gaming.

[RiO]

Originally posted by mldb88:

Originally posted by Mathius:

We literally used to live this way without signing all these things. We only have to do it now because people have scammed, and sued the crap out of everyone until we got to this point.

I don't care how old you are. If you believe things were always this way, you're wrong. Period.

These agreements still existed back in the day too, it was just implicitly agreed upon with purchase/payment. Someone never read the contracting agreements or legal documents that came with appliances, game manuals, etc etc.

...
I still have plenty of old game manuals from the '90s here.
All of them have EULAs either printed on the back page of the manual, or as a separate inlay sheet which fit a one or two A6 sheets. Most not even in actual small print; just regular print.

What those old EULAs boil down to is that you're only buying a single copy of the game and the right to use it; not the game itself - i.e. the entire IP. And that said copy is only for personal use, and you're not allowed to exploit it commercially. Many don't even bar reselling said copy. In fact, some explicitly make mention that you do have that right.
And that's really all of it, for most of them.

The original Starcraft EULA, for instance, doesn't even bother to contain any legalese indicating its online components are sold as a service that would allow for Blizzard to discontinue it.


We have to deal with these EULAs now for one simple reason:
in the old days publishers didn't bother bolting everything down, because they didn't have any effective means to enforce it. If they'd wanted to enforce it, they'd have to go through courts where much of the legalese wouldn't hold up - and worse: would've created precedent that it shouldn't hold up.

But now, with digital distribution and DRM, publishers can enforce it. All the power is in their hands. And it's the consumer which has to go to court to correct any maltreatment after the fact. In effect - EULAs are largely scare tactic used to dissuade consumers from trying to exercise their rights.

The other thing that changed between then and now, is that gaming used to be a niche industry. Whereas it's out-grossing Hollywood nowadays. And that shift in revenue has brought with it, all the profit-maximizing sleazebags as well.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by Mathius:

Originally posted by mldb88:

I’m not just talking about video games either. Also contract law has existed long before any of those things. Just because people were too lax about things for their own good in terms of sending a minor to the corner store to ILLEGALLY buy smokes doesn’t mean laws didn’t exist.

I'm glad you brought that up, Karen.

Good way to lose a debate instantly is to begin with name-calling.

The rest seems to not really have any relation to the thread since many consider this change a more pro-consumer method of dispute resolving, although now it's likely going to cost money likely thanks to frivolous parties compared to arbitership as they were willing to waive off an initial amount, whereas going to court they most likely wont as the expenses would already be higher. Thank time wasting parties with ill-intent for that.