Have they rolled out the new EULA today? Is acceptance of the agreement on a per-machine or per-account basis? My brother accepted the agreement on our shared computer and I haven't been prompted on my laptop. I probably would've accepted anyway, but it would be nice to know that I clicked it myself.

Limiting your liability as a prerequisite for doing business with people is not an infringement of other people's "rights". My employer's rights are not being infringed if I refuse to perform specific unsafe tasks, and the "rights" of consumers to consume are not being infringed if the legal department of a company decides to put their products/services behind a no-class-action wall.

If I was digitally selling goods to millions of anonymous users I would stipulate the exact same term. No one goes into business to sacrifice their profits to help ambulance chasing lawyers get rich.

This is just another way of Valve saying

I'm in the EU where this doesn't mean anything.

@Demoskinos said:

Eh. Don't care.

Yeah, I'm not even gonna lie. This is exactly how I feel.

Another thought: the notion of consumer "rights" where goods produced by others are concerned, "rights" which can override the terms by which the producer sells their goods is no different from the notion of "slaveholder rights". You do not have the right to dictate the terms by which other people produce goods. Just because you get more positive play in the media than slaveholders do does not mean you're in the right.

Yes that's an extreme example, but none of you consumerists seem to even have a modicum of sense about the immense innovation, risk, and endeavour that goes into producing the values you all so thoughtlessly consume.

I have never liked this whole "No Class Action Lawsuits" clause that has started springing up. I feel somehow that it is totally taking away consumers rights.

booooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Want to know why people aren't angry at Valve? Because unlike Sony and EA they are being extremely transparent about it. They aren't burying it in the EULA hoping nobody will discover it like was the case with EA and Sony.

Want to know why people aren't angry at Valve? Because unlike Sony and EA they are being extremely transparent about it. They aren't burying it in the EULA hoping nobody will discover it like was the case with EA and Sony.

@Scotto said:

@doesnoevil said:

HA HA... "Valve Joins EA, Sony, OTHERS?" how about MICRO$OFT?" i know you guys love your xboxes, but c'mon!

Yeah, he should name every single company that ever inserted these new clauses, in order to placate the fanboys like you!

Fanboy is the guy who cant even mix Microsoft with the "evil" EA and Sony... putting them in the "others" group as if microsoft is not notable enough in the gaming industry to make this headline... if i'm a fanboy you're a blind idiot. see what i did there?

i had to look up if ms was in the list because i honestly didn't know. not saying they have to name everyone but which are the 3 most notable companies in gaming? off the top of your head? why do i get the feeling you're being intentionally dense?

p.s.: i won't deny i have an axe to grind with M$ for the RROD'd 360 i couldn't get replaced for not living in the US and buying imported (basically, i game on everything but the 360 because of that) don't get how that makes me a fanboy who needs to be placated... ASSuming much?

Can some EU folks file a class action lawsuit over this as a favor for the US users? Thanks in advance.

@CL60: I prefer "hypercrite" and "ultracrite" for massive dramage. ;D

Well what am I supposed to do, click no? Pardon me if I don't stress myself over something I have no control over.

@sephirm87 said:

As an aspiring lawyer in school who believes in consumer protection, class action lawsuits are real shitty, because they are (in the real world application) all about shitty lawyers manipulating people into getting involved with something, then the lawyer wins big (or doesn't, like Vegas) and then takes a HUGE chunk of the winnings because they "won big." Also, when you sign on to a class action lawsuit, you forfeit your ability to sue later for related situations. Just food for though.

Honestly, not sure how I feel about this, but if it really bugs the consumer enough, people will not buy their games, and they will drop this from their EULA faster than you can blink

I really don't think people care enough, and it's far too easy to just click "agree" and continue on.

@Demoskinos

Want to know why people aren't angry at Valve? Because unlike Sony and EA they are being extremely transparent about it. They aren't burying it in the EULA hoping nobody will discover it like was the case with EA and Sony.

Nope, pretty sure it's because people are hypocrites.

TOS's have been overturned in court before, especially the "click through and agree to this 8 pages of bullshit nobody reads to use our software" variety. I've decided not to be concerned about them any more - if the need for justice is severe enough, the law changes.

@ONIKAGEI said:

Not sure i want to live in a world where companies can say, "hey, you cant hold us accountable for stuff" and have it enforced. I would hope that the shaky legal ground would bring this to a halt if challenged in reality, but if it didn't it's all a bit "Dystopian future" for me.

I didnt read the part where you weren't allow to action at valve at all. just the part where you couldn't do class action suits which almost all I have seen are lawyer cash grabs.

this "wah wah wah my rights" has got to stop. you still have the right for recourse you cant just intimidate some company into an out of court settlement because you all band together. If your complaint is legit it should hold up by itself.

I ain't even mad.

Not cool with thiiiiiiiis...

I find it surprising this to even be a 'thing'. How can this possibly be legally binding? Haven't EULAs been straight-up dismissed in courts for being too vague or rambling, so much so that they can't possibly be considered a valid contract? The fact that they even would consider disabling their consumers, or at least intend to, in such a way is incredibly disturbing. From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense. From a person perspective, it's fucking insane.

Great, so now little old me gets to go up against a multi-billion dollar corporation with as many lawyers as I have kitchen appliances all by my lonesome. I feel so loved.

With people doing stupid shit like suing Bioware (wasting everyone's time) over the ending of Mass Effect 3, I can't say I blame them at all. In the case of Mass Effect 2, people weren't promised or entitled to anything. Mob mentality is fucking stupid and dangerous. Especially in the video game community. Don't forget we're talking about video games here, folks. Fucking video games. Stop trying to sue everyone because you're a self-important brat. Of course if they snatched your money or did you wrong personally - sue their pants off if comes to that. That is something you WANT to keep one-on-one anyways. Why would you want to split the change?

the "rights" of consumers to consume are not being infringed if the legal department of a company decides to put their products/services behind a no-class-action wall.

I think i am ok with this. Have not lost any respect for Value. (yet)

Class action lawsuits only benefit the lawyers anyhow. No situation has ever been properly rectified with a CA Lawsuit.

iv not read the comments because there are too many, but it sort of disgusted me how Valve referred to itself as a subscription service in the end user agreement, i nearly clicked decline, but then i realised i probably wouldn't have access to Civ 5 and DoW 2 which are really the only games i give most of a shit about on steam. i really should have read through that thing better but to be quite frank, im drunk right now...

Everybody is kind of missing the big picture. Why this? Why now?

Well, two reasons, hidden in plain sight:

-The new EU-mandated obligation of reselling digital purchases. Now they need a separate European branch now so they can deal with this separately without going down globally.

-Windows 8, the so-called "catastrophe". Microsoft is trying to force Valve out of the game with the new OS, and if we can't play our games because of this war and any significant percentage of the huge playerbase would go against Valve, they could lose big time.

The thing about it is, once a person (or their lawyer) wins a case against one of the publishers for an infringement, a legal precedent will be set, and all subsequent cases will be judged from that viewpoint. What this means, is that the first winning lawsuit gets a windfall, and sets up future lawsuits to reap that same windfall, instead of a lump-sum settlement being doled out for all who opt-in on the class action. This could actually spell bigger trouble for these publishers.

@sephirm87 said:

As an aspiring lawyer in school who believes in consumer protection, class action lawsuits are real shitty, because they are (in the real world application) all about shitty lawyers manipulating people into getting involved with something, then the lawyer wins big (or doesn't, like Vegas) and then takes a HUGE chunk of the winnings because they "won big." Also, when you sign on to a class action lawsuit, you forfeit your ability to sue later for related situations. Just food for though.

Honestly, not sure how I feel about this, but if it really bugs the consumer enough, people will not buy their games, and they will drop this from their EULA faster than you can blink

The point of class action suits is not to reward the victims, but rather to punish the offender (usually a corporate entity) financially to such a degree that it will deter them from repeating the same liable actions again in pursuit of profit. In other words, the fine has to be much larger than any potential revenue gained, which would never happen in an individual lawsuit against a large corporation such as Valve, Sony, etc.

First and foremost companies are not your friends, nor do they have your best interest in mind, no matter how cool they seem. class action lawsuits, imperfect as they may be, are necessary to maintain important checks and balances within the market

also, to align oneself as a devote to a particular company is beyond foolish, and to suggest you don't need things like class action lawsuits is beyond comprehension. there may be more important issues in the world, but to abandon one's ability to think critically seems to be the underlying point of contention here.

I can't imagine a situation where I'd feel the need to sue a video game company.

Predictable, but it sucks nonetheless. I'm not about to stop using Steam because of it, but it's humbling to know I now have less rights as a consumer. I don't know the specifics, but I'm assuming this, ideally, (in their point of view) prevents or restricts them being sued by customers, whether or not their grievance is legitimate or not?

I wonder if that European law has come to pass, the one making it necessary to have the ability to return digital products. And more to the point, what Valve will do to facilitate it, should they do so. I probably wouldn't be far wrong in expecting it to be the least useful, and most profitable method that lies within the confines of said law.

Man, I'm cynical as hell, Valve aren't helping though.

@BiG_Weasel: Problem is that the legal system would come to a grinding halt if each victim filed an individual suit. How many people have bought stuff off of Steam? Even at a super conservative 1 million, imagine if Valve was liable for something that happens and every consumer/victim filed individual suits at the same time. The costs and time required of the court system would cripple any country, which is why the concept of "class actions" was introduced in the first place.

@Darkstalker: That's the whole point of organizing joint lawsuits. by their very design, claims are vetted scrutinized over well before they officially become a class action lawsuit. Handling claims privately means the company can govern themselves with absolutely NO transparency.

again, class action lawsuits don't exist to make people rich, as groundbeef summed it up: they exist to deter companies from committing and repeating liable actions, such as leveraging the costs of paying off the few who are effected, opposed to actually fixing the problem.

One more thing, just wanted to say how dirty it is of Valve to sneak this in right after their summer sale. As if people are going to walk away in protest now that they've just sunk a bunch of money into the "service".

@Nerolus: Bioware was never sued. Essentially an angry mob threatened to organize and file a class-action lawsuit, but it never transpired. And anyone who thinks that lawsuit would have held up in court is living in a dream world. It wouldn't have made it through the first trial. Bioware simply kowtowed to the masses at the possibility of losing customers (even that i'm not sure), which is completely another topic altogether.

@Darkstalker said:

@ONIKAGEI said:

Not sure i want to live in a world where companies can say, "hey, you cant hold us accountable for stuff" and have it enforced. I would hope that the shaky legal ground would bring this to a halt if challenged in reality, but if it didn't it's all a bit "Dystopian future" for me.

I didnt read the part where you weren't allow to action at valve at all. just the part where you couldn't do class action suits which almost all I have seen are lawyer cash grabs.

this "wah wah wah my rights" has got to stop. you still have the right for recourse you cant just intimidate some company into an out of court settlement because you all band together. If your complaint is legit it should hold up by itself.

I forgot who it was, but it was someone here at GB when EA first rolled the whole "class action" thing that mentioned that you're better off taking these companies to small claims court and getting your $5K or whatever since it's usually not worth a company's time. Class Action suits are of no import at all.

@patrickklepek said:

Again, time will tell on this, but I’m bothered by the response by most players to just shrug at this move, as they have in the past. You should carefully scrutinize the reasons your rights are being limited, even it’s by a company who has traditionally been exceptionally consumer-friendly in the past, Valve. There may never be a point in your life where a class action lawsuit benefits you, you may be tired of getting emails about being part of class action lawsuits you didn’t realize were happening, you may not understand why you received a quarter-sized check in the mail related to a class action lawsuit from a few years ago whose email notification went in your spam folder, but you shouldn’t be okay giving up your rights. One day, you may wish that right was at your disposal, and suddenly it won’t be.

I agree with you Patrick, but I think Americans are numb to this treatment by now. Virtually every agreement you sign now has arbitration clauses and has for years now from Credit Cards to Gym memberships. Why would gamers react at all to this change by Valve when bigger aspects of their life have already been signed away?

And certainly the Class Action system is a broken way to do things for consumers and companies and that's the root of the problem.

Still personally I think it's unconstitutional to circumvent the courts system like this. But if nobody does anything about it , every company will eventually exploit this due to competitive reasons.

These situations always do bother me, but at the same time, stuff like Steam is pretty crucial for me. Not many other services out there offer what Valve does with Steam, after all, and I've got way too many games bought through there to just cast it aside in protest, great as that would be.

I can only hope that this stuff doesn't hold up against scrutiny.

The only situation where I could see a class-action lawsuit being necessary, is if a company is half-assedly storing our credit card information, and a hacker steals it and uses it. In that case, where something serious occurs (instead of a stupid temporary network outage), I doubt the courts would uphold these silly ToS agreements.

"I've got a bad feeling about this Fox." (Nintendo is next.)

clever use of that beyond good and evil screenshot.

but, well, what exactly am I supposed to do? if you want to play new games on pc, steam is basically unavoidable.

I suppose I could pirate all my games or wait for them to show up on gog, but I like to pay for games, and I like to play them when they come out.

@damnable_fiend said:

clever use of that beyond good and evil screenshot.

but, well, what exactly am I supposed to do? if you want to play new games on pc, steam is basically unavoidable.

I suppose I could pirate all my games or wait for them to show up on gog, but I like to pay for games, and I like to play them when they come out.

Beyond Good & Evil? wtf... Thats Alyx Vance from Half Life.

I love the Steam service and it's pretty unlikely that I'm ever going to be part of a class action lawsuit.

However, I'm not okay with another company seeking to take away my rights, even one as cuddly lovable as Valve. They provided an address in the updated terms and condition's which I'll probably write to to ensure they know I'll be 'opting out' of that little clause.

@Deusx said:

@damnable_fiend said:

clever use of that beyond good and evil screenshot.

but, well, what exactly am I supposed to do? if you want to play new games on pc, steam is basically unavoidable.

I suppose I could pirate all my games or wait for them to show up on gog, but I like to pay for games, and I like to play them when they come out.

Beyond Good & Evil? wtf... Thats Alyx Vance from Half Life.

... I'm very tired...

:/

How very convenient that they row this out shortly after their big summer sales have finished and I just so happen to be in the middle of playing all those games I've purchased before the next semester begins. Just sayin'

No way in hell I will agree to that. Guess I'm saying bye to my steam games, that kinda sucks.

Klepek wants us to get all up in arms...