Steam's recently modified user agreement

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I see an amusing disconnect here.

Steam is evil, etc. There's an App Store version of Civ5, how awesome! No Steam!

Yeah, that iTunes/App Store user agreement is sooo awesome. It's not like Apple has onerous terms, or changes them all the time...

Edit:
Should've refreshed first, since Rooftrellen bet me to it. But it's nice to see I'm not the only one.

Just a case of great minds thinking alike ;)

As a side note, I just started up Steam to get started on a game of good ol' CiV and...I have a Call of Duty game listed in my Library section. So, yeah...advertising has gone to my library page.
 
I did enjoy the hypocrisy of people hating on Steam and thinking that somehow their appstore bought version is any less restricted. It's still a license, it still has terms subject to change. You do not own it.

Mainly though, what I find unfortunate is the amount of hate steam gets. Without steam and its many imitators succeeding, PC gaming will be dead in a handful of years. Publishers WANT DRM -- even as it is, consoles are a safer market to develop and publish on, and without something like steam to level the playing field in terms of risk, less and less games will be released for PC.

There are always exceptions, and indie titles will forever buck the trend. But AAA titles? Forget about it. So you may not like steam, but it or its like is necessary unless you want to play every major title exclusively on a console.
 
I did enjoy the hypocrisy of people hating on Steam and thinking that somehow their appstore bought version is any less restricted. It's still a license, it still has terms subject to change. You do not own it.

Mainly though, what I find unfortunate is the amount of hate steam gets. Without steam and its many imitators succeeding, PC gaming will be dead in a handful of years. Publishers WANT DRM -- even as it is, consoles are a safer market to develop and publish on, and without something like steam to level the playing field in terms of risk, less and less games will be released for PC.

There are always exceptions, and indie titles will forever buck the trend. But AAA titles? Forget about it. So you may not like steam, but it or its like is necessary unless you want to play every major title exclusively on a console.

:agree:

Since the beginning of civilization, man has become aware of the concept of property. I own my house, my pigs, my goats, my slaves, etc. Everything that was property was physical. I could touch it with my hands and use it however I want.

However, in the digital age, things are getting less physical and more representative and defined. We go from cash and gold to plastic and credit. We go from physical copies of movies and games to digital downloads. When you watch a movie on Netflix, you have purchased the right to watch a show whenever you are connected to the internet, not the show itself. Even when physical copies of movies are handed out, you are still only given the right to watch the movie whenever you want, but you may not redistribute it.

This is the same with downloaded games. You own the right to play the game, but not the right to the game. The game you downloaded from Steam/App Store isn't your game, it's a game you purchased the right to play. Physical copies of games are easier to abuse the rights than digital copies. Although this may seem unfair, it's the best way for companies to get their stuff out at minimal risk, as Yalish said.
 
I'm pro-Steam and I don't care that they revise the EULA at whim. Steam, like the AppStore, has many features over DRM free boxed software.

1. My sh!t is in the cloud. Hard drive fail? No biggie. Just re-download.
2. Scratched CDs are no longer a worry. Plus I don't have to bend over and put a CD in the loading tray to play a dumb game.
3. Free games. I've never walked into Best Buy and been handed an armful of free games.
4. It works on install.
5. It works on install. I list this twice. Doesn't anyone remember the hours of driver installation it took to play a game of Duke Nukem at your buddies 90s LAN party? GD, that was a waste. I'd have killed for Steam and fast Internet back then.
6. The three F's of the rich man. If it flies, floats or fornicates, it's cheaper to rent in the long term. I'd add a fourth: Functions. Software is outdated the moment it is released. I'm renting a "game experience". I care nothing about the code and functions that make it work nor do I wish to own something I won't use in six months. I pay the nerds at Valve to keep my game experience happening just like I pay the nerds at Apple to keep the music pumping into my skull.

But, but, but, Jatta, you have no control if you don't own it. Really? I have a box of VHS tapes in my garage. I own them and control them without limits. Yet I have no means of ever again using them again on my HD 3D 72" TV.

Owning games is so 20th Century. People need to join this millennium and let go. Has the OP tried to get a refund from Steam? They probably don't owe one legally but it would be a good business practice and something worth trying if you hate the EULA.

If you are going to own a game, buy a good board game. Those at least can appreciate in value due to the vibrant collector market.
 
This is the same with downloaded games. You own the right to play the game, but not the right to the game.

This is not true everywhere. Like I said earlier, in Canada at least, you BUY the product, and can do whatever you want with it, including selling it, and that include digital products.

However, this has never been brought up in a court, nor was challenged by a consumer or the media industries. So it might change if one of the big guns decide to go evil mastermind and try to set a precedent :sad:
 
This is not true everywhere. Like I said earlier, in Canada at least, you BUY the product, and can do whatever you want with it, including selling it, and that include digital products.

However, this has never been brought up in a court, nor was challenged by a consumer or the media industries. So it might change if one of the big guns decide to go evil mastermind and try to set a precedent :sad:

I guess that can be interpreted two ways.
You for sure can't COPY the game and sell the copies.

However, I don't think that Canada's laws will uphold, though. It's restricting companies from making their own rules to their DRM. Would you rather buy the rights to a game for $10 or a physical copy that you can resell for $20? I think companies should be able to chose which kind to sell. I wouldn't even support that law, and I'm on the receiving end.
 
I'm pro-Steam and I don't care that they revise the EULA at whim. Steam, like the AppStore, has many features over DRM free boxed software.

1. My sh!t is in the cloud. Hard drive fail? No biggie. Just re-download.
2. Scratched CDs are no longer a worry. Plus I don't have to bend over and put a CD in the loading tray to play a dumb game.
3. Free games. I've never walked into Best Buy and been handed an armful of free games.
4. It works on install.
5. It works on install. I list this twice. Doesn't anyone remember the hours of driver installation it took to play a game of Duke Nukem at your buddies 90s LAN party? GD, that was a waste. I'd have killed for Steam and fast Internet back then.
6. The three F's of the rich man. If it flies, floats or fornicates, it's cheaper to rent in the long term. I'd add a fourth: Functions. Software is outdated the moment it is released. I'm renting a "game experience". I care nothing about the code and functions that make it work nor do I wish to own something I won't use in six months. I pay the nerds at Valve to keep my game experience happening just like I pay the nerds at Apple to keep the music pumping into my skull.

But, but, but, Jatta, you have no control if you don't own it. Really? I have a box of VHS tapes in my garage. I own them and control them without limits. Yet I have no means of ever again using them again on my HD 3D 72" TV.

Owning games is so 20th Century. People need to join this millennium and let go. Has the OP tried to get a refund from Steam? They probably don't owe one legally but it would be a good business practice and something worth trying if you hate the EULA.

If you are going to own a game, buy a good board game. Those at least can appreciate in value due to the vibrant collector market.

1. Everything else you have to reinstall and set up again, things that are lost forever, are a much bigger deal than re-installing a game. Heck, it's slower because downloading is a heck of a lot worse than just reading a disc.

2. I'd rather put in a CD (or DVD) than wait for a game to download. Installation is much easier and smoother with a disc, and games made within the last 10 years don't require it to run, just to install. If you take care of your things, scratches aren't a problem anyway, and you could always have backup copies, which is kept as part of a backup of your HD really makes 1 a pointless argument as well.

3. I've never been given a decent free game period. I've been given trials, and I have been given bad games that I wouldn't play for more than 3 minutes for free, but I'd be interested to hear about the good free games you get from Steam.

4. More true in general for games you get on CD/DVD. Those games generally have optional patches that you can play without unless you want to play online. If you want to play a game you download, you'll probably get all that stuff anyway, just adding to the installation time.

5. No, I don't remember that. I remember the pain of getting on battle.net after re-installing SC, but, again, had it been without a disc all of that would have been downloaded when I installed anyway.

6. You never, at any point, owned any game you bought. You ALWAYS bought the license, just that it came with physical media as well. Why would you be ok with further limits that you never had to deal with before? They seem to have tricked you into thinking you actually owned Super Mario Bros. but I can assure you that if you ask Nintendo for the profits from the game you "bought" they would laugh. You're not doing anything at all different now.

I would say if you never use a game again after a few months, it was a poor purchase, but to each his own. I sat down recently and played The Legend of Zelda on my NES. You better believe I will play a game of CiV in 20 years if I want to, even if i have to go to court to do so. It is my right as a buyer (just as I "bought" the Zelda game).

I'm not so sure it's cheaper as you claim anyway. I bought CiV new when it came out, boxed, for $35. Was that the price on Steam?

You do not own those VHS tapes without limits, I would imagine, and just because you choose not to use them doesn't mean it's impossible. I had a VCR hooked up to an HD TV just a few years ago, and all of my VHS tapes got put on DVD. Having that option is pretty nice, I'd say.

Again, you never OWNED a game. You ALWAYS bought the right to use it. The only thing that is different now is that the company wants to reserve the"right" to restrict your rights. Fortunately for us all, you can't sign away your rights (otherwise people would be tricked into signing themselves into slavery all the time, or banks would get people to sign something saying they could charge interest over the legal limit).

That being said, it's unfortunate that companies want to try to restrict our rights, sometimes by skitting around the law, other times in spit of it with a contract that cannot be held against someone in court, and sometimes though scary legal words and trickery that would lead someone to believe things are really all that different now.

Copyright has been around since the 18th century. It's not omething as new as you seem to think.
 
3. I've never been given a decent free game period. I've been given trials, and I have been given bad games that I wouldn't play for more than 3 minutes for free, but I'd be interested to hear about the good free games you get from Steam.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=851573

There's something of a list. My personal favorite, in an opinion that I share with a large portion of the internet, would be Team Fortress 2; I've had 1,300 hours of fun filled and free gaming from it to date.
 
I guess that can be interpreted two ways.
You for sure can't COPY the game and sell the copies.

Of course, but you can sell the ORIGINAL game, even if you have no physical copies. By canadian law, I am able to sell ANY product, digital or otherwise to anyone. I do lose the right to it tough. If I sell my copy of Civ 5 to you, I no longer allowed to play it.

However, I don't think that Canada's laws will uphold, though. It's restricting companies from making their own rules to their DRM. .

Which is the point. Companies should NOT be able to dictate the way they sell their product. If DRM is allowed in country A, put a DRM in. If a DRM is not allowed in country B, than no DRM will stop a consumer to buy/sell/use the product however he likes. A private entreprise should NEVER be over any public law.

Would you rather buy the rights to a game for $10 or a physical copy that you can resell for $20?

Both! I would prefer to buy the right for 20$ AND be able to resell it at anytime.(but losing any right to the product.)
 
In some countries, ISPs give users a set amount of bandwidth and exceeding that bandwidth can lead to hefty surcharges. This is another reason why I prefer physical copies of games over direct download.
 
Offline mode only works when you have connected to Steam online first

I'm not sure why this gets posted so often because it is wrong.
Having said that, (I haven't tested this personally) I believe you need to reconnect every so often otherwise offline mode will stop working.
 
It's a matter of principle.

To show they can't abuse their customers and get away with it.

How were you abused, exactly? Whatever it was you had to agree to, did it cost you money? Did it hurt you somehow? Perhaps physically? Broken leg, bruises, contusions? I agreed, and I feel no pain whatsoever, and rather doubt I ever will. Steam on...
 
I think the thing people have a problem with is the idea of a license where you pay a lump sum. Agreeing to a contract for a license isn't unusual and neither is having that license up for periodic renewal where alternative terms are proposed. The difference is that games are treated like they are owned in every way except legally and no one wants to "lose ownership" of their game when new terms are proposed.

I submit that EULAs are not the problem. And, certainly, Steam's changed agreement is reasonable. The problem is an old way of thinking that should still be around in an ideal world but isn't.
 
I'm pro-Steam and I don't care that they revise the EULA at whim. Steam, like the AppStore, has many features over DRM free boxed software.

1. My sh!t is in the cloud. Hard drive fail? No biggie. Just re-download.
2. Scratched CDs are no longer a worry. Plus I don't have to bend over and put a CD in the loading tray to play a dumb game.
3. Free games. I've never walked into Best Buy and been handed an armful of free games.
4. It works on install.
5. It works on install. I list this twice. Doesn't anyone remember the hours of driver installation it took to play a game of Duke Nukem at your buddies 90s LAN party? GD, that was a waste. I'd have killed for Steam and fast Internet back then.
6. The three F's of the rich man. If it flies, floats or fornicates, it's cheaper to rent in the long term. I'd add a fourth: Functions. Software is outdated the moment it is released. I'm renting a "game experience". I care nothing about the code and functions that make it work nor do I wish to own something I won't use in six months. I pay the nerds at Valve to keep my game experience happening just like I pay the nerds at Apple to keep the music pumping into my skull.

But, but, but, Jatta, you have no control if you don't own it. Really? I have a box of VHS tapes in my garage. I own them and control them without limits. Yet I have no means of ever again using them again on my HD 3D 72" TV.

Owning games is so 20th Century. People need to join this millennium and let go. Has the OP tried to get a refund from Steam? They probably don't owe one legally but it would be a good business practice and something worth trying if you hate the EULA.

If you are going to own a game, buy a good board game. Those at least can appreciate in value due to the vibrant collector market.
I'm with you on this, frankly. I won't buy most games if they aren't on steam (handful of exceptions include Blizzard games, League of Legends, Battlefield 3, and the occasional other major release that doesn't make it to Steam).

The licensing stuff doesn't bug me one bit. They're not going to take my games away. They could at some future time shut down, but they're so far ahead of the curve that it's a decade away if they start horrible mismanagement tomorrow, and I kind of doubt they will shut down while I still care about any of this stuff. If they do, I'm out some money, and that sucks, but whatever.

Steam is just a lot more convenient. I don't have to dig through my collection to find the game I want. I can install on and play from multiple computers - work, home, laptop. Their product is so damn consumer-friendly that it's practically slapping you in the face with consumer friendliness. The random bits of legalese that happen from time to time are what they have to do to keep their business running.

Origin makes me nervous, the Apple App Store makes me nervous, because those corporations are demonstrated evil screw the consumer-ist companies. Steam? What has Steam ever done that was a violation of my trust?
 
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=851573

There's something of a list. My personal favorite, in an opinion that I share with a large portion of the internet, would be Team Fortress 2; I've had 1,300 hours of fun filled and free gaming from it to date.

The free games according to that are: Alien Swarm, America's Army 3, ArmA II Free, BattleForge, Between, Codename Gordon, COIL, Mightier, Moonbase Alpha, Peggle Extreme, Sam & Max Episode 104: Abe Lincoln Must Die!, Spacewar, The Cat and the Coup, TrackMania Nations Forever.

Team Fortress 2 is listed as a game that uses microtransactions, not as a game you simply get for free. F2P games with microtransactions can be found anywhere. They are, in fact, quite popular on Facebook, as well. I won't get into what I dislike about the system and simply say...games listed as F2P make money in a different way, rather than in your payment up front or by subscription, and in no way is that related to Steam.

The games that are actually free...well, nothing I'd look at and say I want anyway, but I fully believe that some people would, so I'll leave it to a matter of opinion.

Steam is just a lot more convenient. I don't have to dig through my collection to find the game I want. I can install on and play from multiple computers - work, home, laptop. Their product is so damn consumer-friendly that it's practically slapping you in the face with consumer friendliness. The random bits of legalese that happen from time to time are what they have to do to keep their business running.

I don't know how many people I speak for with this, but I only have one computer for personal use (no laptop) and at work am generally too busy working to do something else (I do know some people that have big enough breaks or don't eat lunch and might get something in, I must admit.)

However, it's not friendly at all. Steam had to be installed to install CiV (the only game I have that requires it). Steam cannot be uninstalled or CiV will as well. Steam had some option to show advertising in the game automatically turned on upon install, which also crashed CiV (and I recall that being a pretty major problem for people early on). Steam will not allow me to buy anything (yes, I cannot buy anything at all though Steam beause I don't live in the USA). Steam requires a separate agreement from the one for the game to play a game, even if that game is store bought.

That's not friendly.

It's actually the kind of thing that can scare people away from buying PC games at all.

With that little bit that I can't buy anything on Steam, I'm going to try to get one of those free games and see if it works or not. It'll be interesting to see if it's just buying or there is some bigger restriction involved due to my location.
 
I don't know how many people I speak for with this, but I only have one computer for personal use (no laptop) and at work am generally too busy working to do something else (I do know some people that have big enough breaks or don't eat lunch and might get something in, I must admit.)

However, it's not friendly at all. Steam had to be installed to install CiV (the only game I have that requires it). Steam cannot be uninstalled or CiV will as well.

Why would I want to do that? Steam manages my entire game library and I routinely browse it for deals on games (and I routinely pay half or less of the normal purchase price just by waiting for sales, mostly on games I would buy anyway, but occasionally on games that wouldn't be a good enough value normally but are at the reduced prices).


Steam had some option to show advertising in the game automatically turned on upon install, which also crashed CiV (and I recall that being a pretty major problem for people early on).

I don't recall that - unless you mean the promotions for CiV DLC that show up when there's upcoming DLC? Anyway, wasn't an issue for me.

Steam will not allow me to buy anything (yes, I cannot buy anything at all though Steam beause I don't live in the USA).

That is a very good reason to avoid Steam as much as possible. Obviously you and I have very different experiences regarding Steam if you're unable to use it as a store. Though I can't imagine it would be especially hard to spoof things if you did want to use it, I can see where that would lose most of the convenience of it.

Steam requires a separate agreement from the one for the game to play a game, even if that game is store bought.

Steam has to have its own terms of use and licensing or else it couldn't exist.

That's not friendly.

Of the things you're listing out, only the "I don't live in the USA and Steam won't sell to me" one strikes me as unfriendly. A few things are less convenient than retail boxes and lots of other things are much more convenient.

I will admit I can see why you wouldn't be altogether pleased with it, but for my needs, it beats box sales by a mile, and I don't really care whether the game gets sold outside of steam or not.

It's actually the kind of thing that can scare people away from buying PC games at all.

With that little bit that I can't buy anything on Steam, I'm going to try to get one of those free games and see if it works or not. It'll be interesting to see if it's just buying or there is some bigger restriction involved due to my location.

I actually know a bit about this - and in the US, many retailers have stopped selling PC games entirely. GameStop - the principle specialty store - has quite a few locations with no PC section at all. At BestBuy and Target, it's maybe a couple dozen titles, mostly the giant corporate stuff, The Sims, World of Warcraft, that kind of thing.

If online sales in the model of Steam were found to be illegal, there's a good chance no new PC games would be produced for sale in the US within, say, 3 years, unless companies like GameStop reversed their policies (and consoles outsell PC games - including digital sales - by such a wide margin that they probably won't. Their business model is more about resale of console games than it is about selling new games that people want).
 
F2P games with microtransactions are also found in Korean and Russian MMOs as well. I do not like that concept, because it would not be fun when the player with the largest wallet is usually the top player.

Yes, Steam is very inconvenient for those who live outside the United States and requires so many terms and agreements, some of which are illegal in many countries, especially in Europe.
 
If online sales in the model of Steam were found to be illegal, there's a good chance no new PC games would be produced for sale in the US within, say, 3 years, unless companies like GameStop reversed their policies (and consoles outsell PC games - including digital sales - by such a wide margin that they probably won't. Their business model is more about resale of console games than it is about selling new games that people want).

Added the boldface -- since that is the underlying point of the entire discussion. All of the restrictions and licensing agreements are about making it impossible for people to resell games. Console games apparently don't include that restriction. And they sell many more copies than PC games that do include the restriction. You can decide which is the chicken and which is the egg....
 
There is also a change for customers in Europe who now have to pay national VAT (sales tax) on purchases from Steam which amounts to a 19% price increase in Germany (amount varies by country).
As far as I know, this isn't a change. When I purchased Civ5 DLC a while back, prices already included applicable VAT
 
So you'd rather deal with Apple's change in terms policy than Steam's?

Oh yes, yes and thrice, yes!


F2P games with microtransactions are also found in Korean and Russian MMOs as well. I do not like that concept, because it would not be fun when the player with the largest wallet is usually the top player.


Yes, Steam is very inconvenient for those who live outside the United States and requires so many terms and agreements, some of which are illegal in many countries, especially in Europe.
Very true.
They just need to make Steam optional. Then Steam lovers will have what they want and people who don`t want Steam are happy. Everyone`s happy all round.






1. Everything else you have to reinstall and set up again, things that are lost forever, are a much bigger deal than re-installing a game. Heck, it's slower because downloading is a heck of a lot worse than just reading a disc.

2. I'd rather put in a CD (or DVD) than wait for a game to download. Installation is much easier and smoother with a disc, and games made within the last 10 years don't require it to run, just to install. If you take care of your things, scratches aren't a problem anyway, and you could always have backup copies, which is kept as part of a backup of your HD really makes 1 a pointless argument as well.

3. I've never been given a decent free game period. I've been given trials, and I have been given bad games that I wouldn't play for more than 3 minutes for free, but I'd be interested to hear about the good free games you get from Steam.

4. More true in general for games you get on CD/DVD. Those games generally have optional patches that you can play without unless you want to play online. If you want to play a game you download, you'll probably get all that stuff anyway, just adding to the installation time.

5. No, I don't remember that. I remember the pain of getting on battle.net after re-installing SC, but, again, had it been without a disc all of that would have been downloaded when I installed anyway.

6. You never, at any point, owned any game you bought. You ALWAYS bought the license, just that it came with physical media as well. Why would you be ok with further limits that you never had to deal with before? They seem to have tricked you into thinking you actually owned Super Mario Bros. but I can assure you that if you ask Nintendo for the profits from the game you "bought" they would laugh. You're not doing anything at all different now.

I would say if you never use a game again after a few months, it was a poor purchase, but to each his own. I sat down recently and played The Legend of Zelda on my NES. You better believe I will play a game of CiV in 20 years if I want to, even if i have to go to court to do so. It is my right as a buyer (just as I "bought" the Zelda game).

I'm not so sure it's cheaper as you claim anyway. I bought CiV new when it came out, boxed, for $35. Was that the price on Steam?

You do not own those VHS tapes without limits, I would imagine, and just because you choose not to use them doesn't mean it's impossible. I had a VCR hooked up to an HD TV just a few years ago, and all of my VHS tapes got put on DVD. Having that option is pretty nice, I'd say.

Again, you never OWNED a game. You ALWAYS bought the right to use it. The only thing that is different now is that the company wants to reserve the"right" to restrict your rights. Fortunately for us all, you can't sign away your rights (otherwise people would be tricked into signing themselves into slavery all the time, or banks would get people to sign something saying they could charge interest over the legal limit).

That being said, it's unfortunate that companies want to try to restrict our rights, sometimes by skitting around the law, other times in spit of it with a contract that cannot be held against someone in court, and sometimes though scary legal words and trickery that would lead someone to believe things are really all that different now.

Copyright has been around since the 18th century. It's not omething as new as you seem to think.

+1000:goodjob:
 
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