I'm lookin around, I figure out what Steam is

[TheWilltoAct]

You have been keeping up with the news, but I disagree with your current take.
Valve is not playing the good guy in these matters; frankly they are following industry trends.

Their situation is somewhat unique, being a privately owned company they are well positioned to appeal to their customers in the name of profit with few strings attached. I would argue that they are also more vulnerable to sudden shifts in demand and the threat of personal greed. Thus I can see why they would wish to protect themselves with the same precedent their competitors have adopted.

It must be said that Valve as a company has extremely high profit margins, and piles of dough on hand. Until they incur financial ruin, they have the resources and motivation to continue providing consistent service.

 

[gps]

Only time will tell. Trying to get a foothold on the console sector does not sound totally like "providing consistent service", involves high financial efforts and risks and might bring a small company belly up faster than one can murmur "Standard & Poor's"...
Until today they were just buying and selling game licences. Producing and distributing hardware is a totally different challenge. Just have a look at how difficult it is for Microsoft to establish it's XBOX on the japanese market. And their financial buffer is bigger than what Steam has.

 

[damerell]

Valve is not playing the good guy in these matters; frankly they are following industry trends.

Not quite. Read what I wrote more carefully. If you picked Microsoft or EA - neither noted for their kind and benevolent attitude - you get something entirely reasonable. Don't like the new T&Cs? Fine. Stick with the old ones; but they don't want to sell you any more games unless you're willing to agree to the new ones.

Following industry trends? They're out front; specifically, they're using "or lose all your games" as a stick to beat you with.

I honestly trusted Valve to get this right. More fool me.

 

[Antilogic]

You are wrong to use the future tense. The same problem has already developed with Steam. American? A few months back you either gave up your rights to class actions against Valve, or all your games.

That is really not good news. I recall similar language was put in the T&C for Amazon and its Kindle users, along with an arbitration clause that waives your legal right to sue them, period.

I'm pretty sure if abuse got bad enough, the courts could simply invalidate these clauses like they do for certain types of employment contracts (i.e. in California, they do this with certain types of employment contracts and non-compete agreements, and even if you sign a contract to be a slave, no court will enforce it). But I don't want to be the test case.

 

[damerell]

I'm pretty sure if abuse got bad enough, the courts could simply invalidate these clauses like they do for certain types of employment contracts (i.e. in California, they do this with certain types of employment contracts and non-compete agreements, and even if you sign a contract to be a slave, no court will enforce it). But I don't want to be the test case.

Of course, they are already unenforceable in EU law - probably triply so; that sort of "abandon rights to sue us" term tends to be out under unfair contract law, the "we can vary the T&Cs as we please" term is very definitely against unfair contract law, and the EU has already ruled that the polite fiction that purchases are "additions to your subscription" is a fiction. But, as you say - I don't want to be the test case. By myself, against Valve, for a few videogames? Not a chance.

 

[Antilogic]

I sadly don't have access to the same legal professionals I used to when I was taking classes, but I'll try to check around to see if there are any legal precedents in the US to support that. From the sound of it, I think the EU has advanced a little more quickly than we have on these contract issues.