So, remember... they just 'switched' from forced arbitration to going into the courts. Yes it is good, but note 'Good guy Gabe' didn't start this way.
Maybe consider 'why' he's making the change? It's actually because this forces the money question to the one suing them. It costs them less by doing this. Now I think this is actually good, but don't blindly fawn over the guy for this.
Based. Steam ftw. Here from louis rossmans video
Holy based alert
Those bastar.... Wait what?
Good Guy Gabe strikes again.
Louis Rossmann has entered the chat
Also, take note how they actually tell you, clearly and concisely, what has changed. Most ToS are intentionally made difficult to read to, you know, discourage people from reading them.
I appreciate this. That said, I was playing a game on my Steamdeck last night when this popped up over the game, while the game was running. Subsequently I died in the game. Kinda shit.
Happened to me playing helldivers last night. Luckily I did not die.
That is shit, but also just a little funny.
Then again I love Dark Souls so this may just be the ptsd talking.
I got mine smack in the middle of a boss fight in Remnant 2 lol, but my build is stupidly tanky enough that I was able alt-tab close it fast enough to not even die. Felt a little proud of that.
Time to sue!
Is that what that was? I got a grey box with no text in it that popped up over Satisfactory and my mouse control went from the POV to moving a cursor. I was building and it was a brief interruption. I got the actual text via email.
Same, during a boss fight in Elden Ring. I died.
You'd have died either way most likely. Git gud.
Yeah, I'm all for the move, but don't be dicks about interrupting.
Still, right choice otherwise.
It popped up on my secondary monitor and I wasn't using it, so I didn't see it all day
Same here, playing Sins of a Solar Empire 2 with a buddy. We both got the popup.
Stellaris for me, at least in those games it's not instant death, lol.
I did however close the pop-up to go see what it was saying before agreeing to it.
Same, popped up while in the middle of Satisfactory
Forcing you to shut up or go to court isn't great either, though.
On the big stuff where they're liable for a lot of money and you might be able to get a pro bono lawyer, sure.
On the small stuff, though, the prospect of having to pay for a lawyer and likely have your case thrown out by a judge for not being worth the expense and effort of suing a foreign company is probably going to deter a LOT of legitimate claims.
If, for example, I want to return a game in accordance with the rules and they won't let me, I'm not gonna lawyer up and sue them from the other side of the Atlantic.
I think the US small claims court is meant to handle situations like this (although I know little about it). I wonder if it's available to litigants from other countries.
I don't think it is. If it's anything like the US court systems I know more about (criminal, juvenile, immigration, main civil court), it's extremely backlogged already.
And that's even before considering jurisdiction and how much more a lawyer licensed to practice in at least two countries charges.
Even IF you decided to go through with it in spite of everything, you could easily end up spending thousands of dollars fighting an $80 case and STILL be likely to lose.
If, for example, I want to return a game in accordance with the rules and they won’t let me, I’m not gonna lawyer up and sue them from the other side of the Atlantic.
While supposedly being a lot cheaper than litigation, arbitration isn't free either. Besides, arbitration makes it near-impossible to appeal a decision, and the outcome won't set binding legal precedent. Furthermore, arbitration often comes with a class action waiver. Valve also removed that from the SSA.
I'm far from an expert in law, especially US law, but as I understand it,
arbitration is still available (if both parties agree, I assume), it's just not a requirement anymore[edit: nevermind, I didn't understand it]. I'm sure they're making this move because it somehow benefits them, but it still seems to me that consumers are getting more options [edit: they're not] which is usually a good thing.as I understand it, arbitration is still available (if both parties agree, I assume), it's just not a requirement anymore.
Unless the OP is a forgery of some sort, you evidently DON'T understand it.
still seems to me that consumers are getting more options which is usually a good thing.
Nope. They're switching from one mandatory method which favors companies liable to get into big disputes where a court case is advantageous to the consumer, which isn't the case with them, to one that favors a company wanting to avoid a lot of issues too small to warrant a lawyer.
It's not anywhere near as bad for consumers as when a utility company that poisons thousands of people forces everyone to corporate-friendly arbitration procedure (likely with the "neutral" third party much less neutral than the ones Valve used), but it's certainly not GOOD for Steam users to not be able to complain without lawyering up.
I was kinda worried when I saw the subject line of the email.
Steam is actually pretty decent, by company standards.
Steam is actually pretty decent, by company standards.
They aren't doing this because they are decent. It's because they were getting reamed on fees through people choosing the arbitration. I believe it was a law firm basically encouraging people to request arbitration because they would get paid every time a claim was submitted, regardless of the outcome.
Yeah, but Gabe is down to 25% ownership.
He could be pushed out at anytime. It's this weird situation where if a serious challenger to Steam really takes off, the 75% may demand Steam gets shittier to make more money.
But Gabe won't last forever anyways, who knows what will happen without him. Which means people do want some kind of challenger to prevent a monopoly, but that just makes the other scenario more likely
Steam is already a huge outlier
I would expect that Gabe is trying to hedge his bets and make the company more of a co-op, where several key figures in the company as well as himself, own the majority, so that there's accountability in what everyone decides.
That way if someone's kid ends up inheriting stock in valve, there's a way to block them out of major decisions if there's a need to.
If that's indeed what's happening, then it's a very long-term play by Gabe. He's looking so fast ahead, so that long after he's departed the company, the values that make valve great (and successful) will endure.
Not just decent, it's one of the best companies to exist
I kind of did the opposite. I assumed the change would be negligible or in the customer's benefit based on Valve's track record. I hope this never changes.
Wow. Say what you want about them, but that is some good shit right there. I've been getting emails for months from some random fucks telling me about arbitration agreements, and steam releases this. One more reason to love the company.
Can anyone ELI5 this to me? Arbitration is a big scary word that I don't understand.
If you and your friend get into a argument over something on the playground, instead of going to a teacher, you both agree to tell your stories to another friend you both agree will be impartial. You then both do what that friend says without involving the teacher.
Actually explained like you would to a 5yo.
Awesome job.
Instead of Steam forcing any disputes with them to go through an "impartial" 3rd party company they choose and pay for to oversee and rule on disputes, they are saying that disputes must go through the courts.
Basically forced arbitration has always been seen as anti-consumer and unfair because the company is paying for the arbitration and is thus considered more likely to be found in favor of. Steam is doing the opposite and as such this is seen as pro-consumer and a good thing
IANAL, what does this mean?
It means you love anal.
Sorry, it's Friday and i am silly.
A binding Arbitration would involve the submission of a dispute to a neutral party who hears the case and makes a decision.
Instead of solving the dispute in court before a judge and/or jury.
Filling fees for an arbitrator may be higher than filing a case in court.
Pre-printed consumer contacts with banks, credit card companies, automobile and home dealers usually use this.
Take it with a grain of salt , because also IANAL
Filling fees for an arbitrator may be higher than filing a case in court.
Which is why Valve is making the change. They were potentially paying a lot for these filings.
Thank you fellow anal lover
arbitration pretty much provides zero benefit to the consumer and all benefit to the organization. a big piece is that if you sign off on an arbitration clause, then there's no such thing as class action lawsuit anymore.
some companies make you sign a handwritten letter through snail mail just to opt out, because they don't want anyone filing a lawsuit, and definitely dont' want a lot of them filing together.
this is another case of corporations saying "this option is best!!" while leaving out the "for us" part
this is why it's a big deal that steam said fuck that noise
Forced Arbitration is when a company puts something in their terms of service that forced the user to go through a process of arbitration as opposed to going to court. It is always rigged towards the company who forces it, because they are the people paying the arbitrators.
If you have a dispute with Valve you have to hire a lawyer to take them to court. No "third party" mediation
Most disputes most likely fall far below the limit for small claims, where a lawyer is not required, or even allowed in many cases.
Isn't it often in both parties to settle things out of court? For the one that'd sue it's usually more money at less cost and the company gets around possibly having a bad precedent set and the bad publicity to potentially losing in court.
This is probably aimed at people creating issues in the hopes of getting a settlement for something that has a slim (but Nonzero) chance to hold up in court.
It's a company - I think this aims at people only bringing serious claims and reducing the paperwork for them - but since it's Valve people will glorify everything they do
I'm not a lawyer: Many companies are updating their terms requiring that disputes are settled through arbitration, usually where a 3rd party selected by the company rules on the disagreement.
It's meant to protect them from excessive lawsuit payments that can happen when you go to court.
Valve went the other way, and is saying that all legal disputes should go to court instead.
As I saw in another post:
This is because a lot of individuals tried to start an arbitration process with valve and that got costly for Valve. So now they try to force everyone to do it in a different way.
More info in other posts:
Arbitration is always cheaper and faster than the courts, because the courts are very backed up especially since the pandemic, and there's a lot of admin cost which doesn't exist in arbitration. That is why almost every other company is trying to force arbitration. So if the goal was to save money, forcing court would have the opposite effect.
My thought was that a lawsuit is more expensive than arbitration, but settling a class action lawsuit is cheaper than thousands of arbitrations.
If you push everybody into a class action, it will be cheaper. Have you ever gotten more than a cent on the dollar from a class action settlement(unless you're the class representative)? Sure the seem like the settlements are a lot of money, but if you can get the class action settled with very few claimants, no one will be able to sue over that particular issue again, so it puts it behind the company. Instead of being dogged by individuals for however long.
This is bad, no?
It’s taking away a cheaper option for users to get results for their complaints. Now you have to pay legal fees and go through a court, making it less accessible to the average user.
Arbitration is overwhelmingly resolved in favor of corporations. The company pays the arbitrator, which means they will generally rule in their favor if they want to continue to be hired. Complainants get a fraction of the amount of money they'd get from a court case from arbitration, and it keeps the public from knowing what the company did. That's why so many companies are trying to force arbitration clauses on consumers.
It's speculated that the reason why Steam backed down from their clause in this case is that it was getting too expensive for them. Paying so many individual arbitrators and lawyers was costing them way more than resolving a single class action lawsuit. Hopefully more companies are forced to come to this realization in the future.
Edit: Article about why they may have removed the clause TL;DR Valve doesn't want to deal with 50,000 separate court cases at one time
