14 DAY TRIAL // Valve has modified the Steam Subscribers Agreement, which has to be signed by users of its digital distribution platform in order to actually have access to the service, and eliminates the customer’s right to sue the company in a class action lawsuit, limiting his choice to arbitrations or small claims courts.
License and subscriber agreements from large video game companies have caused quite a stir earlier this year, when Sony modified the agreement that has to be signed by members of its PlayStation Network online service by denying customers the right to sue the company in a class action lawsuit.
This, as you can imagine, resulted in serious backlash against the company, which was already feeling the repercussions from the cyber-attack against the PSN that happened last year.
Now, Valve is taking the same measure, as it has just modified the Steam Subscriber Agreement, with the biggest change affecting the complaint resolution process.
While the studio tries to settle every dispute in a normal way, some cases go to court, so the company has now decided to allow only arbitration or small claims courts to resolve these problems.
“On Steam, whenever a customer is unhappy with any transaction, our first goal is to resolve things as quickly as possible through the normal customer support process. However in those instances in which we can't resolve a dispute, we've outlined a new required process whereby we agree to use arbitration or small claims court to resolve the dispute,” Valve said.
“In the arbitration process, Valve will reimburse your costs of the arbitration for claims under a certain amount. Reimbursement by Valve is provided regardless of the arbitrator’s decision, provided that the arbitrator does not determine the claim to be frivolous or the costs unreasonable.”
The main reasoning is that, while class action lawsuits can be beneficial for customers, the people who profit more from these problems are the actual lawyers.
“Most significant to the new dispute resolution terms is that customers may now only bring individual claims, not class action claims. We considered this change very carefully. It’s clear to us that in some situations, class actions have real benefits to customers. In far too many cases however, class actions don’t provide any real benefit to users and instead impose unnecessary expense and delay, and are often designed to benefit the class action lawyers who craft and litigate these claims.”
What do you think? Will you agree to the new Steam Subscriber Agreement or are you going to stop using the service, thereby losing access to all of the game you bought on it?