Steam does the opposite of forcing Arbitration on its users : games

[+] [email protected] -6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Agree or delete account is real "good guy gabe" energy.

What a fucking trash monopoly

Edit: Ok for the corporate apologists; the company gave 0 days notice to this. You HAVE to agree or you can't access your account, which locks you out of your games. The only options you have are to agree or delete account.

At least discord allowed you to opt out by a certain date when they updated to forced arbitration. Not only is steams move here to protect their 30% take on transactions, more than double of competitors, but steam is also choosing to fuck people over who don't want to agree. Supposedly if steam ever went under they'd let you continue to access your games but i guess they can instead just enshittify their subscriber agreement so that no one would still have an account. For instance you now agree to only access your games for 1 minute per day and you will be charged $1000 for each time you start up steam would be a great way to force people to delete their accounts so steam doesn't have to honor their EULA.

But go ahead, keep talking about how good gabe is. Steam is a monopoly. And there are no good monopolies.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Ars technica provided the two key pieces of context here:

"Zaiger targeted Valve and Steam users for its scheme precisely because the arbitration clause in the SSA [Steam Subscriber Agreement] is 'favorable' to Steam users in that Valve agrees to pay the fees and costs associated with arbitration," Valve said.

Valve said that Zaiger's "extortive plan" was to "offer a settlement slightly less than the [arbitration] charge—$2,900 per claim or so—attempting to induce a quick resolution."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/09/steam-doesnt-want-to-pay-arbitration-fees-tells-gamers-to-sue-instead/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Can Zaiger do it to other corpos with forced arbitration?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Only if they, too, were willing to foot the bill for the arbitration fees. Hint: nobody else does that, they want the consumer to pay their own way to reduce filings. That's what happened with Twitter's severance filings, they got hit with millions in arbitration fees.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

Based. Steam ftw. Here from louis rossmans video

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

Holy based alert

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

Louis Rossmann has entered the chat

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago

Good Guy Gabe strikes again.

[+] [email protected] -7 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Calling arbitration a kangaroo court will just insult australians. Compared to arbitration even judge Krivoruchko will be more fair it. And he is Putin's pocket judge.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

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

[–] [email protected] 40 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Those bastar.... Wait what?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

It's cheaper for Valve this way, and it costs you more to do anything legally. Because, you know, you'll have to pay legal fees out of your own pocket instead of initiating arbitration on Valve's dime.

Yay, you won!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

It's still a win thankfully as you say, especially given that for me at least we'd be meeting in a European court.

Though in general I hope I never have to take valve to court, period. Honestly if that happens something REALLY bad must have gone down haha.

Like a steam deck checking its phone while driving and running over my kids or something.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago

Because, you know, you'll have to pay legal fees out of your own pocket instead of initiating arbitration on Valve's dime.

*in Memerica

Games

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