Steam withholds games until you give up your legal rights
Today Steam updated their Terms of Service, and users got to looking at what was changing. The biggest change is that now if you want to use Steam you must give up your legal right to class action lawsuit. This is nothing new, Sony was one of the first to draw attention with an update to the PSN’s TOS & EULA that forced you to lay down your legal right upon accepting the service, so why is it news that Steam is following suit?
There is a key difference, Sony allowed you to opt out. You could say no to the terms and you still had access to your PS3. It did not become bricked, you could still play games etc, you just could no longer use PlayStation Network (Digital games may have been an issue).
Steam does not have such an option. If you don’t agree you are losing access to every Steam game you own. Games you purchased under different terms, and games that are in every way your property.
This is not the first time the issue of your property being tied to an account has come up, what happens if you hacked in multiplayer and got banned from Steam. Does hacking in Battlefield 3 mean you lose rights to every other game you own?
Valve and Steam get tons of love from the PC users, but its moments like these that make you look at the service for what it is, a titan with a massive strangehold on the PC digital market. Nothing competes with Steam, and you have to wonder what would happen if the folks there who control the accounts and games of millions of people, and billions of dollars worth of digital game licenses where not so nice as they have been known to be.
|
