Yeah, it takes some time for some people to see the obvious. Not all of them see that yet (like battlefront.com selling their old games for like 20 bucks minimum), but steam sales gives few important things:

a) attention - more people will acknowledge the game existence becaose of making it to the front page
b) lower price = wider accesibility all over the world. There are countries with average salary near 4 000 EUR , and countries around 500 EUR. Steam dales make the price acceptable for more people
c) many people are impulsive buyers. They will buy anything that is discounted. Just yesterday I saw a lady buying 10 bars of chocolate just because they were discounted -40%

Unfortunately this also means that Valve will not provide customer support if the game is broken as fuck, they continue to sell the game because it's not their responsibility to fix them.

I'm talking to you, Square Enix / Eidos. You and Kane & Lynch.

This is true also for Gamersgate. Hell, i think it's true to every digital distributor except for GOG where they try to fix the games by themselves. (Sometimes it takes them much time, like with Earth 2140)

The difference is, Gamersgate will actually give you a refund if you can prove without a shadow of a doubt that the game is broken.

Unlike Steam.

When Worms: Reloaded came out, multiplayer was broken (the main reason I bought it) and I got a refund from Steam, though they have a policy about refunding being a one time thing.

Actually it isn't refund from Steam. They offered me one once. Well, it was more like "get the game or get your money back" because there was a problem during the payment process. Still, asking was nice (and not required!)

I also read that you can get a refund rather easily if you never downloaded the game, at least if you wave the right legislation in their face.

Men of War Weekend.... All titles in series 75% off at GG....

Super Street fighter 4 arcade edition 75% off on impulse... Games for windows live...

Well, you can always sue them, cause in EU you have 14 days for refund in any kind of business-customer agreements.

And EU laws are applicable, unlike steam says, accordingly to Rome 1 (Rzym I, I don't know how it's called in other countries), in any relations between business entity and the customer, the applicable law is the law of customer as long as Valve makes business in EU countries (selling games here), EU laws are applicable in such situations

what's the problem with K&L? completed it about 5 times. never had a single issue. looked pretty bug-free to me.

best be joking. who would do that?!? lawyer fees alone would be way beyond the value in dispute in such a case. only Americans would even consider that since their lawyers tend to work on contingency.

You don't neeed a lawyer to sue anybody, of course it would limit your chances to win.

Anyway, Valve would rather say "we don't give a shit about EU courts rulings", because we couldn't enforce anything on them, unless Comission chooses to ban Valve from selling anything on EU soil, but it wouldn't happen after one ruling :P

Would EU courts even admit the case to trial? I mean, if the transaction is like $20, that's something for small claims court in the US, isn't it?

As always, it isn't that simple.

I don't know how it is handled in Poland, but in Germany software sales are explicitly not included in from implementation. I haven't read the directive in a long time but that was optional to implement.

So you would have to check each countries laws.
Well, Valve would pay the fees in the end anyway and a preliminary survey and letter to Valve, you could get for as low as 100€.

Usually threatening legal action is enough, because Valve will avoid legal action whenever possible.

Well, in Poland it is implemented.

This is why we win with UEFA this year. UEFA told that the applicable laws are Swiss laws for anything with selling tickets related, while the laws of the customer should apply. And Polish laws for refunds do not exclude software either. It has to be unused, or it has to have flaws that give you a claim (like it's different than you ordered, it's not working, etc) though.
At least in Poland, we didn't exclude provisions from Rome I for software sales, but you're right , it might be different in each country (I believe that UK didn't sign for most of it)

You can't go to a EU court, you go to a "district court" for something like this. A case against Valve would (probably) never see a EU court, because they have other areas of work. But all national courts in the EU can use EU law as a guideline in interpreting national law and only if they think national law is at odds with EU law, then it is send to EU courts.

And a lot of EU law is standardized EU wide by directives and such, therefore there are many legal intersections between EU countries.

i never quite understood this kind of reasoning. so if you won a case against Valve, Valve would have to pay for your legal costs. fine.

but it's still YOU who has to pay your legal costs throughout the proceedings. i don't know about Germany, but here in Switzerland lawyers have ridiculous rates. actually hiring a lawyer to go to court for you will easily set you back a few thousand bucks.

most people either don't have that kind of money lying around for purposes like that, or wouldn't be willing to invest it in what is essentially a gamble.

so, if you threatened Valve with a lawsuit over a buggy game, you think they'd even react?!? i have a hard time imagining that.

no level-headed European judge would even admit such a case, so your legal threat, sent from continental Europe to Washington, would carry next to no weight.

if this actually worked, i'd imagine that people, especially Americans, would do it left and right. but that's not the case.