I have a very large collection of games in my Steam account; approximately 300 that I now do not have access to. I am on a Lifetime boycott until they cease their coercive attempts to strip me of my legal rights by removing my access to my games.

I buy games from Steam because so far, it's been far more reliable than other digital distributors I've tried. I often have problems downloading from GOG (not placing blame, I don't know the cause, I'm just stating fact), I've had issues with the various DRMs and other stuff on GG (in fairness, they've given me other games to replace the ones that were unplayable, but it took weeks and was a hassle). Yet everything on Steam has worked flawlessly so far. Even GFWL works on games I purchased through Steam, despite it not working when I buy from GG.

Their forums suck, and their support might as well not exist, but they sell me games and let me play them. That's really all I want.

In like 10 yrs.

I don't boycott cause then I don't get to play games I like without pirating. But my position on this is shifting, so disgusted with Steam I am.

hell yes i boycott steam. in my opinion that company is the devil. they are opiating the masses into cheerfully giving up their rights as consumers by adding silly features like friend lists. i hate them. i will never ever buy a full price game, and i will buy a "steam exclusive" over my dead body.

i have never been burnt by steam yet, being my library is pretty much non existent, but i HAVE been burnt by similar DRM, particularly in ebooks. i have had my ebook libraries erased TWICE - by amazon and diesel ebooks. at least three hundred dollars worth of purchases gone, and of course no refunds provided to me despite many demanding emails since although i purchased the books at full price i never actually owned them. well eff that, thats not happening to my video games library, which is worth far more than my ebooks library. if any format changes take place or my account gets banned or the publisher discontinues their games in steam, the difference between me and a steam user is, that i will still be able to play my games. the only time i will buy a game from them is if it is $5 or less, because i do consider that to be a fair price for a rental, which is what you're getting when you "buy" from steam.

ROFL. I've seen some amusing criticisms of Steam on this site, but I think claiming that having a friend list as an example of consumer rights being violated is perhaps the most far fetched I've seen so far.

So, I'll bite, would you care to explain what rights they are forcing us to give up by allowing us to have a friends list?

i admit the sentence wording is a bit unclear but i am still surprised you didn't get the proper meaning just by the context. i was not saying that adding a friends list violates consumer rights, i was saying that steam adds conveniences such as that in order to make consumers happily give up their rights as buyers in order to have those petty conveniences.

I buy old games from GoG; games that need to be made to work on the latest operating system. Everything else I buy from Steam. Honestly though, I love Steam since I can easily get together with my friends and play awesome games with them and I love GoG for bringing back classics but am also a bit frustrated with them when they release crappier newer games. Even though I know they have trouble getting licences for older games. I don't see how people have a problem with Steam since its the easiest way I have seen for keeping all your games in one place. The future is digital, not retail. I can totally see this.

Everything has its price, I guess, even principles =)

More seriously, I'd assume that it's much the same as with everything else we buy just because it's cheap - we're prepared to gamble on it actually being worth anything.

If you buy a cheap toy you're usually fine with it breaking after a few days/weeks - you did get something out of it after all, and it didn't cost you much. If, on the other hand, you pay five times as much for a toy you want to keep you're no longer willing to gamble, and you won't be buying it from a company you think delievers poor quality stuff.

What I've never really understood is the way certain people slam consoles for having regional locks, praise Steam for supposedly rescuing PC gaming, and then conveniently forget that it was Steam that introduced regional locks to PC gaming in the first place.

I've just imported two games from the US, no DRM, proper US versions. And because they are not bound to Steam or Origin, I can be 100% sure that the game isn't region locked. That certainty is gone nowadays.
To be fair, the Piratenpartei in Germany has gone well beyond the issue of copyright, such that it hardly gets mentioned anymore. Their focus has gradually shifted towards civil rights and government transparency over time, and these are the two that have attracted much attention from much of the wider public.

Ok, I misunderstood, but I still don't really get it. Are you saying that Steam giving an optional system for gamers to meet and communicate is being used as some sort of bribery in exchange for accepting abuse? If so, I still don't really get it if I'm being honest. There are lots of legitimate gripes one could come up with regarding Steam, but I don't think optional social features could be considered one of them.

What happened?

They actually banned or suspended your account or are you actively refusing to use it?

Currently i am boycotting civ5 on Steam/other because as the price goes down over time for everyone else, for my region the price stays shiny and new nice and high, (Australia). So they can shove it! (i don't know if Steam have anything to do with it or it is all the game developers idea or what?)

Not me. I love the Steam sales.