This is something that took me by surprise. In a nutshell, Valve lets publishers place a black mark on your entire account when they ban you from their multiplayer game. This gets picked up by other publishers, who then auto-ban you from their games possibly before you've even had a chance to play.

Here's the video I came across.
1. This guy got banned from a game by Amazon Studios. The reason I don't find particularly important, but he claims it's because he removed ownership of a "founder's pack" item (unlike a refund, you don't get your money back by doing this). Why this would result in a ban I don't know, but not wanting to own something anymore certainly doesn't sound like wrongdoing.
2. He then gets automatically banned from other games from other publishers. They individually won't undo this because his Steam account is in poor standing.
3. The only recourse is to beg the original publisher to revert the ban. He doesn't get anywhere with this. As bad as this would be under normal circumstances, it's even worse for him because he's a streamer so it impacts him financially.

Edit: his screenshots don't show a Valve Anti-Cheat ban, for what it's worth.

Why not play multi-player games? This and the often toxic communities and all that cheating going on and pay to win (PtW) where the best gear costs real money or even worse, they are rare prizes from a lottery that you buy tickets for with real money.

This is exactly why I fight for 100% Digital Rights Management (DRM) free multiplayer video games here on gog.com.

Well, I would be very interested in the reasons...and especially the reasons his account is "in poor standing".

More fun, brought to you by the folks who "saved" PC gaming. Gamers are complicit, of course, for buying into the Scheme ecosystem for so long. Due to crabs in a bucket mentality, these sorry gamers would rather have a "cheater" or "bad actor" banned than be able to own their games. Which would be relatively fine if done in a vacuum but their preferences have ruined the market for those of us who do give a damn about owning our games.

What are the chances this is one of those awful trolling streamers who has had a vac ban and this is all a load of auld shite?

Pretty high id guess. Not even gonna bother with the video.

Amazon responds after Lost Ark players were banned for not playing the game - NME

Same game, last played about 1 year ago by people in the article, streamer's ban in the above video is about 1 year old... sounds like it might be the same thing. Thank you.

And the list of publishers you don't want associated anywhere with your accounts grows ever larger.

They can ban you if you stop playing games?

Could he not ask Steam for official confirmation on their end of his non-chargeback removal of the game from his account?

I would have thought Steam would logically keep some record as to HOW a game was removed (either voluntary removal or chargeback/refund). If they do, and you can politely ask them to provide official confirmation of this, then he'd have the evidence Amazon wants in order to revoke his ban (they asked for PROOF and he didn't provide PROOF, just more mouth-flapping). And yes, supply Steam with a copy of the Amazon email as proof over the reason for the request - he needs evidence only Steam can supply.

Amazon is still at fault: if their auto-ban system is so simplistic that "product removed = refund = chargeback commerce violation", then it's another example of how their coders don't apply logic to design. As is Steam for not supplying a feature on their site to screenshot the reason for a product/purchase removal.

There's also similar situations out there where publishers with dodgy Early Access games have banned users simply out of pure spite when they repeatedly question the development status of the game, and Steam again will refuse to step in there too. The system sucks, guys. The online multiplayer system got all f*cked up with bots, cheaters, and scammers, and Steam invented a system which they can claim helps the situation but requires no ongoing support for. Win-win!

Not gonna watch the video... how did he "remove" the game without refunding it or contacting Valve? I know of no such option but maybe I'm ignorant.

You can ask in Steam support for a VALVe employee to remove a video game from your Steam library if you do not want it any more, but you can ask Steam support to get that video game back later. If you want that video game back.

By some sheer stupidity I accidentally hit the install button and immediately regretted it (I'm not going via Steam if I ever want to try ARK).

I too "removed" it from my account but didn't see any change in my VAC status (never been banned before either), and I play a few other smaller ones, like Raft. Maybe payed games/DLCs are treated differently. Never tried it. Would be really strange if they added the ban if they didn't like what he was doing, either by hiding the game (yes, you can't exactly "remove" it manually) or what he streamed, though, I wouldn't put it past them. Some mods can be really dicky at times. I have seen mods banning people for almost nothing over there and Steam couldn't care less unless it's some high profile figure, which is quite common unfortunately. (Though, I've also seen plenty of bans that have been fully justified too to balance it.)

Then there's the fact that people have been banned just by using some small benign filters on a game too or by sheer unluckiness. And yes, the 1 year auto-ban is interesting, indeed. "[...] utilised new and highly-effective tactics to target and remove bots from the game." Yeah, I can see that!

No matter, this is why I'm hesitant to support and play the bigger ones on Steam because those mods usually seem to be far more aggressive with their ultra fast bans than on smaller indie games. Companies have learned from CN to use what ever they can as a social credit system. Once getting that low score you're automatically assumed to be a less valued customer / always a "cheater" without proper proof. That and they attract more trollix like flies to month old sweat.

afaik it's not a VAC ban; Lost Ark (the game the guy copped a game ban from) doesn't use VAC, I think it uses EAC.