Okay, if you want it to see it from this side. Yes, I am honest, nobody knows if there is a market outside of Steam. I only know about myself and of course I hope that people like me constitute a market big enough to be catered even more soon. If not then not.

I just write that I would like numbers (always) and you volley reproaches. Are you allergic to numbers? :)
I completely agree on this one. Before we have to make another iteration, let's say this is the summary of this thread.

Sorry, I did not mean it in a bad way. What I in a roundabout way tried to say, in reply to SimonG, is that it do not matter what you want numbers for, since science is always biased.

Take you example of pi, pi the number is in itself not science, it is a mathematical tool (same has holding a hammer do not make it construction). It is in application of the tools science happens. Different people can apply the same tool in different ways, depending on their outlook of reality. (Not sure if i should go more into it. If interested, look up paradigms, positionality, ontology and epistemology..... yes I am in the middle of a PhD....)

"without reason" and "without a good reason" are two different things.

http://greatemerald.xmpcommunity.com/index.php/articles/general-articles/103-steam-subscriber-agreement-controversy.html

http://consumerist.com/2011/03/valve-disables-steam-account-wont-explain-why.html

http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=192749

http://www.pcgamer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1533

And fifth one for which I have no link but read recently, possibly in RPS, the Russian guy who was gifting Steam games to his friends (possibly this was some issue "bypassing region-based pricing" or something, ie. he gifted games to friends abroad? But then he said Steam first claimed that was not the reason for the ban, but wouldn't elaborate further?), he was first banned from his account, thus all his Steam games, and with no reason given.

When he made it public and noise about it, eventually Valve agreed to re-open his account, but with gifting disabled. If the issue was gifting, why didn't Valve simply do that to begin with, not close the whole account?

Also, if someone has a Paypal issue with one Steam game, how the heck does Valve "customer support" go to close the whole account? Couldn't they simply remove the game where the issue was?

And then Gabe has gall to claim "we wouldn't do anything to harm or irritate our customers...".

I remember this also. If I remember it correctly it turned out he was 'gifting' his 'friends' games, and in return they where 'gifting' him money. After being found out he was happy to get his account back, restricted from gifting, though Valve could have closed it permanently. I'l have look into the others later when I have the time.

All of those share the same: they are anecdotal and lack any actual evidence (commonly presented as screenshots of the e-mail exchange with Steam support).

I'm not saying Steam is infallible, but quite a few of those cases I've seen (actually pretty much all of them) eventually turned out to be not nearly as black and white as the "injured party" presented them. "My friend claims X" is nothing to be trusted blindly.

("My friend claims he tried buying a game from GOG.com and his account was charged USD 1,000 and he never received the game in the first place!")

You didn't provide any proof to your claim that those reported cases would have been somehow wrong, just that you don't want to believe there's any truth to them.

I agree both sides should be heard, but the problem is that Valve decides to be very tight-lipped about those (and other) incidents, already when they refuse to give the exact reason for the ban, and discuss it further with their (former) customer.

When Gabe was asked about some of the cases, his reply was pretty much "I can't comment as I am not fully aware of the case(s), but we would never do anything to harm our customers blaa blaa blaa...".

There's this legal concept called "onus". It's very useful.

And you feel it is quite ok you are robbed from all "your" games due to minor offence to the TOS? As I asked earlier: why didn't Valve simply disable gifting for that person to begin with? Why did they feel they'd need to RETALIATE afterwards to their customer, by taking away all his games from him? It is not like he was pirating the games or breaking into Steam servers to get customers' credit card information.

I find it highly interesting if you feel Valve has every (moral) right to do that. And at the same time, some other Steam proponents here keep claiming that if e.g. Valve was forced to shut down their services, certainly they'd unlock all their games so that their customers could continue using them.

Sorry, but even if that was technically feasible (which it isn't), Valve's track record has shown that they don't feel you have any rights whatsoever to the games you have "purchased" from their service. It is a terminable service, it says that right in the TOS. People, stop acting as if they treated it some other way, the proof is in the pudding.
You claimed those, or similar, reports have turned out to be wrong or "not so black and white". You didn't provide any proof to that either, even a single link. I should just take a Steam fanatics' word for it.

As said, as long as Valve keeps its mouth shut, naturally we have only one side of the story, and until then that's the only we can go with.

Incidentally, I don't think you'll find anyone defending that. Suspending an entire account is clearly wrong, and it would take a very peculiar kind of raving Steam fanboy to say otherwise.
Why are you bringing up an argument attributed to the other side only to disprove it? It's irrelevant to the discussion at hand; no one in the thread has claimed this. I also think it's highly unlikely Steam would do that, but that's neither here nor there.

Anecdotal ("my friend...") and no evidence provided. The anecdotal case is just used to discuss Steam ToS

No evidence provided. (I could write 10 of theses in the next hour.)

These two are of the same case, and it turned out that Valve resolved it in the end.

Will you kindly stop branding me as a fanatic for simply disagreeing with you?

As for not providing proof, no, I didn't, because I can't be bothered. That has nothing to do with this, either. I'm just saying I'm not going to take any post on the internet as gospel truth just because it suits my arguments. I surely don't have to give proof why I think that's a bad idea?

Yes, he was in a direct violation. He was basically selling games without being licensed, I do not call that a 'minor' offence. If I ran Valve, I would not have let him in again.

Guilty until proven innocent?

I am also not saying Steam is perfect, and there probably are cases where they have been in the wrong, but still there is not any proof of this.

hey look that link leads to a link that has a post by Stinging Velvet in it!
/completelyunimportantinfo

Yeah, his handsome face was the first thing I noticed there.