I have to ask what the purpose of these constant Steam hating threads are? For all the people here who hate Steam, they sure have very intimate knowledge about the platform. If you hate something that is supposed to be part of a leisure activity then just don't use it. But what good will come of bashing Steam here on GoG? No-one from Valve will read it here so why not make these Steam-hate threads over on the Steam forums instead? There Valve might read them and maybe change the things you don't like. Bashing it here on GoG just pollutes the forum by creating a negative environment by dividing people into Steam lovers and Steam haters. Some topics are best to avoid like religion, politics and Steam.

No. Forum and service accounts are separate. Being banned on Steam itself would do that, but that's not something you'd trigger just by calling someone names.

To answer your question, it is my hope that threads like this will highlight the problems with these types of services and so that they will get recterfired.

On your second question, I have stopped buying games from Steam altogether now, unfortunately as shown in that youtube video that other linked. I can't remove my games from Steam. They are forever on Steam making it impossible to return the product and get a refund. Believe me I would if I could.
Being banned means you'll have to create a new forums account to be allowed to post new messenger but no you won't need a new client. If that was the case you could probably sue them or something.

Which goes back to his point of 'What's the point of doing that here?'. It's like preaching to the choir for the most part.

Got me there, I guess I'm too cowardly to face the Stream crowd. I really don't want to.

I love Steam, especially when playing Steamworks-powered games. It's everything I love about consoles; achievements, cloud saving, dead-simple setup process, added to a giant list of features that make PC gaming so great like mods, beautiful visuals, etc.

I still buy games from other companies, though. I go where the deals are. I bought Spec-Ops The Line shortly after it launched from Amazon's download service for only $25 (hell of a game, by the way). I bought Deus Ex: Human Revolution 2 weeks before launch for $30 from Green Man Gaming. Hell, I've even bought a game or two from Uplay, GamersGate and Origin. But it's also a reality that Steam integration is one of the positives I weigh before purchasing anywhere else.

The forums have changed a bit since you were gone. Don't be surprised if you get downrepped for this post ...

(Btw, I completely agree with you)

I don't think calling a volunteer moderator, doing this difficult and time-consuming job simply to help the Steam community for free, a "right arrogant cunt" is the best way to carry a peaceful and responsible conversation.

I got a warning for "censoring myself" too, twice in fact (two different posts in different threads, only given the day after) and when I politely asked why my self-censorship wasn't accepted, the moderator calmly explained to me that they can't fight over whenever a word is being censored enough and what should or shouldn't be censored by the user/the system.

The only way to have a fair (same treatment for everyone) and smooth moderation was letting the system filter the curse words itself, then the user is expected to avoid posting very insulting words (not detected by the system), according to the rules he agreed when creating an account.

Since hundreds (if not thousands) of 10-12 years old kids go on the Steam forum on a daily basis, saying "fuck" "cunt" all day long is not helping these kids learn how to speak without cursing every two sentences and is becoming a problem for the parents trying to teach their kids how they should curse. And many people much prefer to discuss in a place without having to deal with constant offensive words flying around. This is why piracy, porn or insults are not tolerated on Steam forums.

There is plenty of piracy forums, porn forums, unregulated insults-packed forums if you ever feel the need to fully express your freedom of speech. If you think Steam should change its policy on accepting and removing games regarding their quality or compatibility issues, you shouldn't mean it as a direct attack on Steam and shouldn't sneak that inside a criticism of a poorly made game. Be honest and clarify each of your points.
If the moderator's message were anything threatening or truly insulting, contacting the official Steam staff would have got your account unbanned, official private apologies from Steam, and the moderator removed. If you have these informations, you really should publish them (PM if needed). You shouldn't let an abusive moderator on such a huge gaming platform harassing and threatening people, this is a serious issue. Again, this need to be fully disclosed (full posts and related threads). I don't see how simply mentioning an error peacefully would get you banned. I have never saw that - and god only knows how many issues I raised and bugs I reported, regarding Steam and games published on Steam. Same on other companies forums.

I think Internet would be a much easier-to-live place if people stop assuming they were entitled to anything.

Every time I have been in a conflict or facing a serious problem online, I always set aside my pride/ego, I never asked for excuses, and it always worked. And most people appreciated that.

Moderators, on the ~200 forums/websites I have been participating since 2000, regularly removed my threads, censored my posts, deleted my comments. We always worked these problems out.

What you should be looking for is getting your point across, not getting out victorious, not being right about a topic, not being credited for any change or work, not getting apologies, not being recognized for what you are.

Why ?
- This is not your workplace: you don't need to be an alpha male/female at the office to get the raises and stay clear from harassment.
- This is not your home: you don't need to be an alpha male/female to be the master of the house.
- This is not your family: you don't need to teach your kids to obey you and behave well.
- This is not your couple: you don't need to make sure you still have some controls over your relationship.

Why ? You are the only person who would benefit from such things related to your ego, and this is a multi-user networked environment: the common good should prevail. Demanding apologies or acknowledgment is actually selfish and counterproductive in this environment.

Why ? One day you'll die, and none of this will matter. Your friends will die, your family will die, and one day the only thing you will be for the entire humanity is, at best, a picture in a book (paper or virtual).

The only thing that will remain will be the society and the culture you helped shaping through your existence. This is the only thing that should truly matters.

I'll let you in on a little secret: a lot of people who volunteer for such things are power hungry and love feeling superior. I got a temp ban of 3 days for auto censoring, no warning, and a rather arrogant PM from the moderator who activated the ban. He called it "censorship evading" although it was clearly a case of auto censoring - and when I explained the situation, he was even a bigger asshole about it. You can defend them all you want, but a jerk is a jerk to me and Steam forums are filled with power mad moderators. All the rest is besides the point.

a) you sure are a Steam fanboy aren't you? No service should sell broken games, full stop. And in that case, the game was very much broken (it was Alien vs Predator, the original game which was unplayable on release)
b) I appealed to another moderator and explained the situation but just like you, he made a lot of excuses about moderators not being paid and since the moderator deleted the entire topic soon after I got the temp ban I didn't have anything to copy paste.

Let me say that this was the first time Steam made use of DOSBox for its games and most people were expecting the id collection to use different means. The games were gutted from many files including the setup files as I mentioned and DOSBox had been "hacked" to incorporate Steam code + they had removed documentation files that is actually illegal to.

The topic was mostly about how cheaply it had been done - the games were badly setup and due to the lacking setup files, people couldn't do anything about it. They used an outdated DOSBox version as well and the lack of the documentation files topped it off. Let's say no-one was amused and several people had contacted support to get a refund (and were silenced by the mods when they told others who were not happy to do the same).

I then came in and stated that Steam had illegally removed other files except for the setup files and that they would have to add them back in (Qbix had already contacted Steam itself about this). Besides this, I had also noted my disappointed at how badly this collection had been made (do note it cost $45 which isn't nothing for a bunch of old games running on DOSBox - I could have done that myself). I got banned then for provoking people and my posts got deleted. Frankly, they were just covering their asses - all posts pertaining to the illegal removal of files was suspiciously removed. Go on and defend THAT!
On the face of it, Steam is indeed good - if only it wasn't so evil behind the screens. It can have as many features as it wants but when they lock down people's entire accounts because Paypal acts up ... I'm sorry but then you're doing something very wrong.

Which they A) no longer do and B) was legally sound (if over the top). But hey, why bother with facts.

Legally sound maybe, but ethical? My ass. The whole POINT is that they used all kinds of contraptions to make them legally strong while screwing over their customers - anyone who isn't a fanboy or blind can see that. People complain about EA but when thousands upon thousands of people got their entire account locked down because Paypal had issues, it was suspiciously absent from the media. And maybe they did stop doing that but they sure did do it for a long time! So far, Steam has a very very long list of unethical business practices and you can't ignore that. How about a little while ago where you were forced to give away your right for a class A lawsuit in exchange for playing the games you PAID for? Hmm?

Origin took away your games for a forum ban. GOG removed access to your account for two days for no reason at all.

Yeah, I'm not going into this discussion again. You don't like Steam, I get it. And everybody who likes Steam is a blind fanboy.

What motivates people to spend their free time doing the dirty work for a big company like Valve? I'd think Valve could afford hiring professional moderators.

Apples, oranges, and completely besides the point. Point is, you defend Steam for very nefarious business practices - I never defended GOG for them "shutting down" nor for Origin banning accounts so keep that crap to yourself, please. Pointing the fingers at others doesn't change anything - not when most people who love Steam are so eager to point at others yet don't seem to see the dangers of Steam themselves.