Story from NeoGAF. Awesome if true.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=471349

"Awesome" isn't exactly the term I'd use when a company with zero regard for its customers deigns to implement a minimum of safety, by adding a feature that should be a given in any sensible marketplace from the get-go ... but yeah, it's definitely a (baby-)step in the right direction.

And this is supposed to make things better, how exactly?

Well, obviously this bit of news isn't for people who fundamentally do not like using Steam or who want to finish all of their games and abandon their account.

You can play the games you've bought.

Previously you were completely locked out of everything you'd purchased.

The day that would be written in the EULA along with clear information about the "illusive" sunset patch (and mention that those parts of the EULA won't change any time they feel like it) THAT would be somewhat "awesome", here it's not that much different from what Origin is doing.

It means that if Steam deems you worthy of punishment (which they may still do for reasons they still don't even need to tell anybody, because such basic customer rights get forfeited by signing up), you will not lose all the games you purchased so far. As I said, it _should_ be a given in any sensible marketplace that a service provider can't lock you out of things you bought for reasons that it doesn't even tell anybody, but apparently the gaming market isn't particularly sensible. In any case, if Steam indeed starts to gracefully let customers keep the products they paid good money for, then that _is_ a (however small) improvement.

Definitely not. That's mostly reserved for credit card fraud and actions that could be interpreted as potentially fraudulent. Your account is safe.

No, that's not a reason.

That should not cause any problems whatsoever as far as I am aware.

As for the "new feature" - I am glad to see Steam do something sensible (if not to say "evident").

Whew. Thank you very much.

LOL, for some reason I'm in a "what the hell else is going to go wrong" frame of mind lately. I can't imagine why.

No. Steam is perfectly fine with that; if you don't use their service, you don't cause them any costs either. ;)

It's not exactly clear what causes Steam to disable (or now, apparently, restrict) accounts. There are reports of people who had their accounts disabled because Steam suspected them of trading games across region borders, and there are also reports of people being locked out of their games for being too outspoken in Steam's forums. Proponents and critics of Steam are debating heavily whether these actions were justified (some claim that they didn't even happen), and it's hard to get any solid facts. The problem remains though that Steam _can_ take all your games away from you whenever it pleases them, it's in the terms of service that you agreed to when you signed up. You should really read such stuff. :) However, they are now apparently at least switching to a more customer-friendly practice, which is good (though it would be better if they'd actually write this practice into their terms of service; currently there's not much of safety gained for the customers, since Steam could change their practice back to disabling accounts whenever they want).

That makes no sense. They aren't even linked. Forum accounts are separate and have no link to Steam accounts.

I'm pretty sure this isn't true. Steam forums and Steam service accounts are completely separate. It's EA/Origin who are known to do that.

But you are right, the topic of Steam bans is a very complicated one. I'm not actually aware of any reasonably well documented case of permanent banning that would not be caused by something wrong the user in question did, but there definitely were cases of accounts that were automatically blocked for a relatively long period of time just because PayPal messed up a card transaction or stuff like that. It's good to see Valve taking steps in the right direction; this has always been the most questionable aspect of the service.

EDIT: Damn you, fellow Gabe Defender!