Sorry but you're wrong. People do get permanently banned from Steam. Even for stupid reasons such as wanting to buy a game.

To clarify, I know someone who had their Steam account disabled for purchasing a game via VPN. They had their account disabled because they wanted to give the publisher and Valve money for a game!

They managed to get that account back several months later after appealing to a Valve staffer via the forum's private message system. Support would not even listen to them and simply reiterated that the ban was permanent.

And if you keep an eye out on Twitter, etc., you'll see this actually happens a lot more than you'd think.

Not to mention that Valve can simply deny you access to specific games for months at a whim too simply based on your current IP address regardless of where/how in the world you purchased your game.

Do you know if that person tried any legal action? Damages might be hard to get, depending on the legal system, but a cease and desist (or equivalent) against Steam should be within the possibilities.

I'm pretty sure that he'd have to do that in Seattle if he wanted to, Valve is located a few miles from where I live and that's going to be the appropriate venue for any litigation. Suffice it to say our courts are pretty friendly to Valve, MS and Nintendo otherwise they wouldn't have corporate offices here.

As much as I dislike it, it's only slightly less disgusting when customers abuse jurisdiction like that then when corporations do.

Steam's license covers that. By agreeing to the license, people agree that:
1. Steam may them lock out of their accounts whenever it feels like it
2. Their only valid course of action if they are dissatisfied with Steam in any way is to leave Steam
3. If any matter goes to court nevertheless, it has to go to court in the US, specifically in King County in the state of Washington (and is resolved according to the law of this state).

Of course, one could then try to refute the license. But whether that has any chances of success depends pretty much on where you live. In any case Steam's usual reply to such matters is "We are resolving legal matters according to the license you agreed to", and this license grants Steam a carte blanche (which doesn't seem to bother people _until_ they have their accounts locked, but it's a bit late then).

Well, it depends on your legel system of course, but normally the place of legal action is the residence of the consumer.

Last time Valve was sued in Germany, the proceedings took place in Hamburg.



Well, it's a good thing then, that the licence is not (fully) legal in Germany...

Edit: I've I got some free time at work tomorrow I will read the verdicts of the Half Life cases, would be nice to see what Valve had to say for themselves ... ;-).

As far as I know he didn't. After failing with getting anywhere with support for several months, he'd given up completely. I suggested he try PMing Valve staffers to see if one would listen to his case. They did. Eventually.

And from personal experience, I can state that the only way to ever resolve any issue with Valve is through PMing staff members and hoping one will eventually listen to you. Support is useless. Of the 50 odd requests I've submitted to them for support only 1 was ever resolved via the support system. All the others were resolved through PMs.

There's also no point in contacting the BBB with Steam related complaints (especially when it involves a Steamworks title purchased from a different venue) they simply don't understand the issues involved and have zero power to do anything.

In comparison, ever single support request I've submitted to EA (admittedly, a significantly smaller amount over roughly the same period) has been resolved within two or three days via their support channels.

You get odd results when nations are willing to abuse import/export regulations to force payment. I'm not familiar enough with Valve to know where they have offices, but I don't see any reference to offices other than the one near me.

It's not something that nations that are interested in justice allow for as it's way too easily abused. Even locally, my brother and his soon to be ex had to go out of county to file suit against their wedding photographer because that was the appropriate venue. It wasn't that big of a deal as the photographer lived only 2 counties away, but that's how civilized people do it.

Maybe they have outsourced their support (like Amazon has, to India iirc)? I never had any issue with Steam, or EA, or any company for that matter. Well, apart from Amazon, and they were very helpful. The only proplem was that I didn't knew if I should adress my indian support person as Mr. or Mrs. because I never heard that first name in my life... ;-)

And what is the BBB?

Might could be, but German citizens are still supposed to use the US court system if they need redress. Germany doesn't have jurisdiction over Valve. Yes, that's the way that international law works, just because Germany doesn't feel like abiding by it, doesn't mean that it isn't still true.

It's going to be an even bigger problem in the future if countries don't set up new rules for the internet. At this point the traditional rules of jurisdiction still apply.

Better Business Bureau. Probably the closest thing to our Verbraucherzentrale in the US, but with even less power.

No, companies that do business in Europe actually have to abide European law, and can be sued in the country where they (supposedly) broke it. It's still a hassle though. Lately, companies that distribute online media have argued that the contract with the user was signed on an American server under American law, and that the customer's home country has no jurisdiction over it (like when I visit the US, buy a product there, return home with it, and then run into a problem with the seller). I don't think they have been successful with that attempt to circumvent European customer protection (yet), but in any case it isn't a clear-cut case.

The EU doesn't have jurisdiction except under specific cases. It's more than a little galling the degree of hypocrisy that goes on. Unless that business is located on EU soil, there is no jurisdiction by the courts in EU countries to hear the case.

This isn't new, this is how things have been for centuries. It sucks sometimes, but that's how it works. It really undermines any credibility that the EU has in criticizing the US when it engages in this sort of shenanigans.

I as an American, wouldn't lose my rights by selling to a citizen of the EU just because a EU member state thinks so.

Or to put it another way, the EU has no right to collect from foreign nationals residing on foreign soils. Making any victory either Pyrrhic or require a WTO violation to collect on.

We don't have any jurisidiction over the US, as the US has (no longer ;-)) any jurisdiction over us. BUT there should be bilateral agreements in place, by which german courts can enforce US rulings on German citizens and vice versa.

Edit: Holy Crap! There is no general agreement between the US and Germany! F'ckin' legal dark ages ...

Steam's support is all in-house.

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/forums/showthread.php?2249-Banned-from-Battlelog-for-72-Hours-Again-For-the-Exact-Same-Post-As-Before

lol. that's why it is unacceptable for some dude to decide whether you can play games or not.