Games

It made me smile when I saw it this morning.

Yeah, but Gabe is down to 25% ownership.

He could be pushed out at anytime. It's this weird situation where if a serious challenger to Steam really takes off, the 75% may demand Steam gets shittier to make more money.

But Gabe won't last forever anyways, who knows what will happen without him. Which means people do want some kind of challenger to prevent a monopoly, but that just makes the other scenario more likely

Steam is already a huge outlier

Not just decent, it's one of the best companies to exist

Steam is actually pretty decent, by company standards.

They aren't doing this because they are decent. It's because they were getting reamed on fees through people choosing the arbitration. I believe it was a law firm basically encouraging people to request arbitration because they would get paid every time a claim was submitted, regardless of the outcome.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/column-mass-arbitration-target-valve-accuses-law-firm-litigation-funder-2023-12-08/

That is shit, but also just a little funny.

Then again I love Dark Souls so this may just be the ptsd talking.

I got mine smack in the middle of a boss fight in Remnant 2 lol, but my build is stupidly tanky enough that I was able alt-tab close it fast enough to not even die. Felt a little proud of that.

Time to sue!

Same, during a boss fight in Elden Ring. I died.

Is that what that was? I got a grey box with no text in it that popped up over Satisfactory and my mouse control went from the POV to moving a cursor. I was building and it was a brief interruption. I got the actual text via email.

I had it pop up while I was in the middle of a raid boss in WoW, lol

It means you love anal.

Sorry, it's Friday and i am silly.

A binding Arbitration would involve the submission of a dispute to a neutral party who hears the case and makes a decision.

Instead of solving the dispute in court before a judge and/or jury.

Filling fees for an arbitrator may be higher than filing a case in court.

Pre-printed consumer contacts with banks, credit card companies, automobile and home dealers usually use this.

Take it with a grain of salt , because also IANAL

arbitration pretty much provides zero benefit to the consumer and all benefit to the organization. a big piece is that if you sign off on an arbitration clause, then there's no such thing as class action lawsuit anymore.

some companies make you sign a handwritten letter through snail mail just to opt out, because they don't want anyone filing a lawsuit, and definitely dont' want a lot of them filing together.

this is another case of corporations saying "this option is best!!" while leaving out the "for us" part

this is why it's a big deal that steam said fuck that noise

Forced Arbitration is when a company puts something in their terms of service that forced the user to go through a process of arbitration as opposed to going to court. It is always rigged towards the company who forces it, because they are the people paying the arbitrators.

If you have a dispute with Valve you have to hire a lawyer to take them to court. No "third party" mediation

If, for example, I want to return a game in accordance with the rules and they won’t let me, I’m not gonna lawyer up and sue them from the other side of the Atlantic.

While supposedly being a lot cheaper than litigation, arbitration isn't free either. Besides, arbitration makes it near-impossible to appeal a decision, and the outcome won't set binding legal precedent. Furthermore, arbitration often comes with a class action waiver. Valve also removed that from the SSA.

I'm far from an expert in law, especially US law, but as I understand it, ~~arbitration is still available (if both parties agree, I assume), it's just not a requirement anymore~~ [edit: nevermind, I didn't understand it]. I'm sure they're making this move because it somehow benefits them, but it still seems to me that consumers are getting more options [edit: they're not] which is usually a good thing.

I think the US small claims court is meant to handle situations like this (although I know little about it). I wonder if it's available to litigants from other countries.

Good point.

What's the alternative?

Arbitration is always cheaper and faster than the courts, because the courts are very backed up especially since the pandemic, and there's a lot of admin cost which doesn't exist in arbitration. That is why almost every other company is trying to force arbitration. So if the goal was to save money, forcing court would have the opposite effect.

Ars technica provided the two key pieces of context here:

"Zaiger targeted Valve and Steam users for its scheme precisely because the arbitration clause in the SSA [Steam Subscriber Agreement] is 'favorable' to Steam users in that Valve agrees to pay the fees and costs associated with arbitration," Valve said.

Valve said that Zaiger's "extortive plan" was to "offer a settlement slightly less than the [arbitration] charge—$2,900 per claim or so—attempting to induce a quick resolution."

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/09/steam-doesnt-want-to-pay-arbitration-fees-tells-gamers-to-sue-instead/

If you and your friend get into a argument over something on the playground, instead of going to a teacher, you both agree to tell your stories to another friend you both agree will be impartial. You then both do what that friend says without involving the teacher.

Instead of Steam forcing any disputes with them to go through an "impartial" 3rd party company they choose and pay for to oversee and rule on disputes, they are saying that disputes must go through the courts.

Basically forced arbitration has always been seen as anti-consumer and unfair because the company is paying for the arbitration and is thus considered more likely to be found in favor of. Steam is doing the opposite and as such this is seen as pro-consumer and a good thing