So, remember… they just ‘switched’ from forced arbitration to going into the courts. Yes it is good, but note ‘Good guy Gabe’ didn’t start this way.
Maybe consider ‘why’ he’s making the change? It’s actually because this forces the money question to the one suing them. It costs them less by doing this. Now I think this is actually good, but don’t blindly fawn over the guy for this.
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.”
Can Zaiger do it to other corpos with forced arbitration?
Only if they, too, were willing to foot the bill for the arbitration fees. Hint: nobody else does that, they want the consumer to pay their own way to reduce filings. That’s what happened with Twitter’s severance filings, they got hit with millions in arbitration fees.
Those bastar… Wait what?
It’s cheaper for Valve this way, and it costs you more to do anything legally. Because, you know, you’ll have to pay legal fees out of your own pocket instead of initiating arbitration on Valve’s dime.
Yay, you won!
It’s still a win thankfully as you say, especially given that for me at least we’d be meeting in a European court.
Though in general I hope I never have to take valve to court, period. Honestly if that happens something REALLY bad must have gone down haha.
Like a steam deck checking its phone while driving and running over my kids or something.
Because, you know, you’ll have to pay legal fees out of your own pocket instead of initiating arbitration on Valve’s dime.
*in Memerica
I appreciate this. That said, I was playing a game on my Steamdeck last night when this popped up over the game, while the game was running. Subsequently I died in the game. Kinda shit.
That is shit, but also just a little funny.
Then again I love Dark Souls so this may just be the ptsd talking.
I had it pop up while I was in the middle of a raid boss in WoW, lol
Wow is on steam?
Most MMOs have a steam launcher, they tend to work better than the native launcher from my experience with them
I don’t believe WoW is on Steam. It’s likely that Steam was just open in the background and popped up over WoW.
Ahh, I didn’t bother to check, I just know that I have MWO, STO, SWTOR, and could play EvE through steam. I figured blizzard would eventually jump on the bandwagon.
Ffxiv also, has both native and steam, which is useful for steamdeck even if you don’t have it for steam. FFXIVLauncher does the login then uses the fully functional steam demo to play.
They might now they’re owned by Microsoft. They’ve been adding games to Steam (perhaps only Overwatch 2 and Diablo 4? so far?).
Steam was running in the background.
It popped up on my secondary monitor and I wasn’t using it, so I didn’t see it all day
Same here, playing Sins of a Solar Empire 2 with a buddy. We both got the popup.
Stellaris for me, at least in those games it’s not instant death, lol.
I did however close the pop-up to go see what it was saying before agreeing to it.
Yeah, I’m all for the move, but don’t be dicks about interrupting.
Still, right choice otherwise.
Time to sue!
Same, popped up while in the middle of Satisfactory
Same, during a boss fight in Elden Ring. I died.
You’d have died either way most likely. Git gud.
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.
Happened to me playing helldivers last night. Luckily I did not die.
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.
Can anyone ELI5 this to me? Arbitration is a big scary word that I don’t understand.
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
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.
Actually explained like you would to a 5yo.
Awesome job.
Based. Steam ftw. Here from louis rossmans video
Good Guy Gabe strikes again.
Louis Rossmann has entered the chat
Holy based alert
Also, take note how they actually tell you, clearly and concisely, what has changed. Most ToS are intentionally made difficult to read to, you know, discourage people from reading them.
also you ought to have balls and be confident you’re doing a good job if you’re providing a link to delete your account along with the changes.
A lot of companies wouldn’t go as far and wouldn’t provide a direct link to account deletion
It made me smile when I saw it this morning.
Same. I initially had the sinking dread then I saw that they actually fixed the arbitration clause and I became quite elated.
I thought it was a phishing attempt
IANAL, what does this mean?
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
Thank you fellow anal lover
Filling fees for an arbitrator may be higher than filing a case in court.
Which is why Valve is making the change. They were potentially paying a lot for these filings.
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
Most disputes most likely fall far below the limit for small claims, where a lawyer is not required, or even allowed in many cases.
Isn’t it often in both parties to settle things out of court? For the one that’d sue it’s usually more money at less cost and the company gets around possibly having a bad precedent set and the bad publicity to potentially losing in court.
This is probably aimed at people creating issues in the hopes of getting a settlement for something that has a slim (but Nonzero) chance to hold up in court.
It’s a company - I think this aims at people only bringing serious claims and reducing the paperwork for them - but since it’s Valve people will glorify everything they do
Usually it’s forced arbitration, you can’t sue
It really favors the company. Steam is explicitly saying no arbitration which levels the playing field.
Arbitration doesn’t save money. You still need lawyers.
What’s bigger is this explicitly says it allows class actions. Something that most prevent and require individual arbitration, consumers are better off when they can pool resources for lawyers against a giant corporation, especially since most would require an upfront payment for a large class action.
Arbitration doesn’t save money. You still need lawyers.
of course - but usually it’s way faster than getting a proper court-ruling - and since lawyers are paid per hour that makes a big difference
I’ve literally never seen any person argue that forced arbitration is a good thing for consumers…
It’s always corporations
That’s because the arbitrators are hired by the company. Unless it’s an egregious situation, who’s going to side against the people signing their paycheck?
Oh, I’m fully aware it sucks, just not sure why that person is defending it
I just saw the Uber case and realized that this in definitely way differently in the US. I was not aware that completely getting around the law was such a common practice. I thought that Disney thing was a rarity
How often are you reading about someone suing and then that lawsuit (which is already in court) being dropped because they got a better offer for an arbitration/settlement out of court? For me that’s a very common thing to read for bigger cases.
But I agree that forced arbitration with not even a chance to take it to court if you don’t like the offer is horrible for the consumer
That’s not what arbitration is. This doesn’t stop valve from reaching a settlement, it stops them from using fake privately funded bench trials
Binding arbitration means the results are legally binding, non-binding arbitration means a judge needs to approve the arbitration results before it’s final. Sometimes it’s with an off duty judge, sometimes anyone can be the arbiter
Regardless, on one side you have a repeat customer, on the other you have someone who will probably never be back - there’s a built in conflict of interest
I’m not a lawyer: Many companies are updating their terms requiring that disputes are settled through arbitration, usually where a 3rd party selected by the company rules on the disagreement.
It’s meant to protect them from excessive lawsuit payments that can happen when you go to court.
Valve went the other way, and is saying that all legal disputes should go to court instead.
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
This is bad, no?
It’s taking away a cheaper option for users to get results for their complaints. Now you have to pay legal fees and go through a court, making it less accessible to the average user.
Calling arbitration a kangaroo court will just insult australians. Compared to arbitration even judge Krivoruchko will be more fair it. And he is Putin’s pocket judge.
Arbitration is overwhelmingly resolved in favor of corporations. The company pays the arbitrator, which means they will generally rule in their favor if they want to continue to be hired. Complainants get a fraction of the amount of money they’d get from a court case from arbitration, and it keeps the public from knowing what the company did. That’s why so many companies are trying to force arbitration clauses on consumers.
It’s speculated that the reason why Steam backed down from their clause in this case is that it was getting too expensive for them. Paying so many individual arbitrators and lawyers was costing them way more than resolving a single class action lawsuit. Hopefully more companies are forced to come to this realization in the future.
Edit: Article about why they may have removed the clause TL;DR Valve doesn’t want to deal with 50,000 separate court cases at one time
Wow. Say what you want about them, but that is some good shit right there. I’ve been getting emails for months from some random fucks telling me about arbitration agreements, and steam releases this. One more reason to love the company.
I was kinda worried when I saw the subject line of the email.
Steam is actually pretty decent, by company standards.
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.
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
Who owns the other 75% ?
Not sure, apparently the 25% figure is really new, Wikipedia is sourcing something from 2017 that says he has 50+.
This is the most up to date I can find that attributes a source
https://www.guru3d.com/story/microsoft-reportedly-readies-billion-bid-to-acquire-valve-steam/
Insights from Dior, a prominent figure in the Counter-Strike community, reveal that Gabe Newell owns less than 25% of Valve. This suggests that a significant portion of Newell’s wealth is tied to his equity in the company. The decision to sell Valve wouldn’t rest solely with Newell; numerous employees who likely hold stock options could also have a say through a voting process if an offer were made.
So it sounds like a lot was given to employees from the beginning, which track with Gabe.
Then he may have cashed out a couple times, but I doubt that when he could just do the billionaire thing where he borrows against his stock counting on the value increasing enough to pay off the last with a new?
But then again Gabe is different and might not do that out of principle.
It’s not publicly traded, so I guess we don’t really know unless Valve discloses who owns what. Which I just realized is pretty concerning on its own.
Well damn that’s going to bite gamers in the ass in the long term.
AFAIK, most of valve’s stock is held by employees, not private investors. It’s usually a pretty hard sell of “make the company you work at shittier to make more money”, especially since most of the employees probably know gabe personally (valve has less than 400 employees) and likely approve of his leadership.
As far as Gabe succession plans go, that’s a great good way to do it. You would need the majority of the employees’s shares to change something radically… That might actually work
It’s usually a pretty hard sell of “make the company you work at shittier to make more money”, especially since most of the employees probably know gabe personally (valve has less than 400 employees) and likely approve of his leadership.
And most of the ones with the high percent have been there since the beginning, probably close to Gabe’s age, looking towards retirement. They make good money, but retirement is expensive.
I mean. That link from this year said Microsoft was thinking 16 billion. 1% of that is 160 million.
Or they may die and their kids see dollar signs when a vote comes up
Steam is great now, it’s not debatable. But its naive to expect it indefinitely. 10 years, 20 years from now? It wouldn’t be surprising if Valve was a lot shittier than it is today
It won’t last forever
yeah, its hard to predict what will happen to it, especially after gabe steps down or dies, but depending on how much of the company is broadly owned by employees vs individuals, it can help to shield it from bad decisions. Unfortunately, we don’t know the exact numbers. If gabe + mike own 51+% then it could potentially lead to overriding employee will in a bad decision for money (either through their actions or through inheritance like you say). Or the employees could just collectively make a bad decision too.
It really feels like we’re peasants, gathered by the fire, gossiping fearfully about the prospect of a succession war
I would expect that Gabe is trying to hedge his bets and make the company more of a co-op, where several key figures in the company as well as himself, own the majority, so that there’s accountability in what everyone decides.
That way if someone’s kid ends up inheriting stock in valve, there’s a way to block them out of major decisions if there’s a need to.
If that’s indeed what’s happening, then it’s a very long-term play by Gabe. He’s looking so fast ahead, so that long after he’s departed the company, the values that make valve great (and successful) will endure.
I kind of did the opposite. I assumed the change would be negligible or in the customer’s benefit based on Valve’s track record. I hope this never changes.
Not just decent, it’s one of the best companies to exist
As I saw in another post:
This is because a lot of individuals tried to start an arbitration process with valve and that got costly for Valve. So now they try to force everyone to do it in a different way.
More info in other posts:
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.
If you push everybody into a class action, it will be cheaper. Have you ever gotten more than a cent on the dollar from a class action settlement(unless you’re the class representative)? Sure the seem like the settlements are a lot of money, but if you can get the class action settled with very few claimants, no one will be able to sue over that particular issue again, so it puts it behind the company. Instead of being dogged by individuals for however long.
If you push everybody into arbitration, you’ve already got the arbitrator in your pocket and your costs will still be less than litigation in 99% of cases - even class action. I don’t think you understand just how long and expensive and unpredictable litigation can actually be, but I’ve brought suit before so I do. It took four and a half years to get an initial court date from first filing the complaint. Not the trial, just a date so the judge could hear the facts of the case and opening statements from attorneys. Four and a half years of paying my attorneys, as a private individual, with a lot less money than you might think. And they were giving me mate’s rates; I’ve worked with companies where the legal work billings were in the tens of thousands per day for a single participating law office. That shit is expensive.
Maybe Valve did this to fuck their customers, but they don’t really have a track record of that, and since in the majority of cases arbitration is without question an anti-consumer move, I’d say that if your aim is to paint Valve to be the villains for this then it’s going to be an uphill battle.
I can tell you that I have arbitration on going, and it’s been well over a year that it has been happening. To assume that the arbitration wraps up in a month, when you’ve got lawyers involved is non-sense. I don’t believe arbitrators are in anyone’s pocket either. The arbitrators aren’t in-house council for Valve, they are a company Valve has contracted with, and they’re going to be neutral, and rule based on law, not who’s paying. As a lot of arbitration rules state that if you take the case to arbitration and lose, the one that is ruled against pays for the cost of the arbitration. Based on the “mate’s rates”, I’m guessing you’re UK based. I don’t know that legal system, so can’t say how fee structures work. But a great deal of lawyers that are suing on behalf of you, in the US, take a percentage of the settlement. So the biggest cost is all to the person being sued, as they do pay the lawyers by the hour instead of a cut of the ruling.
I don’t think Valve is changing their rules to screw customers, I think they’re doing it because they’ve found separating each case into a different arbitration claim is too expensive. And it would have been better for them all to be in one group. I believe Valve is the best game distributor, as it turns out. But if people with law degrees think they’ve broken rules, I’m all for punishing rule-breaking. In this particular scenario, it seems like it might slightly improve things for consumers, and greatly benefit small studios.
If you think that an arbitration company isn’t going to end up sympathetic to the people signing their cheques after some amount of time in operation, I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. Even if the loser pays (and that’s not a guarantee, some companies foot the bill regardless to make it seem like the better option to the consumer), it’s still the company contracting the arbitrators and the consumer doesn’t get a look in on that, so future business is absolutely an incentive to put the thumb on the scale. “After all, both parties agreed to be bound and waive their right to trial, so what are consumers going to do?” is the logic. Most will drop it after losing arbitration, and there are savings on court costs there too.
I don’t assume arbitration wraps up in any arbitrary amount of time (🥁). I say it’s quicker than litigation because it is, every single time. Because it is quicker it is also cheaper, every single time. Small claims court is different again, and not at question here, just to head that off at the pass.
You however do assume a lot like my location and the location of the suit I brought though, based on my vernacular, and I’d recommend against that. “Mate’s rates” could put me in the UK, or Australia, or New Zealand, or even some places in South Africa and other former colonies. None of those would be accurate.
my wife got a few hundred bucks from a feminine hygiene product, unless you count that as “cents on the dollar” meaning a percentage of the final amount - in which case, that’s the case in every settlement.
What I meant by cents on the dollar is usually, they broke rules, make $100 billion from it (imaginary scenario), and then the settlement from that wrong doing sees them pay out $2 billion to the affected customers that joined the class. It may be due to the fact that I’ve not paid attention to too many class action suits, but it seems like the settlement never comes close to the harm they caused.
Accurate. In order for this to stop the punishment needs to be more than the cost of doing business. Thankfully, Valve seem to be hell bent on doing right by their customers, in most cases at least (just to leave room for scandals I haven’t heard about or forgot 😅)
My thought was that a lawsuit is more expensive than arbitration, but settling a class action lawsuit is cheaper than thousands of arbitrations.
Forcing you to shut up or go to court isn’t great either, though.
On the big stuff where they’re liable for a lot of money and you might be able to get a pro bono lawyer, sure.
On the small stuff, though, the prospect of having to pay for a lawyer and likely have your case thrown out by a judge for not being worth the expense and effort of suing a foreign company is probably going to deter a LOT of legitimate claims.
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.
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.
I don’t think it is. If it’s anything like the US court systems I know more about (criminal, juvenile, immigration, main civil court), it’s extremely backlogged already.
And that’s even before considering jurisdiction and how much more a lawyer licensed to practice in at least two countries charges.
Even IF you decided to go through with it in spite of everything, you could easily end up spending thousands of dollars fighting an $80 case and STILL be likely to lose.
I have heard that you don’t need a lawyer in small claims court (in the sense that it’s not really expected). Like I said, though, I know little about it. Maybe someone in a position to know will show up in this thread and fill us all in.
You don’t need a lawyer in small claims. Can also go with a paralegal or just represent yourself.
But that’s not why the small claims is backlogged anyway. I have actually no idea why it’s backlogged. I’ve been a defendant in a small claims court case since 2021 and nothing has progressed except for an arbitration hearing in 2022.
Edit: 2020s, not early 2000s. Fuck, it hasn’t been twenty years yet.
Good point.
What’s the alternative?
Let the user choose. Arbitration is great for small things, not huge damages. Court is better for that.
If companies always try to force arbitration on users I have my doubts about how good it is for us.
Which is why it’s best to let the user choose rather than force one or the other.
The reason why we always hear about companies forcing arbitration is because arbitration is best for them when it comes to the big stuff that the news report on, compared to court.
The reason why we never hear about the opposite is twofold:
-
it doesn’t happen as often and
-
“yamanii didn’t get their refund approved even though they were entitled to according to the rules” isn’t something that makes headlines or even makes it to court.
-
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.as I understand it, arbitration is still available (if both parties agree, I assume), it’s just not a requirement anymore.
Unless the OP is a forgery of some sort, you evidently DON’T understand it.
still seems to me that consumers are getting more options which is usually a good thing.
Nope. They’re switching from one mandatory method which favors companies liable to get into big disputes where a court case is advantageous to the consumer, which isn’t the case with them, to one that favors a company wanting to avoid a lot of issues too small to warrant a lawyer.
It’s not anywhere near as bad for consumers as when a utility company that poisons thousands of people forces everyone to corporate-friendly arbitration procedure (likely with the “neutral” third party much less neutral than the ones Valve used), but it’s certainly not GOOD for Steam users to not be able to complain without lawyering up.
Yeah, you’re right. Sorry. I’ve edited my comment to reflect that. I didn’t read OP’s image but rather the news post by Valve on Steam, but missed the part that said: “the updated SSA now provides that any disputes are to go forward in court instead of arbitration”.
it’s certainly not GOOD for Steam users to not be able to complain without lawyering up.
But doesn’t the change open up for litigation in small claims court? (Again, I’m in no way knowledgeable in US law, so I’m just asking.)
But doesn’t the change open up for litigation in small claims court?
More like mandates it. For those who live in the country to even have ACCESS to it. The vast majority of Steam users don’t (while the US has more users than any other single country, it’s still only ~14m out of 120m) and would also need a lawyer licensed to practice in both countries afaik.
So nah, I don’t suspect that this change will benefit the users in general, rather the opposite…
I have no idea how accurate this info on FindLaw.com is, but according to it, you don’t need a lawyer in small claims court (in the US). And according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_claims_court there are many other countries with similar small claim courts: “Australia, Brazil, Canada, England and Wales, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Greece, New Zealand, Philippines, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa, Nigeria and the United States”. I know the list of countries is not even close to covering a large amount of Steam users, but I suspect that us Europeans are covered in other ways, so there’s that.
The Wikipedia page also mentions the lawyer thing, by the way:
A usual guiding principle in these courts is that individuals ought to be able to conduct their own cases and represent themselves without a lawyer. Rules are relaxed but still apply to some degree. In some jurisdictions, corporations must still be represented by a lawyer in small-claims court.
And I don’t think you need to sue Valve in the US. I think they’re required to have legal representation in the countries in which they operate, which should enable you to sue them “locally” in many cases. Again, not an expert, so I’m making quite a few assumptions here.
