Ok, this is the last response I'm making, because arguing on the internet is retarded. You don't know me, so you have no idea what my idea of "normal" is; you don't have superpowers, so you can't infer my thoughts from a discussion on Slashdot. I'm not giving up anything. Class action lawsuits against video game companies, in my opinion, only happen because of a false sense of entitlement that so many people seem to have these days. As an individual, you stand to gain very little from a class action suit. The lawyers, oh, they'll clean up, but you'll get nothing in comparison. And you'll have temporarily hurt the company you sued, sure. But in the end, all you did was flick them in the nose and get nothing in return, which is funny because you (as an end user) don't have to do shit in a class action lawsuit. So be happy knowing you follow the pattern of a bully, and that I dislike you for it.

Speaking of fallacy, you just took my words to the other extreme. Class action lawsuits HAVE been hurting Valve, and have been doing so even when they're not in the wrong. If you want to sue them as an individual, go ahead. If you don't want to deal with them, don't use their service. If you are angry because you have invested money into their company by buying games through them and feel that this one issue is too much to bear, I'm sorry you feel that way. I felt that way at first when I read the TOS changes. I was pissed about it for a week - I didn't accept the agreement and didn't play anything on Steam. Then I realized that I'd rather play my games than stay angry over this whole issue.

tl;dr: you still have plenty of remedies, just not the ability to bully them via class action suit. If they do something truly worthy of class action, then I suppose I'll have to eat my words. I'm comfortable with that.

I don't consider a one-time $50 loss the end of the world (and I doubt you do either). You might not sue them for the $50, but I assume you wouldn't give them any more of your money after you got burned once. If they really, truly screwed $50 each out of a million people, they'd likely only get away with it once. I think Valve, at least, has been around long enough to realize that would be a really stupid move. They would get blasted on all the gaming news outlets and would see their revenues drop sharply. That doesn't seem to be in the best interest of the company.

But what have they done to you that's worthy of a lawsuit? Or to anyone else, for that matter? Just because Valve is a corporation doesn't make them "evil". And just because they might slight an individual user doesn't mean they're doing it to their entire (or a large chunk of) their userbase.

While I agree in principle that "holding one's games hostage" was a bad thing, you should listen to Gabe Newell's reasoning behind the TOS change here (fast forward to about 8:15). If you read the TOS, it doesn't talk about not being able to sue them, it's about not being able to start a class action suit against them. As Gabe Newell (briefly) explains in the video, the class action suits they face start out very one-sided in favor of the suing attorney. It costs them a ton of money just to go through the motions for the court, no matter if they're completely in the right or not. That's not exactly fair, regardless of how much money anyone thinks Valve has. As it was put in the video, "it's a shakedown."

You have to wonder if the US ever gets around to actually trying Kim Dotcom, and if he's convicted of any crimes based on the actions of MegaUpload, that there will finally be a precedent in the legal books to go after CEOs and other high-ranking officials of other companies based on the actions of the company and not the individual. I'm not going to hold my breath for that kind of accountability, but it seems like there's a greater-than-zero chance that it could happen.

I don't remember where I first heard it, and I'm pretty sure I'm not saying it correctly, but "Politicians are like litter boxes - they need frequent changing, and for the same reasons." Similar sentiment.

That's almost exactly what the original www.mp3.com was (circa 1998), and it was awesome. It was a very sad day when they were purchased / taken over / whatever and turned into a crap site.

Don't forget the smartphone - that IP might geolocate to the other side of the country! One of my phones resolves to Detroit, MI (close), the other to Kansas, USA (not so close). But I think your idea would probably be sufficient to beat this "study".

Sure you have a choice whether you support government intrusion or not. The penalties might just be a bit harsher if you choose not to. But you always have a choice.

Thanks for saving me the effort of typing that. =) What you wrote, chthon, sounds like the sanest application of version control to the OP's environment. And if another dev gets added to the mix down the road, the version control system will already be in place.

No, but typically you're not in the car when it's stolen, either.

You forgot about that other class of people: "I voted and the retarded majority won again."

It seems to me that running 100m in less than 10 seconds could be a great survival skill - akin to climbing the nearest tree in under 10 seconds - as we haven't always been at the top of the food chain.

My first thought was that I missed the launch of some new "Linux Power" magazine (something akin to Nintendo Power). I didn't quite understand the "Nailing the Cause" part of the headline in that context though. =)