Steam Will Let You Sue Valve Now

Steam just removed its forced arbitration policy, opening the door for lawsuits against its parent company, Valve. From a report: In an update on Thursday, Steam says its subscriber agreement "now provides that any disputes are to go forward in court instead of arbitration." Many companies include a forced arbitration clause in their user agreement, waiving a person's right to a trial in court. Arbitration involves settling a dispute outside a legal system before an impartial third party. This method is often faster but may not get the best results for consumers, as arbitrators don't need to consider the law when issuing a decision.

Lawyers...

[SlashTex]

Sure, if you want to sue them in Washington. Not very cost effective and I suspect the courts there may not be that friendly.

Re:

[UnknowingFool]

Sure, if you want to sue them in Washington. Not very cost effective and I suspect the courts there may not be that friendly.

That's no different than any other company. However, there are ways to move the venue. For example if the plaintiffs are from multiple states, then the lawsuit could be moved to federal court

Lawyers...continues

[SlashTex]

I should add, this is for us US plebes. EU has it better, as usual form a consumer right perspective,

Re:

[Darinbob]

Naw, the timing is just that forced arbitration agreements have been a sore point with customers (nee voters) for a long time, with lots of negative press about them for a few years.

I know some people hate lawyers and would prefer fisticuffs to settle all disputes, but laywers will happily work both sides here - either in court to get money, or be an arbitraitor that always votes in favor of a corporation for money. Personally, I'd rather have a lawyer and the law on my side, rather than arbitration with

Actually surprising

[Kiddo 9000]

In a time where every company is doing anything possible to be above the law, Valve does... the opposite. It's a nice breath of fresh air to see a company do the opposite of enshittification for once. It's a good thing for their customers as well.

Re:Actually surprising

[Ed Tice]

I would love to think they are doing this for altruistic reasons but my guess is that it's more self-interested. Forced arbitration makes it much harder to bring large claims but easier to bring smaller claims. Because arbitration agreements are procedurally unconscionable, many states have laws that ensure arbitration agreements are not substantively unconscionable. In order to comply with the law (and make the agreements enforceable), some arbitration agreements had escalation clauses whereby if the arbiter awarded more than what the company offered to settle, there was an additional payment made to the person who brought the complaint. Also mass arbitration methods seem to have also taken away some of the benefit as forced arbitration had the goal of avoiding class action suits but mass arbitration has similar risks.

But maybe you're right and it's just them wanting to be a moral example.

Also, I'm not a lawyer. This isn't legal advice. And if you are considering taking legal advice from slashdot, I'm also not a mental health professional, but you should see one of those as well.

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[thecombatwombat]

Are the great majority of companies doing the opposite being altruistic then? This case actually is pretty much mutually exclusive.

Couple that with the fact that Valve has a long track record of standing out from their competition by doing what's good for the consumer: they've avoided getting onboard with some Steam+ five tier subscription plan, they have a very moderate, reasonable stance about DRM, the Steam Deck is basically a right to repair, tinkerer's dream. I'm not much of a Valve fan and this is ju

Re:

[thecombatwombat]

Reply to self: the actual story is sort of complicated. Ars has an article with a lot of detail:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-p... [arstechnica.com]

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[Ed Tice]

I am a happy Steam customer and have no gripes with valve. They might be being altruistic. However, the rest of the logic of your post doesn't hold up. When arbitration agreements became all the rage, companies forcing them were definitely not being altruistic. But then the state lawmakers in some places saw the harm that arbitration agreements were causing and starting limiting them. Now, forced arbitration might not be such a one-sided benefit. That will make smart companies reconsider quickly. Dumb

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[Darinbob]

But arbitration means the corporations always win. If you want to win as a consumer, you have to keep escalating and redoing arbitrations, at your own expense, until one side or the other runs out of money. Most of the time the arbitor is not a neutral party. The rest of the time the corporiation sends someone who knows all the nuances and details of the law and who is trained how to baffle and bullshit (normally just juries and judges, but in this case only a single arbitor), whereas the consumer shows

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[tlhIngan]

It's because of the weaponized arbitration agreements.

Lawyers have realized that class actions and lawsuits may be banned, but mass arbitration can be a thing.

And DoorDash was hit with millions of dollars in arbitration fees because 6000 people suddenly decided to arbitrate their case, resulting in a month where they get a $10M bill. They tried to sue to stop it, but the judges basically said "live by the sword, die by the sword" and enforced payment.

So now lawyers have set up shops where they'll gather cas

Re:

[smooth wombat]

It's a nice breath of fresh air to see a company do the opposite of enshittification for once.

They're not doing it to be nice but because it cost them money to go through arbitration. They had to pay arbitration fees [arstechnica.com]. The Verge article doesn't mention this part:

Mandatory arbitration clauses are generally seen as bad for consumers, who are deprived of the ability to seek compensation through individual or class-action lawsuits. But many Steam users were able to easily get money from Valve through arbitration, according to law firms that filed the arbitration cases over allegedly inflated game prices.

Valve used to prefer arbitration because few consumers brought claims and the process kept the company's legal costs low. But in October 2023, Valve sued a law firm in an attempt to stop it from submitting loads of arbitration claims on behalf of gamers.

Valve's suit complained that "unscrupulous lawyers" at law firm Zaiger, LLC presented a plan to a potential funder "to recruit 75,000 clients and threaten Valve with arbitration on behalf of those clients, thus exposing Valve to potentially millions of dollars of arbitration fees alone: 75,000 potential arbitrations times $3,000 in fees per arbitration is two hundred and twenty-five million dollars."

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

"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.

So people had figured out

[rsilvergun]

You can weaponize arbitration. Arbitration agreements require payment for a neutral third party that gets paid for by the business demanding arbitration. So anytime anyone wanted to bankrupt valve they could just get 10,000 of their friends to file arbitration demands.

It's cheaper than just pay off a lawyer during class action lawsuit. It's also much harder than it used to be to file a class action lawsuit due to new laws and changes to existing laws.

"as arbitrators don't need to consider the law"

[dmay34]

Okay. That's not true.
First of all, yes they do. Arbitrators can't just ignore the law.

Second, you can always appeal an arbitrator's decision to the real courts. If the Arbitrators flat ignored the law, like said "Yes, I understand that this act is clearly against the law, but I don't care" then you will probably be granted a real appeal.

Third, if a company does something criminal then they can't force arbitration. Disney can't put out a hit on you and be like "Oh, yeah, sorry you signed up for Disney+ so you'll have to file criminal charges through our arbitration."

Re:

[dmay34]

And also, arbitration is pro-consumer. It's far faster and far easier. If you legitimately have a claim, it'll get settled quicker. Companies don't like it because they will win more, they like it because the lawsuits won't go to class action.

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[Rinnon]

I've seen a lot of people rally against this recent popular shift towards arbitration as the form of dispute resolution in terms of service, and it has struck me from the very beginning as being upset for the sake of being upset (clickbait), and then passing it along. I doubt most of the proponents of this outrage have ever been through an arbitration or a court proceeding, and have any idea why you might prefer one or the other.

pleasantly surprised

[awwshit]

When I logged into my home computer this morning there was a bib popup from Steam about a change in terms. These changes are almost never in my favor and I thought maybe it was time to uninstall Steam. Then I noticed that the change was arbitration out and courts in, great! Finally, a terms change in my favor. Feel like I should buy a lottery ticket today.